The ignominy of being caught with a cancer stick dangling from her lip had to be a cruel cut for someone already accused of forging a government document, lying to a House of Commons committee, being in contempt of Parliament, etc. etc. My inclination is to think Bev Oda would like to resign from Cabinet and escape the media spotlight which has been trained on her. I'm certain the prime minister is blocking her from doing so as he desperately attempts to drag this scandal out until Friday when the House of Commons will adjourn for its mid-February constituency-week break. The Dear Leader would probably prefer to prorogue Parliament and bury the issue as he did with the Afghanistan inquiry, but that might be a bit much even for this PM.
Much as the PM wants to change the subject of discussion he cannot avoid the fact that Oda has admitted to misleading MPs by lying about a recommendation from the Canadian International Development Agency and that Oda has admitted to forging an official document. Whether time will permit her to be found in contempt of Parliament is moot. She has disgraced herself, the government and all MPs by her actions. The honourable thing to do, and one she might want to consider if she hopes to be re-elected in Durham is to publicly stand-down, ignoring whether or NOT the PM wants to accept her resignation. Does she think the voters of Durham as so committed to the Conservatives they don't mind being represented by a fraudster and a liar? Does she think she can survive this locally?
To be clear, the PM is absolutely correct that a minister has the right, within certain legal limits1 , to accept or reject the advice of government officials and to base that decision on political considerations. What a minister does not have a right to do is to alter official documents in an attempt to make it appear officials and political policy are aligned. It's misrepresentation; it's deceit, it's dishonourable.
It could have been so simple. The government did not want to continue funding Kairos, as recommended by CIDA, because, as Jason Kenney has confirmed the Christian-church sponsored agency has offended Israel. All that Oda needed to do was write "not approved" on the document. That is the way it is done and that would have been the end of it, save for the political dissent that would have faded away quickly.
Instead, as the PM is wont to do, he has turned a small problem into a huge one because he and the PMO can't tolerate that the public service may not be completely submissive to their right-wing agenda. Now he's trying to explain-away lying and fraud rather than the merits of a funding decision. It's not an easy thing to do. Canadians are not that accepting. There is a limit to their tolerance.
- Tony Clement seems oblivious to those limits and has been called for it by the Federal Court of Canada.↩
