Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

As to the situation of Richard Fadden

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 5:25pm - 0 Comments

After an announcement in Waterloo this afternoon, the Prime Minister managed to get through a brief session with reporters without a single question about the director of our national spy agency. Nonetheless, I had previously filed a couple questions, via e-mail, with the Prime Minister’s Office:

1. “Does the Prime Minister feel that Richard Fadden has violated the CSIS Act?”
2. “Does the Prime Minister still have confidence in Richard Fadden as the director of CSIS?”

And now, some responses.

1. “That’s not a determination for our office to make.”
2. “Mr. Fadden remains the Director of CSIS.”

Tags: csis, CSIS Act, prime minister, prime minister's office, Richard Fadden, Stephen Harper

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Lord Kitchener's Own

Wow.

Fair enough on the first response, but on the second? That's gotta sting.

http://intensedebate.com/people/ChrisWPG ChrisWPG

why?

Lord Kitchener's Own

Well, if you were flying from Toronto to Vancouver, and while over Winnipeg you asked your pilot "Do you have confidence that the plane will be able to stay safely in the air until we get to Vancouver?" and the pilot replied "The plane is currently in the air", how would that response make you feel?

http://intensedebate.com/people/ChrisWPG ChrisWPG

I had just chalked it up to Dimitri not being able to string together compound sentences or answer direct questions.

http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

I'm sure that Dimitri is capable of answering direct questions, he's just not paid to do that.
http://intensedebate.com/people/ChrisWPG ChrisWPG

Do you actually have any evidence to back up that claim?
http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

I assume you are referring to the first part of my claim rather than the second part….nope.

I'm just confident that Dimitri is a smart enough fellow (ie that Harper doesn't make it a habit of hiring total imbeciles for that job) and that as such, if forced by threat of death or something similar, he has the mental ability to string together the words that would constitue a direct answer.
Lord Kitchener's Own

I'm just confident that Dimitri is a smart enough fellow (ie that Harper doesn't make it a habit of hiring total imbeciles for that job)

Wait a sec… you lost me there…
http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

Yeah, that was kinda klugey, wasn't it…….just remove the parenthesized section and read on!
Lord Kitchener's Own

Dmitri's been sighted!?!? I thought he was still hiding from the bailiff.

http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

That would make me think "Good thing Gimli is not too far from here."

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Yeah, but do they still have go-karts messing up the runway?
http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

The schedule looks pretty thin this year…
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Thanks for the link. You've gotta love that web page's text, which includes:

As a multi-use motor sports complex there is always something happening.

and:

Event Listing — Records 0 to 0 of 0

I guess there may be room to land a gliding fuel-less passenger jet after all…
http://intensedebate.com/people/PhilCP Phil

So it seems….and perusing the photos it also appears that the guard rail that runs down the middle of a section of the old runway should still be available for added braking.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

That's odd. I thought that guard rail was for added breaking. Huh. Learned something today.

http://intensedebate.com/people/straittohell straittohell

Not even fair enough on the first response. It's "not a determination for our office to make"? They are the PMO! Practically everything is their determination to make! Did they just forget the last four years?

Lord Kitchener's Own

I give them a pass on that one. Hell, I'm glad to see an acknowledgment from the PMO that they're not the arbiters of whether or not someone has broken Canadian law. There are times when they act as though those sorts of determinations ARE for their office to make.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

…how would that response make you feel?

…like I were being piloted by Stephen Harper. [badda bing!]

Now quit hogging that parachute, Lord Kitch.
Jack from Hamilton

These revelations of foreign influence on Canadian lawmakers cannot be taken lightly. It might help explain why dangerous open immigration policies remain in place year after year against the wishes and interests of the Canadian people. How many politicians, government officials, journalists, union leaders and others could be on the take from foreign regimes (e.g. China, Saudi Arabia) or foreign non-state actors (e.g. al-Qaeda) who have an interest in keeping immigration as wide open as possible. Immigration has not been of any economic benefit since to Canadians since the early 1990s, is leading to massive urban sprawl, is exposing us to terrorism and providing all kinds of would-be conquerors with useful potential 5th columns. Its time that Canadians started demanding answers as to who is paying to stifle honest debate on immigration and who is financing propaganda in favour of immigration and its equally destructive twin, multiculturalism.

brooster

"Immigration has not been of any economic benefit since to Canadians since the early 1990s"…according to whom??
http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

What can I say…
you don't know
Jack
Naught White

Delighted you waved keeping your mouth shut allowing the world speculate you were a fool and suddenly you open it and remove all doubt. Anyone with a cheap sea of oil is evidently a TERORORORIST . Yikes Mr. Cromwell, were they Catholics?
Mike T.

SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE RICHARD FADDEN??!!!

bob

I wonder whether influence from the foreign country just to the south
is being considered. I see otherwise unexplainable statements, actions and events that seem to be made in the USA occuring almost daily. They seem to be in our foreign policy, our policing, our military, our laws, our public communicatons. Can't help the feeling that there's
a lot of pressure from a neighbouring giant.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

Can't help the feeling that there's a lot of pressure from a neighbouring giant.

Yeah, but that's natural and healthy, Bob—unlike the pressure coming from Commie asians and medieval Eh-reebs…

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/phantomobserver PhantomObserver

Meaning: Fadden's remarks haven't been dumb enough or ingenuous enough for Harper to consider asking for his head. Which doesn't mean Fadden won't say anything in the future that triggers an instant demand for the noggin.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

Astute Harper watchers will know that he will refuse to be seen bringing down Fadden under duress. Frankly it would be best for us all to look away for 3 weeks, and I am fairly certain the job will be done.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Best point on the thread. Fadden may be in the process of being Guergised.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

Given his current position, perhaps he will exit undercover as a leggy blonde. (It would certainly help liven up the made-for-TV movie when it comes out.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Is that response more, equally, or less ominous than a general manager's public "vote of confidence" in the team's coach?

My guess: more.
Lord Kitchener's Own

What's going to be really hilarious is a month from now when Harper calls a press conference to announce that he's firing Fadden, and what's more, that he's passed on serious allegations of wrongdoing against Fadden to the appropriate authorities.

But he'll never tell us what those allegations were…

Mike T.

…he will have been forbidden to reveal the information by his foreign masters and their undue influence, the same masters who demanded he fire Fadden because he was TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH11

http://intensedebate.com/people/hollinm hollinm

You got the answer to your question. Why all the bi.ching?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

What's the "bi ching"? An ancient Chinese fortune-telling system designed specifically for the sexually ambidextrous?

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Wow. Unneeded visual award two days straight…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

Oh, I don't know. The mental image of Michael Stipe and Anne Heche casting each other's trigrams and hexagrams is rather fetching, I think…

Barney Bergen

In surveying a number of interviews and articles on this matter, I'm deeply saddened at how quick and ruthless Canadians to attack their guardians. Mr. Fadden has consistently dedicated himself to the protection of Canadian interests and with one ambiguous comment we would shame the man in such a scathing way? We don't need foreign influence here…despite the current world climate – many Canadians seem to effectively subvert our national interests well enough on their own…