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

How a minister of the crown conveys her wishes

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, March 18, 2011 4:08pm - 43 Comments

More on Bev Oda’s appearance at committee this morning in a bit, but the government side has apparently now turned over two documents to demonstrate that ungrammatical editing was not entirely uncommon within her department.

Tags: Bev Oda, CIDA, contempt, KAIROS, privilege

More by Aaron Wherry

madeyoulook

To me, sloppy document handling was never the point. They identified the weaknesses and they've changed their practices for the conveying (and arhiving) of ministerial decisions. Fine.

To me, Oda's apology for playing fast and loose with technically-correct but obviously-misleading answers is the least she could do.

McC_

under the heading of sloppy document handling, I think it's also worth noting that those two documents each sat on her desk for about a quarter before she made her couragous decisions.

Dan

Min. Oda waited over two months to finally decide on the Kairos application as well. In fact she made the decision just days before Kairos' funding agreement lapsed. Maybe she gets her kicks out of letting not for profit groups get their hopes up before cutting them off at the last minute.

john g

Agreed. The thing to remember too is that all of this kerfuffle is about changing a document to prevent government money from being given out, as opposed to changing a document to cause government money to be given out, which would be a different story altogether.

The only story here, other than sloppy document management practices at best, is Oda muddying the waters.

TimesArrow

No. She and a couple of other mps told the HoCs that the deecision to defund had originated with CIDA. That's misleading the house.

LdKitchenersOwn

I'm not sure that makes me feel better about this.

If a document says "sign here if you approve" what exactly is so complicated about not signing there if you don't approve?

I know I don't have as much on my plate as a Minister, but I for one would NEVER sign a document that says "sign here if you approve" if I didn't approve, whether the document was altered by a hand written insertion or not.

David_M.

I have a handy stamp in my office. It says "NOT APPROVED". Maybe one day I could become minister of rejection and clear up all that is wrong in government.
madeyoulook

The problem with never signing is the LIMBO in which the question forever remains. " ( ) Approved / ( ) Rejected " is absolutely the way to go. It's fixed now, they tell us.

LdKitchenersOwn

True, I just don't think that a signature next to "sign here if you approve" with a hand-scrawled, grammatically incorrect "not" or two added in really makes things any clearer than leaving the document unsigned does. With the unsigned document my most concerned reaction would be "Better call the Minister to make sure that she saw this and really doesn't approve". With the documents Oda actually (had) created my most concerned reaction would be "Better call the Minister, it looks like someone has tampered with this document!"

madeyoulook

Absolutely. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that the federal government had been using such a dumb system to track decisions. It wouldn't surprise me that such was the case for decades.

lgarvin

It's not just that the signature is pointless, the entire bureacracy is completely discredited when all of their work, research, diligence and professionalism is just arbitrarily over-ruled by some PMO jacka$$ with a Sharpie.

I can't conceive of the trade-offs these people make. Is there some kind of psychological screening that's done to immediately weed out of the public service anyone with even a scrap of self-respect?

McC_

there is actually, it's the 8-14 months that it takes complete recruitment and hiring processes

Leo

She has been International Co-operation Minister for three years, most don't stay a year and just let CIDA put everything together for them to approve.

Staff have pointed out how picky she is about paperwork and how serious she is about implementing changes. In her testimony she says 760 proposals crossed her desk last year and how she needs a paperwork trail – her signature with the not tells CIDA she has reviewed it and turned it down.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110318/oda…

John D

Try harder
Jenn_

If I was the minister, I'd want something to show I looked at and considered a document, too. I'd buy a stamp that said "not approved" with a signature line below it, then I'd sign that signature line. You know, stamps are really neat, you can make them say anything you want, any way you want. And, they are less than $100.

Or, I'd have CIDA change the documentation such that I could have a "sign here to indicate you do not approve" line. Again, documents can say anything you want, any way you want. And they're even cheaper to change!

EDIT: Missed part of my thought process. She's been the minister for three years. I'd have had the documentation changed by month three.

Leo

Way back in another article on this, it says CIDA has new forms where she can sign in a space as not approving. Things move slow in the civil service.

Jenn_

Yeah, they do, Leo, and that's crap. They move slowly because they are allowed to move slowly. I think she could have simply said, "this form is not acceptable to me, and I therefore won't accept it until it has another line with "sign here to indicate you do not approve". I want the new version on my desk in 24 hours." Then she can take the two months to consider it, just to prove the point that she's the boss.

Colin

It seems bizarre that she is simultaneously persnickety about a proper paper trail but a) does not bother to initial the changes/have them initialed as is standard practice in any comparable situation; and b) is not bothered by the fact that the paper trail this creates is in fact incredibly ambiguous as to exactly who intended what for the funding as well as when decisions and recommendations were made for and/or against.

Leo

Her testimony (CTV link above) speaks to the fact it would appear confusing to someone not familiar with the office routine. I find it bizarre as well but having those two additional documents appears to prove, as lame as it was, that it what they did.

bennji1977

What did the two other documents prove?

Oda is in this mess because she didn't "women" up to her decision in the first place. She got herself into hot water when she said that she was just following a recommendation of CIDA to reject funding.

All of this is because she didn't take responsibility at that moment – she decided to lie about a decision that she had every right to make, and that "some" Canadians would actually agree with.

This is not about her sloppy paper work -this is about the fact that she lied.
lgarvin

The great thing about random insertions of the word `NOT`is that NOT does NOT need a signature, an initial or even a date. There is no way to tell a 2 year old NOT from a 2 day old NOT from a 2 hour old NOT. Who knows how many NOTs are even now in their gestation.

Halo_Override

"Bizarre" is generous, but good point.

John D

I wonder what Hau Sing Tse gets for playing along with this

TimesArrow

?
Halo_Override

"Not" fired.

BGLong

Okay. We've gone through the requisite dog&pony show. Now? Now can
she go ? Now ? Please ?
gar

Bev Oda could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she made an innocent mistake,The Liberal opposition along withe the NDP and the Bloc have an agenda to defeat the government and make it look like it is the only government that required censoring .Chretien with a majority did far more but survived by having a majority.Canadians will not be fooled and I think this will backfire so badly particularly on the Liberals that they will wonder what happened. Layton will gain and Harper will still be in power minority or majority and Iffy will ride south into the sun.

bennji1977

2006: Canada's New Government
2011: Canada's "Just as bad as the last guys" Government

Jenn_

When you put it like that, I don't mind so much that it is no longer "the Government of Canada"

lenny

"Bev Oda could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she made an innocent mistake"

Why don't you tell us how she could do that.

Arturolexo

Why don't you tell us how she couldn't?

Mary B.

I am of the older generation, and am a middle of the road kind of voter who has voted Liberal or Conservative in the past. However, I am particularly ashamed by the behaviour of the Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc with this issue. They should be ashamed of themselves. I just don't know how any decent, intelligent person would want to run for office when such vitriolic, malicious, criticism may be flung in one's face, for such a simple "tempest-in-the-teapot mistake. With a heavy workload, there is always a possibility of missing something. I will definitely be voting CONSERVATIVE if we go into another election this Spring.

Holly Stick

Not credible. Oda is a liar

Jenn_

I can't decide if Mary B. has no clue about what the tempest in a teapot is about, or if she has no clue about what 'accountable' means, or if she's just a complete liar about the kind of voter she is.

But most likely, it's Dennis F or someone pretending to be a normal person. Badly.

Holly Stick

Yes, I never trust these conversion stories. The AGW deniers pull the same crap, and it is not convincing. 'I used to be intelligent and well-balanced and then after much study I decided to become a paranoid stupid conspiracy nut': kind of thing.

Jenn_

Lol.

gar

Watching Bev Oda in front of the commons committee reminded me of something out of the third Reich.The Bloc a party that has only one intention to break up our country acting like Gestapo interrogators,These gutless wonders who want to destroy our country. Pat martin of the NDP the biggest phony hypocrite in parliament.The big tough guy the guy who shoots from the lip.the total phony who has always got the protection of parliament before he shoots his mouth off.As one who once lived in Manitoba what ever happened to decorum.The phony who can only stand tough against women or revert to the big phony he is at all times,He is as crazy as the bed bugs he wants to eliminate.The a..hole of all times.

Arturolexo

Liberals are scum, BQ are scum.

danR

.
What is this? Ungrammatical?

PMO throwing her under the William Safire bus?
.
danR

.
The Glorious Republic of the Free Democratic Government of Harper finds Oda ungrammatical.
.
Norman_OustonBC

All you opposition people will be scowling after the next election when the Conservatives wipe their feet on you doormats.

You think you are so smug, rallying behind the idiot Pat Martin don't you. Making an issue out of a word on a non-parliamental paper. Because your favored Kairos didn't get its slurp at the public trough.

Defend your friends in the Bloc all you want when their main goal is to break Canada into pieces, we will still win and it will most likely be a majority.

So bring it on at your own peril.
FVerhoeven

Yesterday afternoon, I overheard U of Lethbridge professor explain on CBC E'ton, that at first instance Bev Oda had said she did not know HOW the not was inserted.

Yet. today on the G&M pages I read "But, during a committee appearance in December, she said she did not know WHO put the word on the document. "

So, I was thinking: which is it professor from Lethbridge? Was it the how or the who question which Bov Oda tried to address way back in December?

Such oversights by commentators may not seem to make much of a difference, but they do. Because the Lethbridge professor was saying that the HOW had not been answered, he could thereby continue by saying that Bev Oda had always known HOW the not had been inserted, namely by means of an assistent and by the automatic pen for signing.

But if the question of WHO is inserted by the professor, then suddenly his accusations don't hold water.

So yes, public commentators have to be very carefull when assessing situations. The difference between beginning with an assumption of how or who can be huge……….
Oda Adone

So, out of a field of nearly 800 memos that cross her desk a year to sign, if these two putative cases are the only evidence they could come up with for that rather implausible claim after all this time, then:

given that these two other funding rec. memos are both ^NOT-ted and finalized in early March, 2010 — over three months AFTER the Kairos episode of Nov. 30, 2009 — and are thus quite beside the point as to whether that was a common practice in that particular Ministry (even if highly irregular in any other office and especially government or funding office) up to that point…

well, I'd have to say that not only is that claim even more implausible than ever, but it also looks like she's trying to mislead the House / Committee yet again by providing these after the fact cases as if they established some sort of previously established practice.