Rights and Democracy: the Board replies. "It's not about the Middle East"

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 12:15 PM - 177 Comments

The seven members of the Rights and Democracy board who support Chairman Aurel Braun are back in the pages of the National Post today, with a concerted effort to explain their side of the current dispute. This is the first time they have submitted such a piece of writing since Jan. 20, and anything from this majority faction of the board deserves the attention of readers who have been following this story closely. In part, the Braun faction’s op-ed stands as a sort of answer to the questions I put to Braun and Jacques Gauthier earlier this month. Since Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon’s actions yesterday amount to a wholehearted endorsement by the Government of Canada of everything Braun and the board have done in recent months, that’s all the more reason to consider carefully the board majority’s arguments.

So once again, here is a link to the full op-ed, which I encourage you to read. Here are a few key paragraphs:

First some facts, which seem to have eluded critics of the Rights & Democracy board. Every Canadian member of the board was appointed by the current government, including those who are vociferously supporting the late former president, Rémy M. Beauregard, and who are openly hostile to the rest of the board. The government appointed Mr. Beauregard as well. Most members of the board have no prior political affiliation; a recently appointed board member is a well-known Liberal. Clearly, the board wasn’t “stacked.” The only discernible pattern is that board members were appointed to bring governance to Rights & Democracy. There is no imposition of a right-wing agenda, no interference in autonomy.

Accountability and transparency are the true issues. A December 2007 report by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Office of the Inspector‑General discovered “persistent … accountability … problems” with Rights & Democracy, which regrettably remain. Whether it was the finance and audit committee requesting timely and adequate information; members seeking proper clarification of the operations of the Geneva office; explanations about a $100,000 expenditure which raised questions; or information about how $300,000 a year in discretionary funds was spent, we on the board have been stymied.

…The former president’s death was a gateway to surreality. Conflict entrepreneurs in the Canadian and Middle East political trenches could not resist interfering. Instead of determining how to resolve a real battle between those supportive of accountability and those who opposed it, Canadians have ended up debating the imaginary impact of the government’s Middle East agenda on Rights & Democracy.

Those of us responsible for the governance of the organization do not have the luxury of fighting national or Middle Eastern fantasy battles. Ensuring accountability and transparency is far less exciting than debating Canadian and Middle East politics. Yet, that is our task….

I’ll respond to these arguments tomorrow.

Rights and Democracy: Where to begin, where to begin

By Paul Wells - Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 4:24 PM - 194 Comments

David Matas’ letter, posted in its entirety below, gives such free play to misdirection, tautology and double-standard that one hardly knows where to begin picking it apart. But let’s start at the heart of his argument, which is that since the staff of the organization had “no dispute over policy” with the board, the staff has no right to disagree with the board over anything. Continue…

Rights and Democracy: Everybody had a busy weekend

By Paul Wells - Monday, January 25, 2010 at 4:35 PM - 122 Comments

On Saturday friends and associates gathered for the Ottawa funeral of Rémy Beauregard, who was the president of Rights and Democracy, whose internal conflict I chronicled here. Already word was spreading among them that the organization’s board had met on Friday to choose a new interim replacement for Beauregard. The board chose Jacques Gauthier, who already serves as the board’s vice-chairman.

Careful observers of this story will recognize Gauthier as one of three board members, with chairman Aurel Braun and Elliot Tepper, whose resignation or replacement has been demanded by the centre’s staff in the wake of Beauregard’s death. That’s right: All 47 staffers (a figure Braun and his board allies dispute) call for these three to be removed from the board, and instead one of them becomes their boss. (Here’s Gauthier’s impressive bio.) (UPDATE: Turns out he published a doctoral thesis two years ago arguing that “Jerusalem belongs to the Jews by international law.”)

So we have the ingredients of a stand-off. If the staff wants Gauthier gone and he becomes their boss, and they meant what they said in that letter, then I don’t see a lot of different ways they can respond. Either the departure of Braun, Gauthier and Tepper was a condition of the employees’ continued service at Rights and Democracy, or they were bluffing and the new board faction has now called their bluff. (I am now hearing that at least one staff member has already handed in a resignation; I will try to get more information soon. UPDATE: I’m told this resignation predates Gauthier’s appointment. I apologize for the confusion.)

Meanwhile, David Matas has written an analysis of all this. He’s a Rights and Democracy board member too, and has been an ally of Braun’s, though he is not one of the ones the staff wants to see gone. Matas is the executive legal counsel for B’Nai Brith Canada. Since I stuck my nose into this mess, I’ve also heard Matas referred to, here and there, as a “Liberal” or a “two-time Liberal candidate.” I’ve only just learned he ran for the Liberals during the federal elections of… 1979 and 1980. By some definitions, that does indeed make him a Liberal. (UPPERDATE: A reader is concerned that I omit to mention Matas’s previous term on the Rights and Democracy board, when Jean Chrétien was prime minister. So now I’m not omitting it.)

Anyway, in a thoughtful analysis of events that took place before he rejoined the board, Matas takes issue with a staff allegation I repeat in my own column, which is that a small group on the board, led by Braun, had sent an evaluation of Beauregard to the Privy Council Office in Ottawa without letting Beauregard see it. Matas writes: Continue…