Getting Oda Right

I have avoided writing anything about the Bev Oda scandal because of this unsettling feeling that the opposition criticism was off mark.   Finally I stumbled across Gerald Caplan's assessment and he's right on mark.  This isn't about Oda or her lies.  It's all about Stephen Harper.

...Ms. Oda, like Messrs. Kenney and Clement, is just the organ grinder’s monkey. Any CIDA minister would have been in the same boat. She just follows orders. And it’s those orders in the Kairos case that remind us of the real Harper agenda.

The issue here is the reversal, by Stephen Harper, of a 60-year consensus shared by all previous governments about the central role of civil society in Canada. Every previous government has funded civil society groups and NGOs even when they espoused policies that contradicted the government’s own. Governments might have done so grudgingly and not as generously as some of us hoped. But it has been one of the quiet glories of Canadian democracy that our governments have often backed groups that criticized them or had competing priorities.

No more. With Stephen Harper, you either buy the party line or you get slapped down. That’s what happened to Kairos (now ironically receiving proper recognition for its terrific work over the years – eat your heart out, Jason Kenney). That’s what happened to the Canadian Council For International Co-operation and Match International. That’s what happened, with little media attention, to an astonishing number – in the many, many dozens – of other worthy organizations. (An exact figure will soon be posted by Voices, an important virtual coalition of organizations and individuals formed precisely in reaction to the Harper government’s attacks on civil society organizations. I am an enthusiastic supporter.)

Never mind that, politics aside, most of these groups were also doing crucial humanitarian work. Never mind that Kairos was working with violated women in the Congo. Never mind that many de-funded organizations were promoting maternal and child health, ostensibly Mr. Harper's big personal cause. Yet because they also pursue issues that Stephen Harper will not abide – human rights for Palestinians, women’s equality, climate change – they are anathema in his eyes.

...Mr. Harper's devotion to the Israeli government not only dictates what groups he chooses to fund. It dictates much of his foreign policy. Canadians were shamed in recent weeks by the Prime Minister’s refusal to demand the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, mindlessly mimicking the position of the Israeli government. There they were, standing outside history, that tiny gaggle of governments who failed to embrace one of the liberating moments of our era: Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Algeria, Israel – and Canada.

Caplan is exactly right.   Read the entire article, top to bottom, and then, Liberals, ask yourself why the Harvard schoolboy isn't taking Caplan's fight to Harper?  Maybe then you'll realize just why you've been stuck in that ditch these past years.