Tagged: Peter MacKay
Text of ambassadors’ letter
The following is the full text of the open letter from 38 former Canadian ambassadors, protesting the Harper government’s attacks on Richard Colvin:
The issues raised by the Richard Colvin affair are profound. Colvin, a Foreign Service Officer dedicated to discharging his responsibilities to the best of his ability under difficult circumstances, was unfairly subjected to personal attacks as a result of his testimony provided in response to a summons from a parliamentary committee.
While criticism of his testimony was perfectly legitimate, aspersions cast on his personal integrity were not.
A fundamental requirement of a Foreign Service Officer is that he or she report on a given situation as observed or understood. It is only in this way that any government can draw conclusions knowledgeably and make its considered decisions, even if at variance with the reports received. The Colvin affair risks creating a climate in which Officers may be more inclined to report what they believe headquarters wants to hear, rather than facts and perceptions deemed unpalatable.
Serge April, Marc Baudouin, Michael D. Bell, Rod Bell, Eric Bergusch, Fred Bild, Marius
Bujold, Robert Collette, Jacques Crête, Brian Davis, Anne Marie Doyle, Paul Durand, James Elliott, Nick Etheridge, Marc Faguy, Robert Fowler, James George, Stan Gooch, John Graham, Nick Hare, Jean-Paul Hubert, Rick Kholer, Gabriel Lessard, Daniel Marchand, Patricia Marsden-Dole, Émile Martel, François Mathys, Carolyn McAskie, John Noble, Gar Pardy, Jacques Roy, Michael Shenstone, Joseph Stanford, Howard Strauss, William Warden, Christopher Westdal, Jack Whittleton, Ron Wilson.
Ambassadors condemn Peter MacKay’s attacks on Colvin
Twenty-three former Canadian ambassadors have condemned the Harper Government’s treatment of diplomat Richard Colvin in a letter released to The Globe and Mail. The ambassadors singled out Peter MacKay, who accused Colvin of accepting the word of “people who throw acid in the faces of schoolchildren.”
“[MacKay] savaged [Colvin] in public, and ridiculed him, and that’s not the way to treat a guy who’s doing his job,” Paul Durand, a former Canadian ambassador to the Organization of American States, to Chile and to Costa Rica, told the Globe. “He is not a whistleblower. He was hauled before a parliamentary committee and had to state the truth.
The Ambassadors wrote:
The Colvin affair risks creating a climate in which officers may be more inclined to report what they believe headquarters wants to hear, rather than facts and perceptions deemed unpalatable,
A fundamental requirement of a foreign service officer is that he or she report on a given situation as observed or understood,” the former heads of mission said. “It is only in this way that any government can draw conclusions knowledgeably and make its considered decisions, even if at variance with the reports received.
The Globe did not print the full text of the ambassadors’ letter, but if someone would like to send it to us, we will post it.
MacKay stoops lower
A Contrarian reader writes:
If only it were true that they were back peddling. In tonight’s news, MacKay is heard sinking to new depths of loathsomeness by accusing Colvin of impugning the integrity of Canadian troops. He obviously hoping Canadians will turn against Colvin if he can be made to look as if he’s attacking the military. How much more cowardly and disgusting can you get than using the military as a red herring to draw attention away from your own behaviour. I’m beginning to feel slimy just being in the same country with this guy.
Contrarian is out of the country, where my ability to follow the torture scandal over the last few days has been fragmentary. If my correspondent’s account of MacKay’s performance today is halfway accurate, it deserves the appellation loathsome. I hope others will call him on it.
As a placemarker, I want to flag another point for later elaboration: As first noted by Kady O’Malley in our raucus panel on CBC’s Power and Politics Friday, many in the mainstream media have done an exceptionally good job covering this story. The bits and pieces I’ve seen yesterday and today (in part thanks to tweets and e-mails from WLR at National Newswatch) has featured a steady stream of new revelations from Canadian Press, the Star, the Globe and Mail, CBC, and others—none of it flattering to the Harper Government’s crude spinslingers. Confirmation yet again that there is no substitute for good old-fashioned reporting.
How Colvin got to Kandahar
Contrarian is relieved to report that whoever kidnapped Stephen Maher and published Saturday’s bizarre column under his byline has released him. His column this morning offers a useful reminder of the circumstances under which Richard Colvin went to Kandahar in the first place.
In January 2005, Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, the political director of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar, was killed in a suicide bombing that wounded three Canadian soldiers.
After Mr. Berry’s death, while the Foreign Affairs Department was struggling to find diplomats to serve in the dangerous and challenging country, Richard Colvin volunteered to go to Kandahar to do Mr. Berry’s job for several months in 2006.
This is the man Peter MacKay portrays as a patsy for Canada’s enemies. Some patsy.
The whole column is worth a read.
Are the Harper forces backpedaling on torture?
The Star’s Tonda McCharles reports that the Conservatives are changing tack in the torture scandal.
“It is our understanding that other current and former DFAIT employees will be testifying before the Parliamentary Committee. Their testimony will provide important context and information about this issue.”
…The comments came hours after Defence Minister Peter MacKay insisted in Halifax Friday that the government’s attacks on Colvin’s credibility weren’t “personal.”
The federal government changed tack late Friday in response to allegations made by Richard Colvin, shifting to a wait-and-see approach and downplaying efforts to discredit the foreign service officer who says he warned Canada was violating its international obligations to avoid handing Afghan detainees over to certain torture.
Jamie Christoff, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs, released a statement cautioning that the full story has not yet been heard, despite Colvin’s bombshell testimony to a parliamentary committee, and the government would willingly participate in the parliamentary inquiry.
“It is important to let the Parliamentary Committee process unfold and to consider and weigh the testimony of subsequent witnesses before drawing any conclusions about how events in Afghanistan may have unfolded in 2006 and 2007,” Christoff said.
If it is the start of a big backdown, not everyone is on message:
Yet again Friday, Transport Minister John Baird said Colvin’s allegations “are nothing short of hearsay, sometimes second- or even third-hand information, or worse yet, information that came directly from the Taliban.”
Colvin’s torture testimony – #1
Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin told the Commons Committee on Afghan Detainees today that virtually all the prisoners Canada turned over to Afghan security forces in 2006 and 2007 were tortured. Colvin says senior Canadian military and civilian ignored his warnings about the abuse, and Red Cross officials who tried to intervene could not get their phone calls returned for three months. Here is:
- The Canadian Press account of Colvin’s testimony.
- A transcript of his opening statement.
- Video of Bob Rae questioning Peter MacKay on the allegations in Question Period.
- Stories from CBC, the Toronto Sun, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail.
If anyone has video of Colvin’s actual testimony, please send me the link.
The Globe and Mail quotes military and foreign affairs sources as saying Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan in 2007 were ordered to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners because the explosive human-rights controversy was seen as ‘detracting from the narrative’ Harper government wanted to promote.
MacKay cheerleads stonewalling of torture inquiry
Hats off to Murray Brewster of Canadian Press for his chilling story on the Harper Government’s determined campaign to prevent a Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry from getting to the bottom of allegations that Canadian troops in Afghanistan abetted torture.
The commission is investigating complaints by Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that Canadian troops knowingly handed over prisoners to torture in Afghan prisons. But federal lawyers invoked a little known national security clause in the Canada Evidence Act to bar a key government witness from testifying. Their fig leaf? They claimed Richard Colvin, who was political director at a Canadian-run base when troops began handing over prisoners, had no relevant testimony to offer.
Colvin’s lawyer said he has both personal knowledge and documents relating “to the risk of torture resulting from the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities.” Lead commission counsel Freya Kristjanson said Colvin has “highly relative, credible and important evidence to provide on the issues.”
Colvin was the only government witness who agreed to speak with commission lawyers, but the Justice Department invoked the gag order before he could do so. They also invoked a classic Catch 22, saying other witnesses might be allowed to testify if the commission could show they have relevant evidence, something commission lawyers will find hard to do since the witnesses, including a retired general, refuse to speak with them.
In the Commons Wednesday, Defense Minister and Central Nova MP Peter MacKay pretended there is no cover-up. He noted that the commission had praised the government for its openness. Kristjanson said MacKay was referring to comments she made last spring in reaction to the promised disclosure by federal lawyers, but they stopped co-operating immediately after she praised them.
The arrest of Anne Calder
The Halifax Chronicle-Herald details the arrest of Anne Calder, a defense lawyer and former Crown prosecutor, on suspicion of smuggling prescription narcotics to a client in the Burnside Jail.
As it happens, contrarian knows Calder slightly. She has always struck us as an idealistic, compassionate, conservative woman. She was also an outspoken admirer of Peter MacKay, with whom she served when they were both Crown prosecutors in Pictou County.
An Amherst native, Calder followed an unconventional career path. She graduated from Dalhousie and Carleton Universities, then worked as an airline flight attendant before earning her law degree at the University of British Columbia. At various times she worked as as a Crown prosecutor, either staff or casual, in Halifax, Truro, Pictou, and New Glasgow. Along the way she spent a few years in New Zealand, and graduated from the one-year, masters in journalism program at King’s in 2006.
An early test for the NDP government
Is Peter MacKay channelling John Buchanan? Is Stephen Harper keen to cultivate a second Danny Williams in Atlantic Canada?
Those are two possible explanations of the Harper Government’s mean-spirited, post-election reversal of its commitment to help fund the $40-million, four-rink arena planned for Bedford.
The Conservative about-face presents an early test for Darrell Dexter’s Government.
Last month, the feds assured HRM officials that the project was on track to receive $15 million in infrastructure funding from Ottawa’s stimulus program. The NDP Government likewise committed $15 million, and HRM was to finance the remainder. Last Friday, Ottawa abruptly informed city hall it no longer considered the project eligible under the infrastructure program. [See: AllNovaScotia.com — subscription only.]
Coming hot on the heels of the Harper Government’s lopsided rejection of paving projects in non-Tory Nova Scotia ridings, the reversal smacks of political punishment. South End Councilor Sue Uteck drew a direct line between the sudden federal disavowal and the June 9 election of and NDP government—including former Conservative cabinet minister Len Goucher’s defeat at the hands of Liberal Kelly Regan. Regan is married to Liberal MP Geough Regan.
Insiders say Dan O’Connor, Dexter’s chief of staff, has taken pains to cultivate a working relationship with MacKay chief of staff John MacDonnell. Whether those efforts are sufficient to give MacKay second thoughts about this latest bit of federal Conservative pettiness may foreshadow the state of Canada-Nova Scotia relations for the duration of the Harper government.
Paving the way for Tories – another view [cont.]
The indefatigable Wallace J. McLean (note correct spelling; mea culpa) has risen to contrarian’s challenge, and defended his view that the MacDonald government’s paving proposals were as politically skewed as the Harper government’s selective approvals thereof.
This time he buttresses his case with a map, using traditional party colors in two shades: darker for ridings in which the government proposed paving; lighter for those where it did not.
Turning this map back into numbers, the Rodney government proposed work in two out of six rural Liberal districts (33%); three out of eight rural NDP districts (38%), and 13 out of 21 rural PC districts. That’s 62% of them.
Contrarian concedes that McLean has demonstrated a provincial Tory skew from which many will impute deliberate bias. But the provincial skew does not approach the 4-to-1 edge the Harper-MacKay Reformers Conservatives bestowed upon their own ridings. In either case, the new NDP administration has a chance to banish this ancient and corrupt system by implementing its promise of a five year paving plan to get the politics out of paving..
