Oda cleared of contempt charge — not

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This article was published 19/03/2011 (5503 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Bev Oda inched closer Friday to becoming the first federal cabinet minister to be cited for contempt of Parliament, despite offering an apology and a detailed explanation of how an internal government memo came to be altered.

The international co-operation minister testified sloppy paperwork in her office led to confusion over a decision to deny funding to a church-based relief organization. She apologized for the confusion and insisted she never intentionally misled Parliament.

But opposition members on a Commons committee considering whether Oda should be found in contempt deemed the minister’s performance too little, too late. They questioned why she didn’t clarify matters three months ago, when the doctored document first came to light. They repeated calls for her resignation and declared their intent to pursue an unprecedented finding of contempt.

“We’ve had to drag her kicking and screaming to this committee and finally we squeeze out a name of who (altered the document),” said Liberal MP John McKay.

“In my judgment, this is further confirmation of the minister’s contempt for Parliament.”

However, the ruling Conservatives may yet derail the opposition-dominated committee’s determination to find Oda in contempt. The committee is to report back to Parliament next Friday with a recommendation on the matter, but opposition MPs said they expect Tory members to filibuster the proceedings. The same committee is also poised to recommend Monday the government be found in contempt for refusing to fully disclose cost estimates for its tough-on-crime agenda, corporate tax cuts and plans to purchase stealth fighter jets. The Tories have been accused of trying to stall those proceedings as well.

Should the Tories manage to delay proceedings, the minority Harper government could avoid any formal contempt citation before an election, which could be triggered over Tuesday’s budget or a Liberal confidence motion on Friday. The Oda affair arose last December after the Canadian International Development Agency turned down a funding application by the relief organization Kairos.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney initially told an Israeli audience the group had been cut off due to its anti-Israel stance — an assertion Kairos said was patently untrue. Oda contradicted Kenney, saying the group simply no longer met the criteria for CIDA’s foreign aid priorities.

But then an internal memo surfaced, signed by Oda and CIDA’s top two officials, indicating the agency had actually recommended Kairos’s application be approved. A handwritten “not” had been inserted to reverse the recommendation.

At a subsequent foreign affairs committee meeting, Oda repeatedly said she didn’t know who had inserted the “not.” Repeated attempts to question Oda about the matter during question period were deflected by other ministers, while Oda remained seated.

Only after Commons Speaker Peter Milliken rebuked her for misleading Parliament did Oda finally apologize and admit she had instructed an aide to alter the document to reflect her decision to overrule CIDA’s recommendation. On Friday, Oda said her initial response to the foreign affairs committee was honest and accurate: She did not know then who specifically had altered the document. The following day, she said, her former chief of staff, Stephanie Machel, told her she was the one who had done the deed.

 

— The Canadian Press