Some ponderings on Bev Oda’s “retirement”

I’ve been wondering about a few things the last week or so.

The Bev Oda affair for one, it just doesn’t seem to add up for me.

Bear with me a bit here.  I’m no fan of Bev Oda and her champagne lifestyle, but her sudden departure makes me wonder what is going on behind the curtain.

I don’t think that her antics were that much of a problem for Stephen Harper, I think he used the distraction caused by her gaffes to allow other things to slide by more easily.

We are a fickle bunch, and when we all start grabbing our torches and pitchforks to chase Bev or Peter around Steve does mostly nothing.  A few of his designated fire control people stand up and try to deflect and dilute the charges, but all in all they do nothing.

Except for two events in my memory…  Helena Geurgis was fired right out of the party and Bev Oda stepping down and quitting politics.

The thing is, we don’t know most of the facts.  We might see some of them come to light for Helena in her lawsuit against Harper, but the real stuff will stay buried.  It just seems odd that she was defended on and on and then apparently the rope snapped.  Was it because her hubby, a former rising star in the Harper Team was deemed an idiot?  We may never know.

Now Bev Oda stepping down is a lot less messy for Harper but I don’t know if he gave her an ultimatum or not.

There have been a few times, like when Max Bernier left the NATO files marked “secret” at his girlfriend’s house, but other than a quick shuffle there was nothing.  Sure Max lost his Ministerial Post, but he’s back and all is forgiven.  So what happened with Bev?

Elizabeth May wrote an article about Bev Oda’s departure [Read it here: http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/7/2012-07-04/bev-oda-deserves-defence ] .  I enjoyed her view on this event.  It made me think.

Ms. May wondered why the $16 OJ stuck but the $20 Million on Harper’s security slides off.  I figure that it is simply because we Canadians can identify with the price of the orange juice.  We buy orange juice, we see the price in the store, and we can identify with that.  A Million Dollars or Twenty Million, we just cannot wrap our heads around amounts like that.  They’re just words.

But still it just doesn’t add up for me.  Others have done worse but had no real penalty imposed on them, but now Bev is stepping down and walking away.

This leaves me wondering why Bev Oda is leaving.

I seriously don’t think that she has done anything so horrid that Stephen Harper demanded her resignation.  Like I said, others have done worse and not been touched.  Add to that the fact that she caused a stir which distracted all of us from time to time and moved the spot light away from Lord Stephen which he used to his advantage.

Let’s face it, the (Not) fiasco was far worse than this.  Bev Oda was found to be in contempt of the House in that case.  Yet Bev was re-elected and given Ministerial duty again (Thanks Steve).

I hear rumblings that Bev was micromanaging CIDA.  That Bev was the highest paid manager in the department, but the micromanaging was felt to be coming from the PMO.  Lord Stephen was supposedly behind the meddling, possibly because of the (Not) affair.  Bev had a management background, she would likely know to get the best people available for a job and then let them do it.  That is what effective bosses do.

So maybe Bev got fed up.  Maybe she decided that she’s had enough abuse from the public and from the PMO and decided that it would be so nice to just walk away… and did.

The other option I’ve wondered about is whether or not the back benchers had something to do with this.

There have been a few MPs speaking out in public about their constituents’ anger about Ministerial excess.  They were scared that this could affect their re-election chances and they were not going to have that.  How loud would the noise in the caucus have to be to get Lord Stephen to back down to his back benchers?

Maybe Harper just asked for the keys to the executive washroom back, maybe Bev saw which way the wind was blowing and walked?

In any case, this does not have the earmarks of a Stephen Harper move.  Harper only plays when he holds the cards and he is a master of getting the upper hand and holding it. We’ve seen this in the past when he turned the tables on the Opposition “Coalition” and dictated the election from the moment the writ was dropped.

 In this case, he seems to have been caught off guard, with no one groomed to step in at CIDA, so he tosses Fantino in who is by no means a star player but he does know how to follow a script.

Stephen Harper would not have let Bev Oda walk out unless he had someone in the offing for her Cabinet Post and for her Riding, and he appears to have neither.  No it appears that things are happening behind the curtain that Lord Stephen cannot control, and I’ll bet some chairs getting kicked because of it.

What’s your take on this?

Dear Stephen: Bev Oda is not fit to be a Minister

Interesting tidbits from Tuesday’s Winnipeg Free Press

Apparently the ability to cut and paste is important to the Stephen Harper Party, however the ability to proofread is sorely lacking…

//"Our government treats taxpayers' money with the upmost (sic) respect and we require that travel on government business be done at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers," Ritz's spokeswoman, Meagan Murdoch, wrote in an email.//

//"Our government treats taxpayers' money with the upmost (sic) respect and we require that travel on government business be done at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers."// Flaherty’s spokeswoman, Mary Ann Dewey-Plante

Even down to the typo.

Same words they used in the House of Commons while defending Bev Oda as well.

You remember Bev not Oda, the Minister who signs has her underlings use “the arm” to sign documents and then toss a not in there when they realize they shouldn’t have signed it after all?  She was found prima facie to be in contempt of Parliament over the lies she used to cover her indiscretion. 

Well Bev was in London England last year and decided the 5 star hotel she was to stay at wasn’t to her taste.  So she upgraded to the Savoy.  Word has it she could get a smoking suite there.

Oh, she needed chauffer driven limousine to get back and forth to the conference she was to attend.  Oddly enough, the meetings were at the hotel where she was originally booked to stay.  I don’t know if she could smoke in the limo.

The room cost us (you and me) about $2300.00 for a 3 day visit.  $665 per night for the Savoy, $287 for the last minute cancellation at the Grange St. Paul’s, and $16 for an OJ at the Savoy. 

Now Bev says she is really sorry and paid back the difference this week, $1353.81 which included the orange juice but not the chauffeur driven limousine.  The car and driver cost us about $3000.00.

Oddly this was shortly after the press found out what she had done.

So Bev, are you sorry you spent taxpayer money recklessly or just that you got caught? 

I’d bet on the latter.

In the real world, if you go to a business meeting and the boss puts you up, if you don’t like the place you can upgrade.  But when the bills come in, you square up then, not eight months later when you get caught.

This apparently is not done in Ottawa under the Stephen Harper Party.  Apparently under Stephen Harper, no one even bothers to look at the bills when they come in.

This is not the first time that Bev Oda has tried to live a champagne lifestyle on the taxpayer’s dime and it has to stop. 

Bev Oda is not fit to be a Minister and Stephen Harper needs to demand her resignation.

The saddest part of this is the fact that the conference she was attending was for donors to an organization that helps fund immunizations for children in the developing world.  Places where people live on $1.00 a day or less.

$4300.00 is almost 12 years income to someone in a developing country.

The Transparent Credibility Gap

When I was younger, one of my preferred reading materials was “Mad Magazine”, a glorious combination of humour and satire.

One thing sticks in my mind from those days, from those magazines… Why is it when your child tells a fib it’s called lying, but when the President does it, it’s called a “credibility gap”? (I’m running off memory here, forgive me if I messed that up.)

The reason it popped into my head again, is the ongoing nonsense from Ottawa. Why does it seem that it is impossible for any member of the Stephen Harper Party (SHP) to fess up when they make a mistake or if they screw up?

The standard operating procedure for the SHP seems to be lie about it create a credibility gap.

A while ago, Bev Oda signed a document she (according to the SHP) shouldn’t have signed recommending funding for a group. So rather than just step up and say “I did it by mistake”, she fudged. Someone using “the arm”, the auto signer for important people, signed it for her. In the recommendation someone stuck in a caret and the word “not”, except the two bureaucrats that signed it were in fact sending a recommendation to pay, so an unknown staffer stuck the ^not in on their own accord then later on Bev Oda’s say so.

She got a promotion instead of a kick in the pants.

Tony Clement and the G8/G20 spending fiasco. The tapes say one thing and Hansard says another. Someone changed something, no one’s saying who.

Peter MacKay and his rescue “training mission”. Now we get the emails that the military was hesitant about picking him up and developed the cover story about how MacKay wanted to see them in action. Here’s a thought, in the real world, where we don’t get free helicopter rides, we plan our vacations to not interfere with our work.

Now we have the Stephen Harper talking heads pop up and say “It was OK, it was business”. No. He knew full well that he had an appointment and could have arranged to leave his buddy’s fishing lodge two hours earlier, but instead he misappropriated a military helicopter and then has the gall to lie about it create yet another SHP credibility gap.

Supposedly, when we have elections, we are choosing from among our best people to choose the very best to represent us in the House of Commons. It ain’t happening kids… adults suck it up when they screw up, the SHP crew cover up and fib.

You see where I come from, a person’s word is their bond. If I tell you I will do something, I will do it. If I screw up, it is my responsibility to admit it.

Now if my memory isn’t too far off, Stephen Harper said there would be transparency and accountability on his watch. Ministers would answer for their decisions.

I also recall Stephen Harper saying that the SHP would be better than the Liberals. He preached honesty, integrity, transparency, and accountability.

Or was that all one big credibility gap?

Oh, the guy on the right is Balok the puppet from Star Trek.