Asbestos and Harper: When Facts Don't Matter…

Friedrich Nietzsche once said "there are no facts, only interpretations." With that in mind, let's try to discern what Prime Minister Harper is thinking with his latest embrace of Quebec's asbestos industry and its ridiculous assertion that the "safe use" of asbestos - outside of Canada, of course - is not some deadly joke on the world's poor. Some "facts." It is impossible to find a reputable, independent, peer-reviewed international medical research or workplace health and safety institution arguing that chrysotile asbestos can be used safely by humans without significant risk of cancer.

The International Agency for Cancer Research states there is no safe exposure limit to asbestos of any kind, echoed by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization. The WHO says more than 100,000 people die each year from asbestos-related diseases.

The World Bank mandates that, even in disasters, asbestos must not be used for emergency construction projects.

The Canadian Cancer Society, the US Government and all 27 member states of the European Union call for a total ban.

Even the provincially-funded "Institut national de santé publique du Québec"  argues "chrysotile asbestos is carcinogenic  .... safe use of asbestos is difficult, perhaps impossible."

In the cruel calculus of electoral politics, if this industry generated immense amounts of money and jobs, you could understand why "facts" could be ignored in pursuit of votes.

But it does not. Quebec's asbestos industry generates annual sales of less than $100 million and supports roughly 600 jobs, most part-time. That hardly seems enough influence, even in one riding, to determine an electoral outcome.

(Inconvenient truth time: it's only very recently, with the industry shrinking, that the Liberals, the NDP and the Canadian Labour Congress called for an end to asbestos production. For decades, they supported government funding for the promotion of asbestos exports.)

So, the "interpretations."

Maybe Prime Minister Harper is simply playing a craven waiting game, gambling that, eventually, asbestos production in Canada will wither away. Recently released government documents (obtained  only through Freedom of Information requests) support this  position. So why risk losing those few asbestos industry-related votes in Quebec?

(There is an argument to make that beyond electoral politics, asbestos has an iconic importance in Quebec politics that transcends its ugly truth. The asbestos industry was central to the political awakening of modern Quebec during the late 1940s and early 1950s when virtually the whole province came together to support strikers against their then-American bosses ... helping to kick-start the careers of Trudeau, Marchand and Pelletier, who supported the strikers.)

But more likely – and more depressing – is the idea that, once again, the Prime Minister is simply ignoring the facts because of his ideological dislike of evidence presented by experts.

Think the cancelled long-form census, when Harper ignored warnings from statistical experts around the world that this would hurt Canada's economy.

Think crime stats, with Harper ignoring an outpouring of evidence that crime of almost every kind in Canada is steadily declining to argue that what the country needs is tougher laws and tougher prisons.

Sadly, the facts on asbestos' dangers – overwhelmingly consistent – will do nothing to convince Harper to reverse his support for the industry.

Which leaves the rest of us to buckle down and fight on: perhaps as a best bet, to call for a well-funded transition program to help miners and their families find new sustainable jobs.

But a fact – with no interpretation possible – is that our country must rid itself of its sadly-indisputable reputation as an industrial merchant of death.

On Libya, Environmental Protection and Canadian Prisons: Twelve O'Clock High

So, another Canadian foreign minister has visited China, presumably to sell more Canadian raw materials – as if that were a problem. The media seems satisfied that John Baird mentioned human rights – though what he said is left to conjecture. And who might care is another matter entirely. There was also the ritual nod to Canadian values, whatever those might be these days.

In a hawkish July 5 Maclean’s interview, Stephen Harper did talk a bit about Canadian values. He said he was “not dismissing peacekeeping… but…” we should now be thinking mainly of what he called “the triumvirate” in Canadian values: Canada as “the courageous warrior, compassionate neighbour, confident partner”. He doesn’t have to dismiss peacekeeping, of course; that has already been done. As of June 30, out of 83,400 blue-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops, only 21 soldiers were Canadians.

As for the courageous warrior, we don’t have to look a lot farther than John Baird’s June trip to eastern Libya. It is, of course, a good idea to get to know who we’re supporting in that mission, and for that Baird is to be commended. As evidence that he has perhaps watched the 1949 American war film Twelve O’Clock High a few times too many, however, he signed one of the bombs that Canadian fighters will drop on the western part of Libya, "Free Libya. Democracy."

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, CIDA’s results-obsessed Minister Bev Oda was bragging that she had taught the head of the World Food Programme the difference between outputs and outcomes. Maybe she could do the same with John Baird. The Libya mission is expected to have cost about $60 million by the end of September (probably a sizeable under-estimation), a good chunk of it in democracy-inducing bombs. By now, Canadians might ask themselves whether we should still be playing Monty in the eastern desert, signing bombs and the cheques that go with them, or whether we should be thinking about potential outcomes – not all of them, on second thought, perhaps so favourable.

As for the money, as C.D. Howe might have put it, “What’s $60 million?” Especially when we get to play with the big kids?

Well, it’s actually a lot where the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is concerned. The CEAA, which evaluates potentially harmful policies and projects before they get the green light, has just had its budget chopped from $30 million in 2011-12 to $17.1 million in 2012-13. This follows a 6.9% cut between last year and this. OK, maybe that’s just a red herring. But $60 million really is nothing compared to what we’re going to spend on prisons. The government’s forthcoming crime legislation is expected to increase Canada's prison population dramatically because of tougher parole rules and the elimination of “two-for-one” sentencing guidelines. That means we’ll need more prisons. The government says the cost of the package will be about $4 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Office, among others, says it will be much higher – as much as $10 billion. This, despite the fact that Statistics Canada tells us the country's crime rate has plunged to its lowest level since 1973. Using data provided by police forces across Canada, StatsCan says there were 2.1 million crimes last year, a drop of 5% from 2009. Statscan's "Crime Severity Index", which tracks violent crime, also dropped to its lowest level since the index was created in 1998.

Courageous? Compassionate? Confident? Perhaps StatsCan and the Parliamentary Budget Office will get the Twelve O’Clock High treatment next, like Libya and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Two Cups of Tea: Miracle Cures and Other Development Snake Oil

A recent 60 Minutes investigation found that best-selling author and philanthropist, Greg Mortenson, may not be all he has cracked himself up to be. The ex-mountain climber has told the story many times of being rescued by Pakistani villagers and discovering how terrible their educational facilities were. One thing led to another and he eventually built them a school, and that school led to hundreds more around the country. His books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools have sold millions, and his Central Asia Institute, a registered US charity, has taken in tens of millions of dollars in donations.

But 60 Minutes told a different story, one repeated on television and in newspapers worldwide: Mortenson was not rescued by villagers. He did build a school – many, in fact – but not as many as he says, and a lot are simply not being used. The charity, 60 Minutes said, was paying for a lot of the promotion of Mortenson’s phenomenally successful books, but all proceeds go to Mortenson, not the charity. Mortenson refused to answer questions put to him by CBS news.

There is a double tragedy in this story, one reported in the media, the other created by the media. The first is that Mortenson, perhaps a well-meaning naïf, seems not to have delivered on his promise. That will fuel the cynicism about foreign aid that his books did so much – for a while -- to dispel. People will add this to the list of reasons for not supporting development assistance.

The bigger tragedy is that Mortenson – and the media that so lionized him for five years – created an idea of development that is fundamentally fictional. Yes, individuals can make a difference, but genuine development is much more complex than well-meaning Westerners charging about like Lady Bountiful, wiping the tears from the faces of unhappy children. Although Three Cups of Tea is all about schools, it contains no discussion about what goes on inside a school: education. The closest the book came to education, was when Mortenson’s wife made her first trip to Pakistan and stopped in Islamabad to buy some appropriate books for one of the school libraries. How might she have known what was appropriate for a rural Pakistani school? What language were the books written in?

The same shallowness bedevils other silver bullets, or at least how they are purveyed. The promise of microfinance is that a $25 loan can get a poor family out of destitution. Child sponsorship will save one of those crying kids that are sold on television like a buffet lunch for people wanting a quick feel-good opportunity. Too harsh? As part of a broader program of training and economic opportunity, microfinance can help. If it supports solid development programs, a child sponsorship agency can make a contribution.

But it’s time for an adult discussion about development. There are no silver bullets; poverty cannot be ended with small, one-off feel-good investments. Development takes time and money, and it requires strong support and leadership from the people who will benefit. It requires consistency as well, from the $25 donor and from institutional donors like the Canadian International Development Agency, which in recent years has been about as constant and dependable as Wile E. Coyote. If you want to support education in Pakistan, ask about teachers and curricula and running costs – the same questions you would ask in this country. If you want to support children, find organizations that support their parents. Paternalism only works if it is applied by genuine parents, not faraway benefactors. If you want to make a $25 loan through Kiva or some other mechanism, ask how borrowers are being advised, and ask how a poor person can find an investment good enough to repay the $25 with interest in a year, if not months. Think about it. There is a lot of great work being done out there, but there is no substitute for hard work, experience and long-term commitment.

Canadian Development Corporation: Back to the 1860's with a Conservative Majority?

On April 6th, the Canadian International Council hosted a “conversation” on the “three D’s” among two senior Conservatives, Derek Burney, former Ambassador to the US and Chief of Staff to the PM, Senator Hugh Segal, former Chief of Staff to the PM, and Paul Heinbecker, former Foreign Policy Advisor to the PM and Ambassador to the UN on the subject of Diplomacy, Defence and Development.

What was disturbing about the session was that the two senior Conservatives equated international development assistance – they repeatedly referred to it as “aid” – with charitable handouts – and humanitarian handouts at that. This level of awareness relates back to the 19th century image of “Lady Bountiful”, and has not even become as “modern” as the 1950s Marshall Plan vision of economic growth as the engine of “Third World” development. These two Conservatives are viewed as leaders of their party’s thinking on international development, as evidenced by Senator Segal’s role in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee’s report on Africa (“Overcoming 40 Years of Failure: A New Roadmap for Sub-Saharan Africa”).

Little wonder that the third “D” – development – took up little air space in the conversation. This underlying and extremely inaccurate perception of development assistance runs counter to what development practitioners have learned over the past 50 years. Stable, prosperous, healthy societies are built through a combination of transparency and accountability – “good governance” – between citizens and the state, accompanied by a sound fiscal framework and the provision of services like health, education, public safety and basic physical infrastructure. Handouts generate resentment and dependency. Wealth for the few and poverty – or debt – for the many is both destabilizing and unsustainable.

Many Conservatives seem not to have learned these hard-won lessons of development cooperation experience: they search for simplistic solutions like “focus”, moving the deck chairs on the CIDA Titanic, or reverting to head-in-the-sand Victorian thinking. If the government listens to advice like this rather than searching out evidence-based direction, it risks continuing Canada’s slide into irrelevance in international development cooperation. The development pillar of Canada’s foreign policy is dangerously weakened by immature discourse, and a foreign policy built only on defence and diplomacy, with primacy to the former, ill serves Canada’s interests in the world and the interests of those we purport to help.

Aid Accountability That Matters

For many years CIDA was a proud beacon of Canadian vision and values in international development. In the early 1990’s the Official Development Assistance budget became one of the few federal pots for discretionary funding. Canada’s use of those funds as a tool for creating a better, more secure world unraveled into a tool for the domestic policy agenda. It became a constituency builder for the party in power. With the Harper government, it got worse. He tested his anti-abortion and contraception policy out in the guise of a mother and child health initiative. Minister Oda took control of programs that used to be within the authority of CIDA country directors and Vice Presidents. Delays caused by her micro-management stretched from weeks to months and months. And choices about who got funded and who didn’t were arbitrary, not based on solid analysis and transparent policy principles.

CIDA could once be counted on to contribute to core funding of UN agencies and other international agencies. This government reduces their capacity by largely funding only specific projects instead each with expensive reporting and oversight protocols.

In 2005, donor countries and developing countries signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness to harmonize aid delivery and to focus on countries’ own desired results. The goal was to empower countries to set their own objectives with stringent requirements for due diligence. Canada signed the Declaration and then Oda promptly ignored it.

This is serious. In many developing countries there are tens of official donors in each major area of government like education and health and sometimes hundreds when you include other organizations such as foundations, non-governmental organizations and multilateral institutions. Each one has its own strategies and reporting systems. Harper and Oda wanted Canadian flags on every Canadian funded school and road - eroding the confidence of citizens in their own government’s ability to govern and creating incentives for more roads and more schools…not faster movement of commercial goods or better educated kids.

If Harper wanted a profile for Canada, he should have built on Canada’s tradition of doing the right thing at the right level for real change regardless of recognition. He should have managed aid for development outcomes not for ribbon cutting and ersatz accountability …compliance checks on large numbers of idiosyncratic projects by mid level staff.

A responsible Canadian Government leads through partnership with others to promote innovative approaches to end poverty and promote peace. A Canadian government acts fast to move into areas of opportunity (like a democracy building agenda for Egypt.) And Canadian government is transparent about its interventions abroad what it is doing and where, reporting on what counts, not what can be easily counted or attributed to Canada only interventions.

Not Speaking the Truth to Power: Another Side of the Oda Affair

The Oda affair has dominated the attention of Parliament and the media in recent weeks. The mysterious insertion of the word “not” in a document and the contempt charge against CIDA Minister Bev Oda have been the focus of considerable media interest. The McLeod Group weighed in on this matter in a letter to Speaker Milliken. (That letter can be found on this website.) Experts, such as David Dacherty of Sir Wilfrid Laurier University and Ned Franks of Queen’s, say Minister Oda should be held in contempt because she deliberately misled the House.

There are other issues in this affair that concern the McLeod Group. While ministers clearly have the right to ignore the advice of their deputies, they must not make them the scapegoats when something goes wrong. This is what Tony Clement did so blatantly in the brouhaha over the long-form census. That prompted Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, to resign. And this is what Minister Oda did when before a Commons committee she testified that the Kairos proposal no longer fit with CIDA's objectives, suggesting she was acting on her department's recommendation. By adding “not” to a document that had already been signed by two senior officials, she misrepresented their views in a way that would be treated as outright fraud if this were a banking situation. What surprises the McLeod Group was that there were no resignations in this case.

Public servants are supposed to provide ministers with their best advice, and that advice ought to be “fearless, unvarnished and professional” as Mel Cappe, the former Clerk of the Privy Council said on CBC Radio’s The House. In short, the mark of a professional public service is that it speaks truth to power. Public servants can even push back a little, if a minister chooses a different path. They should, for example, caution ministers about the potential risks and consequences of not taking the bureaucracy’s advice. When a minister gets into hot water, having ignored the advice of the bureaucracy, that minister ought not to pin the blame on public servants. Clearly, that is misrepresentation and it’s a good way of alienating the public service and prompting high-level resignations, which inevitably become public. No right-minded minister wants that.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Oda affair and the long-form census debacle is that these have undermined the integrity of Canada’s public service. This should be of great concern to all Canadians because of what it does to the morale of our public servants, to the reputation of the public service as a whole, and to public policy.

When ministers regularly ignore the advice of their department, it causes the bureaucracy to second guess the minister. That is precisely what is happening at CIDA. Public servants there are designing programs to suit the whims of Minister Oda (or to whoever is calling the shots above her). The situation is exacerbated in Ms. Oda’s case because she micro-manages the Agency. Some of CIDA’s public servants have become fearful and increasingly partisan in what they send up to the Minister’s office, the opposite of what should be the case in a well-functioning public administration. One consequence is that we see important, longstanding policies—Canada’s principled stance on gender equality for one—being steadily eroded, diminished without public consultation and without public debate. This is in part why Canada’s international reputation has been in such sharp declined since the Harper administration came to power. This concerns the McLeod Group. We hope that it will concern voters in the next election.

At Least He Made the Trains Run on TIme: Canada's Maternal and Child Health Initiative

The Globe’s John Ibbitson is not alone in cutting the Harper government some slack in the realm of foreign affairs when it comes to the maternal and child health “initiative”. He says that Mr. Harper “convinced the major developed nations to sign on.” (“Harper Abroad...” Oct 22.) This has now passed into the realm of urban myth, where announcements often take the place of action.

In fact the entire MCH “initiative” was little more than smoke and mirrors. The claim, trumpeted by CIDA, is that the G8 committed $7.3 billion to this important endeavour. The truth is a little different. Counted in the total is $1.75 billion worth of ongoing Canadian money long ago committed to MCH. Then came an additional $1.1 billion in “new money”. This isn’t actually new; it’s money that will be taken from somewhere else in the CIDA budget – perhaps from agriculture or education. Or maybe they will just recode existing projects, a favourite way of dealing with unanticipated political brainwaves.

Germany coughed up $100 million a year for five years, as did Japan. France came up with $80 million a year for four years, the US committed $1.36 billion over two years and the UK $150 million a year for two years. Even adding in other countries and foundations, you’d have a hard time coming up with $7.3 billion in new money, but the Harper government hasn’t tried.

The truth is that maternal and child health have been two UN Millennium Development Goals for a decade, and many donors have consistently devoted more attention to them than Canada. Germany, the US and Britain do not need to be lectured by Canada on this subject – they have always been well ahead of us in the funding sweepstakes. Their “commitments” at the G8 were like Canada’s: polite announcements to avoid embarrassment, but probably not new money; maybe there wasn’t even any serious recoding. Unless aid budgets rise, as they certainly will not in Canada under this government, robbing Peter to pay Paul is not exactly “initiative”.

But it gets worse. In addition to playing fast and loose with the numbers, the MCH “initiative” gave our government an opportunity to cut off funding for important reproductive health programs in the developing world and to cancel all funding to Match International, the only Canadian international NGO working exclusively on women’s issues.

Then, in December, the UN created a “Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health” which is supposed to propose a framework for global reporting, oversight and accountability on women’s and children’s health. It says it “will create a system to track whether donations for women’s and children’s health are made on time, resources are spent wisely and transparently, and whether the desired results are achieved.”

Nice, but the UN already had this in the Millennium Development Goals and a variety of reporting mechanisms. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this “new” commission, with Stephen Harper as one of its Chairs.

Until it produces some hard numbers and some real facts, however, the whole exercise should perhaps be listed under “embarrassment” rather than “initiative”.

Transparency and Accountability in Foreign Policy: Not

Three events in recent weeks underline the lack of transparency in the way the government is implementing foreign policy. Everyone agrees that the government has a right to frame foreign policy. “But it should make these changes in full public view with a full public explanation. The paper-shuffling, obfuscating and insinuating have to stop”. (The Citizen, Dec. 20, 2010)

Kairos: Bev Oda tied up in “nots”

Just before Christmas some things in the Kairos saga became clearer. CIDA President Margaret Biggs, testifying before the Parliamentary Committee, said that when she signed off on the Kairos proposal she recommended that the Minister approve it, because it was in line with CIDA priorities. Subsequently Minister Oda’s signature and a handwritten “not” was added to the proposal – making the recommendation to “not” approve the proposal. When asked by the Parliamentary Committee, Minister Oda said that she did not know who put the “not” in the document and she also seemed unsure whether she herself had signed the document or whether it was done using an automatic pen.

All three opposition parties subsequently sought a motion of contempt of Parliament against Minister ODA for having misled the House when she suggested that the Kairos proposal was rejected at the CIDA level. Bob Rae said that the document had been altered to make it look as if the CIDA President and VP had made the “not” recommendation. In the House he suggested this could constitute fraud. The Speaker has "put over" the matter to allow the Government to prepare its response.

Foreign Affairs: Changing Language, or Not

Things weren’t any clearer over at the Committee on the Status of Women where they were also discussing words. Last year Embassy Magazine reported that the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs was making changes to the language used in the Department – not through a formal statement but more subtly through altering phrases used in multilateral meetings, speeches, and letters. “Gender equality” became “equality between men and women”, “international humanitarian law” became “international law”, and “child soldiers” was to become “children in conflict”. The Committee on the Status of Women decided to call witnesses. Among them was Alan Kessel, Legal Adviser, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In his testimony he said,

I know the objective of the discussion here has been about terminology. My objective is to show you that the terminology hasn't changed; the policy hasn't changed. The terminology we use is carefully negotiated language that came out of many years of negotiation in international fora.

Then the Liberals tabled an internal memo written by Jamieson Weetman, Deputy Director, West and Central Africa Relations, which expressed concern about the policy implications of the changes in language coming from the Minister’s office (see below). The changes are real, they are important, and they have important policy implications.

Transparency at Rights and Democracy: Not

And then there is the forensic audit of Rights and Democracy. Following the government-led debacle at this once-respected human rights organization, interim president, Jacques Gauthier called for an audit of the organization’s recent activities. According to The Citizen, some Board members insisted that the “disagreement isn’t over ideology. No, they said, it’s about fiscal management. They complained that they were dealing with a staff ‘revolt against accountability’ and made reference to ‘transactions that require the attention of forensic auditors’.” The audit was completed in August but in spite of its concern about accountability, the Board did not release it. In December The Globe and Mail published a summary. Surprise – the audit didn’t reveal any major irregularities. Deloitte & Touche, however, concluded that the main problems at Rights and Democracy stemmed from the Board’s attempts to control the organization’s activities, especially in relation to Middle East issues.

And so it goes. The lack of professionalism, incompetence and outright deceit are breathtaking. It is hard to imagine what would move this government to expose the policy-making process to the light of day – and democratic process.
______________________________________________________

Memo from Jamieson Weetman read into the record at the December 7th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Dear All:

Some of you will have already noted over the past few months the tendency from OMINA to change or remove language from letters, speeches, interventions at multilateral meetings, etc. on such interrelated issues as child soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, human rights, and R2P.

A recent example is a fairly extensive set of suggested revisions to a standard docket response on DRC. Suggested changes to this letter include removing the term “impunity” in every instance, e.g. “Canada urges the Government of the DRC to take concerted measures to do whatever is necessary to put an end to impunity for sexual violence”. That is changed to “Canada urges the Government of the DRC to take concerted measures to prevent sexual violence”. Furthermore, the word “humanitarian” is excised from every reference to International Humanitarian Law. References to “gender-based violence” are removed and every phrase “child soldiers” is replaced by “children in armed conflict”.

Some of the changes suggested by OMINA are more than simply stylistic changes. For example, “The sentence cited above changes the focus from justice for victims of sexual violence to prevention”. Only this morning, Glen Coutts and I discussed the term “gender equality” with OMINA to be informed that current lexicon is instead “equality of men and women”, which actually takes something away from the internationally used terminology, as well as being more cumbersome and awkward.

So far we have largely been managing these issues as they come in on a case-by-case basis. However, Jim Nichol and I have been wondering if it might be necessary for a more coordinated approach as these issues interest a number of different bureaux, and are recurring fairly frequently. It is often not entirely clear to us why OMINA advises on making such changes and whether they have a full grasp of the potential impact on Canadian policy in asking for changes to phrases and concepts that have been accepted internationally and used for some time.

We would like to know whether you might find it useful to meet with us to discuss these issues as a possible precursor to a meeting with OMINA staff. I do not believe the request from OMINA to make these kinds of changes to language will diminish. It will be useful for us to know here when OMINA-suggested changes are not consistent with accepted Canadian policy. The ultimate objective would be to work with OMINA to find a language that is more palatable to them and which also accurately reflects Canada's policy approach.

Signed, Jameson Wheatman, (actually Jamieson Weetman) from the Ministry of International Affairs. He is Deputy Director Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.