WhatFinger


Cutting funding to groups allied with terrorists

Rights and Democracy: Harper right to clean house



Federal opposition calls for an inquiry into the Harper government’s supposedly negative influence on the Rights and Democracy organization are inappropriate, misguided and corrosive. Inappropriate because they smack of nothing more than a witch hunt seeking political profit off the death of R&D’s late President Rémy Beauregard who died recently of a heart attack. Misguided because they exhibit an appalling ignorance of the failings of R&D that this administration has tried to correct. Corrosive because they would demonize any attempt by any government to reform any media darling organization beloved of the salon liberal left that in fact too often supports groups around the world whose aims are inimical to free societies.

Support Canada Free Press


Beauregard’s death was indeed a tragedy. It did come after a board meeting of R&D. But it could have happened anywhere and at anytime. To suggest that the disagreements Beauregard had with Harper appointees to the board amounted to “harassment” leading to his death – as has been suggested by some – is ludicrous to the point of being McCarthyite in nature. Whatever one may think of political leaders, the least that is to be expected is that they maintain an intellectual rigour a cut above a grade B horror flick. The opposition not only failed the test, but added melodrama based on erroneous facts they should have gotten right. They claimed that Mr. Beauregard had been in violent disagreement on funding cuts supported by Harper appointees. These cuts went to groups allied with organizations listed as terrorist by Canada. In fact Mr. Beauregard had voted for the funding cuts and with the Harper appointees of which Beauregard himself was one. Rights and Democracy was established in 1988 under the Mulroney government. It’s original purpose was to do the kind of work Washington’s National Democratic Institute does. Sending operatives to other countries to help establish democratic institutions, oversee elections and train citizens in the values and virtues of free societies. NDI’s commitment to democratic development and western liberal pluralism is candid and clear. Sadly, R&D did not develop that way. Instead of clear-eyed vision and unrelenting resolve, it pursued a nebulous approach to its original mission that smacked more of second year collegiate poli sci courses than meaningful public policy. It is true that it sent money and personnel abroad. But the money went to too many who felt they had a right to be wrong, and the personnel were schooled in the twin devils of moral relativism and political equivalency that were the hallmarks of the academic left. Little ability – and less courage – to be able to tell right from wrong. Harper’s board appointees, Chairman Aurel Braun, Jacques Gauthier, Elliot Tepper and renowned human rights lawyer David Matas, tried to restore some sanity to the chaos. One recent decision that has the opposition all atwitter was the decision to cut funding to several groups in the Middle East. These groups were provided grants through discretionary funds which had little or no board oversight in the past. Among the organizations receiving Canadian tax dollars were Al Haq, headquartered in the West Bank, and Al Mazan, headquartered in Gaza. Al Haq’s general director, Shawan Jabarin, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan because of his ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP is a listed terrorist organization in Canada. Mr. Jabarin’s own signature was on the paperwork accepting a grant from Rights & Democracy. Why should these cuts surprise and anger the opposition leading them to claim that this government is compromising R&D’s integrity? If anything, R&D had been compromising this nation’s policies, and the purposes of any free people. By the way, just for the record, the late Mr. Beauregard – whom the opposition is making such a martyr of the big, bad Harperites – voted to end the funding too. The lionization of R&D on the back of Mr. Beauregard’s death, combined with an anti-government smear campaign, seeks to halt the federal government’s attempt to reform R&D by delegitimizing its right to investigate and marginalizing the egregious actions R&D took in the past. Some have even had the temerity to suggest that this is all about not having the right to criticize Israel. They are dead wrong. Jewish votes don’t matter all that much in this country. There are only 350,000 Jews. And Israel is not first on all their agendas. This government’s commitment to Israel is based on a fidelity to the survival and success of liberty. Israel is the frontline nation in the family of the free facing the greatest existential challenge to our liberties in the world today. If Canada is going to fund an organization like Rights & Democracy, should that organization not be loyal to protecting the very principles its name expounds? Another bit of hypocrisy in the opposition rants comes from its supposed commitment to transparency and accountability. I say supposed because no one on the opposition benches questioned an email from one employee who claimed all 47 employees of R&D wanted the Harper board members removed. Yet there was no letter signed by the employees, only that email listing their names. Yet the opposition hungrily lapped this up even though board members have been contacted by employees who stated they had nothing to do with that email nor did they agree with it. And questions of accountability and honesty are sadly not new to this organization. In 2007, long before most of the current Harper board appointees were named, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Foreign Affairs concluded that Rights & Democracy needed greater transparency, stricter internal financial controls and greater accountability. Even as far back as 1998, that board – a Liberal board - acted to terminate Rights & Democracy’s program in the Middle East because it was generating precisely the kinds of problems experienced today.. Another lie the opposition parties have legitimized is that the R&D board rejected a project to assist victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In fact it approved it with some adjustments to staging. But this itself begs a question. As horrible as sexual violence is, what has that to do with the mandate of expanding democratic ideals and institutions? Yet another fabrication being propounded by the opposition in its calls for an inquiry is that R&D is supposed to be independent of the government. But that is not at all representative of its terms of reference. Foreign NGOs receiving funding from R&D are to be independent of R&D. R&D was not to be independent of the very government that created it. It is a part of it and therefore subject to the governance of its duly elected officials. To my mind I don’t even understand why we need an organization like R&D. Should it not be the job of our Foreign Affairs department to ensure that this country is deeply engaged in democratic development around the world? Why should this be contracted out? But while it exists, we should be thankful that we have a federal government with the resolute commitment to rights and democracy that the organization itself compromises in its internal workings and in its external operations. It is time to clean house.


View Comments

Beryl Wajsman -- Bio and Archives

Beryl Wajsman is President of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal editor-in-chief of The Suburban newspapers, and publisher of The Métropolitain.

Older articles by Beryl Wajsman


Sponsored