MacKay's tangled web
by Susan Riley
As originally published in: The Ottawa Citizen
December 11, 2009
Defence Minister Peter MacKay is a personable, good-looking, hard-working minister with a besetting flaw.
When caught in a tight spot, he has a tendency to change ground without apology, or even a blush. As a result, he suffers what might be charitably called a trust deficit - and it pre-dates this week's unpleasantness over Afghan detainees.
Dissembling, distorting and spin are, lamentably, part of politics and have been forever. But MacKay's distortions are particularly blatant. He has a tendency to passionately advocate for some position, then, when contradicted by fact or logic, to lash out at opponents like a shrill boy backed into a corner.
The most memorable example of MacKay's unsteadiness is his betrayal of David Orchard in 2003. To secure leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party, he made a deal with Orchard - he wouldn't encourage a merger with Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance - and, in return, Orchard's loyal delegates vaulted MacKay to victory over Jim Prentice. Within months of this promise, made public by Orchard, MacKay was meeting with Harper to discuss a merger - selling out not only Orchard, who is widely considered a gadfly, but legions of PCs who wanted nothing to do with the Reform/Alliance crowd.
Whatever the merits of the eventual merger - and it did re-invigorate Canadian conservatism, just as it gave MacKay new prominence - the double-dealing left a bad taste. Cynics shrug that politics is not a game for those with tender consciences and MacKay is not the first politician to say one thing and do another. But this was a breathtakingly public display of faithlessness.
Another well-chronicled deception was less serious, but equally brazen. In a poisonous off-mic exchange in the Commons in 2006, MacKay referred obliquely to his once-girlfriend, Belinda Stronach, as a dog. A number of reporters and MPs heard the remark, and instantly understood its meaning, but MacKay never owned up. His insult could be spun as an understandable, if crude, expression of anger at being betrayed. That isn't the point. Rather than apologizing for an intemperate outburst, he stonily denied ever making it. His credibility took another hit.
These incidents both pale, however, beside MacKay's daily evasions on the Afghan detainee file. His tendency to bluff his way out of trouble with hysterical counter-attacks and bald-faced denials has helped turn what might have been a minor kerfuffle into a major embarrassment for government. All he (or someone) had to say was that, in the confusion and chaos of war, the treatment of Afghan detainees was only one of many pressing issues facing a government that was understaffed on the ground, and an army working in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.
In retrospect, we're sorry we didn't sort it out sooner. We should have followed the example of the British and the Dutch (who were far more scrupulous in tracking their detainees). Here's why we didn't. But the problem is fixed now. That wouldn't satisfy everyone, but many Canadians - who have scant sympathy for Taliban suspects and abiding respect for the troops - would have accepted it. Crisis defused.
Instead, MacKay (and the prime minister) accuse opponents of impugning the reputation of the troops - more desperately as their carefully contrived defences crumble. This is not only untrue, it is deplorably cowardly. MacKay and Harper are hiding their own political mistakes behind the valour and professionalism of Canada's forces.
Now the minister is denying he ever attacked whistle-blower Richard Colvin personally and insists that he never used the words "Taliban dupe." But he did disparage Colvin for relying on the word "of people who throw acid into the faces of schoolchildren" - implying that the diplomat's sources were exclusively Taliban fanatics.
That said, the weasel words, wilful blindness and savage partisanship that characterize the government's response has been a "whole-of- government" effort, from surprisingly incurious generals and senior bureaucrats, to timely leaks to friendly journalists, to Transport Minister John Baird's rabid, random, verbal flame-throwing.
This whole flimsy edifice of narrowly-correct claims - notably that there was never a "proven" incident of Canadian-transferred detainees being tortured - blew up this week with Gen. Walter Natynczyk's surprising admission. The chief of defence staff acknowledged newspaper reports of a 2006 incident, in which Canadian soldiers turned a captive over to Afghan police and had to rescue him after he was beaten.
This left MacKay exposed so he shifted responsibility: how could he be expected to know about this incident, when his chief of defence staff didn't?
Now there are calls for MacKay's resignation, but Harper will not want to risk a backlash in Atlantic Canada (or admit that the minister was only following orders). Still, MacKay may be moved to a lower-profile ministry in some future shuffle.
For now, he will survive with his reputation intact. That, of course, is his problem.
Susan Riley writes on national politics. E-mail: sriley.work@gmail.com
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