6 Responses to “To Read a Memo…OR NOT – Allegations of Torture Left Unread By Stephen Harper”

1. Fraser Nelund Says:
   October 17th, 2009 at 6:58 am

   Options

   1. Ignorant
   2. Criminal

2. Travis Martin Says:
   October 17th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

   Fraser and Alison, I must sadly say that you are mistaken. Our MPs are ignorant but there is nothing criminal about it – there are, in fact, constitutional protections put in place that allow our MPs to remain in the dark. MInisters are actually not required to know all the affairs of the offices over which they preside. Their probing powers are often sufficient to look, but given the busy schedule of an MP they are seldom going to use these unless a more junior ranked employee not only passes information up, but also does so through legitimate channels. There is no structure in our unelected Mandarin-like civil service or military that requires the passing up of such intelligence, especially that which is un-investigated and possibly hearsay. The powers of investigation have long been delegated downward into the department so that until there has been a significant review, or case, possibly going to court, there is no upward mobility of information. In some departments until a case has reached a certain level of court, there is no upward flow of information (e.g. tax fraud). You ought to be thinking of MPs like MacKay as spokespersons or communications officers for the respective departments that they oversee. The real purpose of a Minister is to oversee the affairs of a department and make policy recommendations relevant to their party’s political platform while the department itself remains nonpartisan. While the minister does have, in some cases, sweeping powers of management, these are seldom, if ever used, as upsetting the department could lead to a break down in his or her own office. You have to understand that government officials are unionized and highly protected. There is no easy way to fire, there is no union-busting with cheap labour if they go on strike, and virtually all departments have their old stodgy masters who have survived likely since the days of Trudeau. An MP needs evidence to act first and cautiously or else his whole house can crumble and that evidence is often being circulated amongst the ranks of mid-level employees waiting for review from higher level employees and so on ad infinitum. What I see is a history in the Canadian Department of Defense, of whose senior staff is mostly composed of Trudeau era liberal cronies, is that they are likely intentionally squelching the upward mobility of information on a few isolated incidents (I hope anyway) to defame a minority government. The Liberals have been doing this for sometime – note the stupid Manitoba body-bag scandal that the liberals ordered investigated and the results terminated with a single nurse ordering too many supplies! Management-level officials may be acting under the auspicious guidance of their former party masters in promise of Senate Seats or other perks once the Liberals are re-elected. Now all parties do this, in most countries, this is really just the underbelly of democracy, and as happy as I am any day telling people what an incompetent and badly dressed buffoon Peter MacKay is, in this case it seem perfectly logical, and not his fault that he, nor Mr. Harper would know anything. What you should hope for is a more American style of Bureaucracy and de-unioned, or de-teethed union government employees.

3. Fraser Nelund Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

   Well now sir I am no liberal fan. However I fail to see how any of your ramble in any way suggested that the people who I mentioned were not ignorant. Your argument. from what I can gather, is that MacKay’s department does not work. You go on to blame this on unions and liberals.

   Your solution is “a more American style”. I think you missed the point which is that Canadians do not as a populace support torture, whereas it appears that our government, inadvertently or otherwise did in this incident.

   Which means that inadvertently or otherwise we did in this instance. Thus to avoid supporting torture again we must change the government. I think we both agree that change must occur, from what I can gather we both agree that torture is wrong. These are happy stepping off points I think

   I believe your method of changing the form seems reasonable, the change you suggest is not, I won’t mention ideologies but your business background hasn’t left you with the most open mind has it?

   At least you are consistent. Loosening governmental checks and rolling back union strength is nearly as ridiculous a solution as following the oversight lead of one of the worlds worst and most consistent perpetrators of war crimes. Following a US lead is the last thing Canada should ever do. In fact that’s what got us into this specific mess in the first place.

4. Alison Regan Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

   Its about admitting that mistakes were made and admitting that our country has been involved in torture (based on these documents at least)… not about become the American Military.
   As far as ideologies go, I won’t deny that my employment in the oil and gas industry in Alberta influenced my decisions to vote conservative in the past… and yes I am a capitalist at heart.
   I absolutely agree that Canadians do not support torture, but I think that the same can be said for the general population in the United States. Our government simply needs to acknowledge their role in the torture that has occurred and stand up and do something about it. There is no real clear cut solution, but I feel that what happened with these memos demonstrates that our current structure of government does not work. There are obvious flaws with all political systems that are in place around the world, and I wouldn’t suggest a major re-tooling of the system in place in Canada, but there needs to be more checks on our government, somebody needs to be held accountable for the mistakes.

5. Travis Martin Says:
   October 19th, 2009 at 5:34 am

   Fraser, there are some fundamental flaws in your reasoning. I will demonstrate. First, I described clearly how respective ministers are structurally sheltered in such as way that makes them ignorant. You confuse, however, ignorance with liability. I am saying that yes they are ignorant but I don’t think you can go so far as to hold them liable unless you change the underpinning structure upon which the flow of information in a government department is dependent upon. Our constitution, which I mention, does not make them liable, so no court, or tribunal, or even Party review board could either. Public pressure can, in the same way a bylaw could make me liable to pick up trash in my neighbors yard if I so saw it. Harper and MacKay had no opportunity to look for, read, or even be aware of the memos that you think they ought to have read. You are correct though when you say that I say that the departments don’t work.

   I then explain how a structural overhaul of the departments is impossible to work if it is initiated by the Minister in charge of that department. We have a mandarin style of unionized management which results in overpaid and over-skilled staff performing basic Taylorized jobs. While my own preference is to deunionize all government employees (something we can constitutionally do, and with a conservative majority may happen). It may or may not. I said quiet clearly that political favors to former Mandarin-management may be to blame for the lack of upward mobility of information. You say that can not be changed. Well, my background in business says that this is quite easy. Mandate a sub-management Mandarin to report all information received by the mandarin to the opposition party. Then an opposition party could actually oppose. Since 99% of this would be clicking “forward” on an email box I fail to see the massive structural overhaul that this would entail – but then this is just my experience in business, not union government crap-talking. (An aside on unions – I believe that they have a greater role to play in Canada – e.g. Walmart Trades, service e.t.c. – I just think they should be banned from government or government contracts). Politically I am a Marxist-libertarian.

   Now, American style Bureaucracy (obviously the word America causes you to spin a bit) would entail a greater upward mobility of information and bipartisan reporting of information then the system that we currently have. This is just a fact. . How you go from a comment that affirms this to needing to say that Canadians do not support torture (also incorrectly implying that Americans do)? This requires more than a grammatical leap of faith. Its kinda odd.

   Your use of the word inadvertently fuels this oddness. You are saying that because of the breakdown of communication that we “inadvertently supported torture”. Well… no. First off this is a tautology that has no limits. By shopping at Walmart you inadvertently support the Chinese government who builds roads in Nigeria, which inadvertently allows the movement of Muslim and Christian extremists to battle it out for land, which inadvertently is creating a market for underground oil sales to the Congo, whose convict is supported by African blood diamonds, whose illegal presence in the market upsets the Canadian diamond industry due to there being more diamonds on the market resulting in less Inuit working Canadian-diamond mines resulting in more inuit hunting inadvertently forcing them to over-hunt much of the Arctic wildlife. So there you go, if you shop at Wal-Mart you could inadvertently destroy Polar Bears. Your use of the word “inadvertently” suspiciously allows you to avoid having to place your finger on any sort of causation”. Even so, if you did have a causal agent you still have the whole thing utterly backwards. Reading the memo (if that were even possible) would not have stopped the initial torture, it would have only made us aware of it, just as we are becoming now. So even if I were to adopt the sad tautology of “inadvertently” you can’t apply it because not reading the memo only makes is inadvertently (yuck) ignorant of the actions of a foreign state. This does not in anyway make us inadvertently (whatever that means) supporting torture! I could go on further, ad nauseam on whether, even if we did know, we would have authority or not under international law to withhold detainees from the Afghan authorities in a war-time setting. This whole area of law is terribly fuzzy. Now there is an army left-leaning lawyers who would like to campaign on the idea that it is not, but it is. I will spare you all that to look up on your own. I only point it out to say that even if I granted you all the above with its sketchy inadvertentlies, reverse-order logic and the like, you still may be faced with “inadvertently” supporting torture because we may not be able to do anything about it. Just a thought though.

   “Following a US lead is the last thing Canada should ever do.”Well, if their system causes them to correct their flaws and recognize when a break down in government structure results in negative effects then we should follow them. The above article says, albeit vaguely “at least the American’s have acknowledged that these things have happened in their recent history” Okay apples to oranges. Americans have admitted two things. First that some of their soldiers have tortured prisoners, Second that other countries torture prisoners. Canada admits only the latter. Now, I am not a defender of America, and certainly not two-faced Obama, because as Guantanamo is being shut down the US is increasing its powers to detain and turn over foreign and domestic residents to other nations of interest where even more will be tortured and intelligence shared as a result. How though, in recommending a change in bureaucratic structure am I suggesting more torture or the crude policies of President Obama?

   Returning to your comments you believe that Harper and MacKay should have read memos. I am telling you that it is impossible, that they ever saw them. If they were liberals, or Greens or Communists (NDP) they still would not have seen them. They are under no obligation whatsoever to so closely monitor government departments. If you want to create such an obligation legislation must be proposed and passed. This will result in more ministers though – that I can promise. Now, all I ever said about changing our system is this: “What you should hope for is a more American style of Bureaucracy and de-unioned, or de-teethed union government employees.” How in anyway is that radical, impossible, anti-union, or even difficult.” Again nothing more than a simple piece of legislation, a dozen or so lawyers and about six months of careful thinking (and a majority house). Indeed, equally large and absurd changes were made under the Jean C years where we saw government swell to the tremendous size that it now is. Structure of government itself is intentionally flexible. The problem with our government workers is that once you given them something they feel entitled to keep it. There is a reason why it is called “government service”. If you don’t like the service aspect of it, get a real job, not a hand-out job.

6. Fraser Nelund Says:
   October 19th, 2009 at 10:20 am

   Firstly let me point out that I must have made an error in projecting my thoughts clearly in my first comment, what I was (meaning to be) implying was that the options in this case are either that the minister and Prime Minister were ignorant of what was happening or criminal. I believe, based upon the limited info I have, that they were ignorant. I do not think they are liable. I would like to thank you, Travis, for your edifying explaination of why this was a structurally based failing of our governmental system.

   Your example of where “inadvertently” leads clearly has a causal structure. Shopping at Walmart: Being aware that the killing of polar bears (something I really don’t care about, but an example is an example, and we’ll keep off the topic of all those human rights issues you touch upon to keep things relatively simple) is something supported by that action, I would be consiously supporting it if I did shop at Walmart. I know your example was intentionally stretched but let’s say that we know each connection is valid. In much the same way that we must say that a democratic government represents the people of it’s nation, is a valid statement to have any hope of being a citizen of a salvagable country. The majority of Canadian I think (caring more about polar bears than I, or maybe as much about those issues I’m avoiding) if aware of the way the actions actually shaped reality would act differently. The majority of Canadians given the opportunity to would cease the handing over people to torturers. In both cases I and they have committed actions of negative morality, inadvertently.

   I agree that my use of the term was a muddying one. It is because I am an optimist that I use the term “inadvertently”. Because I am a utilitarian, I don’t put any weight in it, sorry you thought that my argument did. Essentially it (inadvertently) implied no moral wrong, whereas in fact nonaction, or disinterest in participation, or intentional (we must assume the government’s structure was intentionally formed, and as you point out the results are knowable) ignorance is wrong.

   The point about the torture having already occurred is also valid, though of course I will point out that we should have supported it for a shorter time.

   I think, again, that your suggestion of a solution lacks something. The reform, good. The lawyers (70% of MPs have been lawyers in the totality of Canadian parliamentary history) abound. Careful thought (beyond private interests: see lawyers) does not, altruism in government does not. The current system demands of any majority who wants power, and I think it is a truism that politicians want power, that they set up the bureaucracy in that Jean C and Trudeaian way you so despise. Namely in a way favourable to whichever party is setting it up. Why do you trust that the next majority government would be self defeating, or at the very least altruistic? We need only look to a certain unreformed senate, and promises regarding it, to find the merit of believing in those possibilities.

   sigh… at myself mind you. I have said the government is salvagable and than demonstrated that I don’t believe it to be. Rather I do believe it needs a restructuring before it can be an outlet for Canadian citizens’ will.

   google “politically revolting” to find me and my blog, Travis, I am quite curious about this Libertarian-Marxism.

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