Chairman Braun before the Rights and Democracy committee.

The Rights and Democracy chair, vice-chair, and two board members got their say before the Foreign Affairs committee today.

The main problem, said Vice-Chair Jacques Gautier, is that too much power accrued to the former now deceased chair Remy Beauregard, and the organization also lacked transparency, accountability, and oversight and just did not follow the rules.

Item : In the past few weeks, the new recalibrated R&D board has hired 1)the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais, 2)the security firm Groupe Sirco, 3)the auditing firm Deloitte and Touche, 4)the PR firm Prima Communications, and 5)a new CEO.

Item : "Under current rules, the agency is required to call for tenders for contracts worth more than $10,000; must seek at least three tenders; and justify the choice “taking into account the price, the services offered and their quality."

NDP Paul Dewar was annoyed docs had not been supplied to the committee as requested. Were these contracts for more than $10,000?
After considerable prodding from Dewar to the effect that it was just not credible that an acting president have no idea what five contracts handed out under his watch might be worth, Vice Chair and interim President Gauthier eventually answered: Yes. Certainly more than $10,000.
Dewar : And were they tendered?
Gauthier : Um, no.

Oh dear.
But no worries. A week ago Chairman Aurel Braun recommended a bylaw change which would exempt the R&D president from having to follow those rules when "engaging agents, consultants and advisors."
Probably will need to be backdated to cover these five contracts from back in January and February though. And would this not in itself constitute the dreaded "accruing more power and control to the president"?

Chairman Aurel Braun's largely incoherent answers bore little relevance to the questions put to him but did at every opportunity inveigh against past R&D funding given to Al Haq in the West Bank, Al Mezan in Gaza, and B'Tselem in Israel, which he called "terrorist organizations which pretend to be human rights orgs". Al Haq, according to Braun, is a front for terrorists and also money has gone to the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and this is apparently anti-Israel and a bad thing. War crimes were mentioned, he said, and other things "not within the conscience of the Canadian people."

Libs Bob Rae and Bernard Patry and Bloc Johanne Deschamps both try to nail this anti-Israel business down, pointing out that the Israeli NGO B'Tselem is universally respected by virtually every government in Europe and the Israeli army, but as Board member and B'nai Brith lawyer David Matas pointed out while advising the committee to read his book - presumably Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism - "the Palestinians are called civilians but they throw stones."

Honourable mention for skating around in circles as far away from the puck as possible goes to Con Peter Goldring in collaboration with former Con candidate, missionary, and R&D board member Brad Farquhar. Goldring asked about political party development - some countries have 40 or 50 parties! - and how about Haiti, huh? Haiti has a serious lack of understanding about how democracy works. Farquhar was more than happy to answer at length a question having nothing whatsoever to do with the issue at hand. What is an election platform? he asks rhetorically. "In Tajikistan we had to teach them how to go out and doorknock and they weren't sure they were even allowed to do that. The transition from a former totalitarian state to a democratic state ... . We brought people from Bolivia to help in Haiti..." Oh look - time's up!

Overall the board's statements were remarkably short on the "documented facts" they kept insisting were their only concern despite the fact they hadn't brought any, not counting Matas' book. Braun charged that 46 out of 48 R&D staff who signed a letter calling for the resignations of board members were possibly coerced into signing it in exchange for a "rushed collective agreement". Much was made of the fact the board was not advised of the collective agreement. Mention was made of a contract awarded to a past R&D employee. Braun blamed the staff for the break-in and the stolen computers. The one thing none of them much wanted to discuss was Tuesday's gong show editorial written by the fifth R&D board member Marco Navarro-Genie not present at the meeting today.

Grisly blow-by-blow ably live-blogged by Kady.
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Rights and Democracy "gong show" in the National Post

-written by R&D board member Marco Navarro-Genie, on the same day we are hearing from the three fired members of Rights and Democracy at the Foreign Affairs committee (see below).

And what a gong show stinker editorial it is too : Marco Navarro-Genie: The Rights & Democracy gong show arrives in Ottawa

According to Navarro-Genie, the Foreign Affairs committee is involved in "a kangaroo court" orchestrated by "the coalition-government- wanabees (Bloc-Liberal-NDP)" to "try and then convict good Canadian citizens whose only crime is to do their duty to look out for Canadian taxpayers" :

"They have concocted one fantasy in which Harper government neo-cons sought to destroy the "independence" of Rights and Democracy, and a second fantasy in which pro-Israel foreign policy has been imposed on an innocent staff only interested in human rights. How wonderfully irresistible for Harper Haters and Israel Bashers."

"There never was an ‘Israel issue' at Rights and Democracy," states Navarro-Genie and then goes on to complain that the Foreign Affairs committee is beginning its hearings into the R&D controversy "starting on the first day of Passover which reflects its attitude toward Jewish Canadians".

Particularly egregious is his statement that now deceased president Beauregard's widow is being "dragged before Parliament by ghoulish Opposition members". This after the Con committee member Jim Abbott filibustered the last meeting for its entire session with the precise intention of preventing her appearance after she had publicly requested permission to appear in a letter to the committee.

Navarro-Génie ends by saying "Only the board, maligned as it is, wants to protect the organization and the taxpayer", a stirring ring of endorsement for R&D which would have greater credibility had he and the other board members not already written previous editorials in the National Post doubting whether R&D had any right to exist.

So what has put the wind up Navarro-Genie this morning?
Here are two notable moments from witnesses at the committee today :

One. Remember R&D interim Chair Aurel Braun's "discovery" that $10,000 each had been awarded to "toxic anti-Israel" organisations Al Haq, Al Mezan and B'Tselem by R&D to document human rights violations committed during the invasion of Gaza?

Panoussian testified that he had told Braun of the three one-time grants - which represented .2% of the R&D budget - within the first hour of his first briefing with Braun on Braun's first day on the job.
If true, so much for "The board discovered the information only by diligently pursuing the facts.".

Two. Secretary of the Board Marie-France Cloutier testified that after Mr. Beauregard informed the Board in a March 2009 meeting that "Rights and Democracy would not participate in any way in the Durban Review Conference even if invited", Aurel Braun asked her to "change the minutes of the meeting to attribute this decision to himself and the board" instead. She refused, offering to bring his suggestion up at the next meeting for a vote. Yes, she's been fired.

More from Kady, live-blogging the meeting. Or you can listen to it yourself here.
Written evidence from the three fired R&D witnesses here.
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War... What is it good for?...Absolutely boatloads of money

The Globe and Mail has a four page excerpt from Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine :

"In December, 2006, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group fronted by James Baker issued its long-awaited report. It called for the U.S. to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and to “encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.”

The Bush administration immediately pushed ahead by helping to draft a radical new oil law for Iraq, which would allow companies like Shell and BP to sign 30-year contracts in which they could keep a large share of Iraq's oil profits, amounting to tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars – unheard of in countries with as much easily accessible oil as Iraq, and a sentence to perpetual poverty in a country where 95 per cent of government revenues come from oil."

"Explaining why it was justified for such a large percentage of the profits to leave Iraq, the oil companies cited the security risks. In other words, it was the disaster that made the radical proposed law possible."

Naomi Klein's husband, Avi Lewis, interviewed James Baker for his CBC show On The Map. Only one in twenty Iraq MPs saw that oil law before it was passed. And then there are the profits to be made from the privatization of war. Klein :

"Associated Press put the number of contractors in Iraq at 120,000, almost equivalent to the number of U.S. troops. In scale, this kind of privatized warfare has already overshadowed the United Nations. The UN's budget for peacekeeping in 2006-2007 was $5.25-billion – that's less than a quarter of the $20-billion Halliburton got in Iraq contracts, and the latest estimates are that the mercenary industry alone is worth $4-billion."

In a book interview on CBC's TheCurrent this week, Klein remains obstinately hopeful. Canadians have been fighting "disaster capitalism" for decades, she says, with their continued support for public infrastructure and medicare. The best insurance against being "shocked" into accepting any colonialist corporate agenda is to be ready for it by being informed. Go, Naomi.

Immediately following Klein's CBC interview, Greg Palast and Aurel Braun from Trinity College heatedly discuss the book. Aurel Braun gets the phrase 'conspiracy theory' out a couple of times before Palast puts the ideological boots to him. It must really bite Brown's ass that Palast, who actually studied under Milton Friedman and the Chicago boys, can so easily one-up a Friedman apologist like Braun, who didn't.

Go on - treat yourself.

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