Partisan? Embittered? Do I look partisan and embittered?
"The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release, and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered," Monaghan told a news conference....
You can't make this stuff up:"The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release, and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered," Monaghan told a news conference.UPDATE: More non-partisan, unembittered public servants:He never admitted to the leak, but made it clear that he was profoundly opposed to the government's handling of the climate-change file. For four years he had worked on contract at Environment Canada, reading media articles and writing analyses of what they contained.
At the same time, Monaghan was helping to open an anarchist bookstore in downtown Ottawa that lists as its beliefs "egalitarianism, co-operation and a collective struggle against abuses of power."
Monaghan is a member of a collective that recently opened an anarchist bookstore in downtown Ottawa. He's also a drummer with the punk band The Suicide Pilots, which has an album called Rock Against Harper.And still more:The band webpage on MySpace depicts a plane flying into the Peace Tower on Ottawa's Parliament Hill.
Patty Ducharme, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said she could not endorse Monaghan's actions because she did not know enough about the alleged leak. However, she criticized the government for taking such aggressive action against him."What we can do is recognize that what the government has done to this worker is extremely heavy handed," she told CTV's Mike Duffy Live. "It sort of speaks to the whole tone of this government and their value of public service workers."...
5/10/2007
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No, YOU can't make this stuff up.
I despise Harper and would like nothing more than to see him removed from office, and I was happy to see the environment leak turn an already crappy week for the Tories into an even worse one. Plus, it must be pretty galling for committed environmentalists (as there must be in the Ministry of the Environment) to swallow Baird's pathetic programs.
However, Monaghan comes across as self-important grandstander, completely unapologetic about mixing politics with public service. I don't so much mind that he leaked the information: occasional leaks have their purposes, as the sponsorship scandal showed.
It's his defence that annoys me: instead of arguing that made a hard choice between upholding his oath and the public interest, he seems utterly unwilling to acknowledge that any violation occurred except of his rights. I'm not impressed.
I don't think we ought to particularly care what he does in his spare time: there's no law that says PSC workers can't have opinions. (I can hardly wait till the media seizes on this airplane business.) They just have to maintain a boundary of propriety when they come into the office.
Monaghan has managed a near-impossible feat: he has made Harper and Baird appear to be as sympathetic characters.
The new Svend? Could be a candidate, he does the indignation thing well. And the NDP proclaiming him as a responsible "whistleblower"? Shows you where the Dippers are.
Does being a temp mean the guy doesn't have union representation? Another angle for him to play David and Goliath with.
If Patty Ducharme refused to criticize Monaghan, saying that she didn't know enough about the situation, then how could she criticize the government for its action regarding this situation?
As for Monaghan, he violated the public trust. He has no right to take it upon himself to change the actions of my elected gov't, without the permission of the electorate.
He took a document, marked Secret, which was meant to be debated in the House by all elected representatives, and prevented a fair and reasoned debate by sending it to partisans - the MSM who are eager for emotional issues to attract readers and viewers, and the Kyotoist cultists. This action prevented a fair and reasoned debate by all elected members in the House. Monaghan violated the public trust, by this undemocratic action.
Because he 'feels strongly' about an issue does not make his opinions valid, truthful or 'the only solution'.
He is most definitely not a whistle blower, an act that refers only to illegal actions. He is a violator of the public trust, and ought to be fined and/or jailed.
So having the man lead away in handcuffs, only to release him without charge wasn't grandstanding?
What about all those other "leaks" that aren't given the same treatment?
1. The RCMP arrested the guy because he was leaking secret policy documents. That is serious.
2. His principled opposition is risible. A committed environmentalist is angry because of what? The $18 technology fund contribution ramps up too slowly and starts too soon? It should start at $20 in 2008 instead? Those are bona fide objections, but they're pretty technocratic and moreover don't differ in terms of ultimate objective.
Imagine what this guy must do at a restaurant when they screw up his order, or even just give him an undersized pickle.
You have to wonder about some people sometimes. If he knew how much of an idiot he looked like up in front of that podium yesterday, I'm sure he'd regret ever doing it. Of course, he's totally oblivious to those sorts of things, so carries along happily enough.
What happened to Scissorman is nothing compared to what the Liberals did to Francois Beaudoin and Allan Cutler.
I hope we see more and more of this guy. And that the media pursues the many storylines available to them. This guy is
like a double edged-sword, extremely dangerous for each of the Parties to handle. I'll put my money on Harper's team coming out looking the best at the end of it all.
For starters, it seems to have escaped most reporters notice that it was the Deputy Minister of the Environment who notified the RCMP about the leak. Minister Baird is quite properly one step removed from any involvement here.
And notice how there were no CPC MPs talking to reporters. It was all OPPOSITION MPs making their comments. So far, as usual, Harper is playing this just right. The Opposition are stumbling and bumbling and rambling, looking like idiots.
Keep the story going MSM. You're helping Harper more than you realize.
Apparently he broke th terms of his employment agreement and apparently he broke the terms of his confidentiality agreement.
Either one is enough is enough for hi to be fired...the latter is enough for him to be led in handcuffs.
Oh and the crashing plane doesnt appear to be on the website anymore, a little embaressed I guess.
But good for them they are milking the publicity....wonder if there will be a double bill of the suicide pilots and shit from hell
Imagine what this guy must do at a restaurant when they screw up his order, or even just give him an undersized pickle.
I'm thinking this guy's 'undersized pickle' is why he seems so upset.
Every employee with the government swears a secrecy oath no matter how lowly or what position. Even 4 month temporary student workers have to swear not to divulge any sensitive information they may inadvertantly come across, I know because I was one. I was also made aware of the consequences and seriousness of what would happen should I divulge said information. This guy broke that oath and is guilty of passing secret information to peopel not authorized to have it. He should go to jail.
Maybe a hard look is due at why there are so many temps in PSC at the moment, and what implications this has for the quality of service the public is getting.
"He is most definitely not a whistle blower, an act that refers only to illegal actions."
well, he was leaking a document showing that the gov't was going to abrogate it's obligations under int'l law...the kyoto accord. the fact that he was arrested w/o charge is quite strange. interesting story whatever your opinion though.
"Maybe a hard look is due at why there are so many temps in PSC at the moment, and what implications this has for the quality of service the public is getting."
Yes, the temps are the problem....much better to have unionized "lifers" in there where the government can NEVER fire them.....
canuckistan,
And was the government planning on keeping its secret forever....were they trying to hide it?
No.
SO he leaked something before he should of. Jail no, firing minimum...shamed publically, seems appropriate.
Can someone explain why a self-described "anarchist" could be in favour of Canada complying with a treaty? Last time I checked, an anarchist is someone who rejected all laws and government. Such a person should be in favour of Canada ignoring Kyoto. It is too much to expect a bookstore to have a dictionary?
Though I recognize (and embrace!) the ridiculousness of all of this, one ought to expect public servants to both be interested in politics and have strong opinions on them.
Which, I suppose, is the point...
However, whether or not Mr Monaghan is in deep denial about his own politics, handcuffs are a little overboard. Goes along with Harper-style arrogant authoritarianism, I suppose.
Love the Harper haters.
If they hauled away (in handcuffs... gasp!) a guy who chopped the heads off babies on Parliament Hill.... you guys would compain about Harper's heavy-handed and Bush-like (whatever that means) treatment of someone who hasn't been convicted yet. And to squeeze a little more out of the story, one of you would say "that's something Hitler would have done."
Here's a scenario. Pretend a Conservative snuck through the door while Chretien was in power. And the fellow disagreed with the Liberal budget that was being prepared.... thought it would wreck the country with all its waste and pandering.
Would the fellow be a "whistleblower" if he leaked the budget weeks early?
Twist yourselves inside out trying to explain how that would be different from this.
The tragedy here is that among our political parties there are apparently no overarching principles that trump possible political gain. A non-partisan, neutral public service benefits everyone - the NDP in particular cannot seem to understand this.
I think we're all forgetting the stress that this young man is under.
Apparently he is part of an 'anarchist collective.'
Does anyone here have any concept of how difficult it must be to get a bunch of anarchists organized?
What must the meetings be like?
"Err, can we get this underway? We've got a full agenda..."
"I refuse to follow your facist agenda..."
Etc.
Plus, how hard must it be to get an anarchist bookstore into some semblence of order? Surely they can't be fans of the Dewey decimal system, so finding things must be really difficult.
Even the cognitive dissonance caused by the fact that you are a member of an ANARCHIST ORGANISATION may cause you to act out a bit.
This public servant is an affront to democracy and therefore deserves to be treated like a criminal. The public service is not elected, and therefore they must obey the wishes of the elected government.
Of course, Monaghan would probably admit that he prefers anarchy to democracy.
A public servant leaked a secret file that was due to be debated by our elected representatives.
Someone please tell me that they're not considering letting this moron keep his job, or do I have too much faith in our government?
"Anarchist Collective". Now that is a good name for a band.
When I was doing communications for the Ontario government we always assumed that the Minister's office would leak to the Star so they'd get a double hit on the day of release.
Do you suppose this prick was treated more or less harshly than, say, a Manitoba farmer who does no more than truck his own grain to his own barn?
This guy's got nothing at all to complain about.
What I find odd about this is that no one seems to be pointing out that this plan by the Tories shouldn't have been marked as secret.
Documents which are labeled secret should be done so under strict guidelines (for more info read "The Politics of Lying" by David Wise or "Worse than Watergate" by John Dean). Unless this plan was riddled with security measures or contract figures, it should not have been top secret.
I am dismayed that AC (and to be fair the CBC) has decided to focus not on the issue at hand: in this case that a man was arrested for leaking documents which he either does or does not have a right to 'leak'.
Instead they felt the man's fringe political background and music tastes were 'the real story' here. Bad reporting IMHO. This kind of focus is worthy of Fox news.
All I can say is that I have more faith in people like Monaghan watching over the Government than in self-agrandizing and gormless courtiers in the media making a career out of being obtuse, evasive and mostly ineffectual when it comes to analyzing Conservative politics.
I'd like to know who hired this clown and what for. My experience with govt jobs. is you gotta know somone to get "in". Was he a plant, or mole for a political party, set to "go off" when convenient? How convenient for PSAC that he was "only a temp", thereby absolving the union of public employees of any perceived political interference with the govt. of the day. This stinks. There is more to this than what has been reported.
This so-called "anarchist" has forgotten the first precept of the anarchist: Ask nothing of the State.
Interesting that a few weeks after this leak took place, the Monaghan angle to the story has pretty much become irrelevant, but the government's climate change agenda is still suffering from its clumsy public launch. Baird comes off as an angry, dough-faced, partisan hack while his climate policy is D.O.A. Maybe all those who are delightedly slagging the charisma-challenged and naive Monaghan should consider for a moment how his possibly criminal leak and inept news conference only managed to take all the attention away from the government's agenda when it actually needed and wanted to be in the spotlight. Follow this with very public and poorly-handled run-ins with no less than David Suzuki AND Al Gore (!!!), and the doughnut-loving Baird was dunked.
Testing
A number of these comments have made me laugh.
Hatred of all things Conservative aside, most objective commenters on Minister Baird's environment plan will admit that while not the most aggresive plan in the world, it is certainly the best environment plan to come out of Canada...ever.
In my opinion (and many people I've talked to agree) it is in fact Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Gore who have made fools of themselves in their comments on this environment plan which seem more motivated by partisanship than actual environmental critique. Case in point: can anyone remember Suzuki coming out even remotely close how negative he is toward Baird back when the Libs were doing FAR less with FAR more useless environmental measures? I know I can't.
Answers to some comments on anarchism:
1. anonymous said...
"Can someone explain why a self-described "anarchist" could be in favour of Canada complying with a treaty? Last time I checked, an anarchist is someone who rejected all laws and government. Such a person should be in favour of Canada ignoring Kyoto."
Time to check again. Anarchism literally means "no rulers" which is significantly different than "no rules." Most anarchists believe in legitimate rules, so it's not surprising that they might be in favour of Kyoto if they feel it's a legitimate law. Gandhi and Luther King Jr are good examples of people who could point out the difference between just and unjust laws. Being against illegitimate authority -- which people like Harper often embody -- is a whole other matter. "But he was democratically elected!" one might retort (even though the Conservatives only got 36% of the vote from less than 24% of the electorate). Ignoring more than three quarters of Canadians is hardly legitimate, just or moral.
2. kwest said...
"Does anyone here have any concept of how difficult it must be to get a bunch of anarchists organized?"
True; it can be quite difficult to organize right-wing anarchists like individualist anarchists and anarcho-capitalists. But anti-authoritarians who believe in collectivism (left-wing anarchists) often organize quite well. George Orwell and Canada's own Dr. Norman Bethune joined the millions of anarchists in Spain who were the first to resist the Nazis and fascism. The Israeli Kibbutz movement is another successful example of hundreds of thousands of anti-authoritarian collectivists working together in a highly organized society.
3. sean said...
"Monaghan would probably admit that he prefers anarchy to democracy."
Anarchy, in the political sense, is actually most synonymous with direct democracy. Since it doesn't depend on rulers to make and enforce laws, it depends upon the highest participation of citizens in order to function. Fascism is the opposite; it prefers citizens have as little say as possible and just tow the party line. It's not coincidence that Harper fits the latter category.
4. voltaire-malaise said...
"This so-called "anarchist" has forgotten the first precept of the anarchist: Ask nothing of the State."
Funny how you think anarchists adhere to some fictitious dogma of precepts created by non-anarchists. Actually, anarchists like Noam Chomsky would be among the first to encourage people to use the state if it can protect people from even greater coercion that exists elsewhere. For many anarchists, using the state as a means to an end is quite valid. Using people as means to ends is usually resisted by anarchists, even though it comes quite easily to many capitalists. If people were treated as ends in themselves, there would be no need for an interventionist state to protect people from the abuses of economic and other forms of power.