To appear or not to appear? Baird's staff assesses the damage

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (known on the Hill as OGGO) asked that John Baird, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities, to appear for before it. Yesterday, some odd e-mail correspondence was distributed to reporters by the press relations people in Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's office. The correspondence is between the clerk of that committee – an independent, non-political servant of the committee — and Rana Shamoon, a special assistant in Baird's office. Shamoon would be part of the minister's political staff and is not part of the independent, non-partisan departmental staff.

First, a message from Shamoon in response to clerk Michel Marcotte's initial request to have Minister Baird appear before the committee (In these messages, I have removed telephone numbers and replaced e-mail addresses with the individual's name):

De : Shamoon, Rana
Envoyé : 8 avril 2009 14:47
À : Marcotte, Michel Cc : Tony Reznowski; Hamilton, Ben; Baldwin, Kristin
Objet : OGGO

Hi Michel, As discussed, Minister Baird will be unable to appear before OGGO on April 21st concerning the stimulus fund since he has made other commitments that day.

Thank you, Rana Shamoon

Marcotte tries again with this e-mail to Shamoon:

From: Marcotte, Michel
To: Shamoon, Rana
Sent: Thu Apr 09 09:02:11 2009
Subject: RE: OGGO

I understand Minister Baird will appear before the SC on Transport between 3 :00 and 4 : 00 p.m.. Are you sure he cannot appear before the SC on Government Operations and Estimates, between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m., on the Infrastructures side of the stimulus package? The plan is to have a televised meeting with Ministers (Department officials already appeared last week) on the status of the 3 $ Billions envelope.

Michel Marcotte
Procedural Clerk / Greffier à la procédure
Committees Directorate / Direction des comités
House of Commons / Chambre des communes

To which Marcotte gets this very odd reply from Shamoon:

From: Shamoon, Rana
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 9:14 AM
To: Michel Marcotte Cc: Baldwin, Kristin; Hamilton, Ben
Subject: Re: OGGO

Hi Mike – as already discussed this at the strategy meeting, we really are not trying to be difficult but we think it would be more damaging to have him appear than not appear at this point.

Rana Shamoon

At this point, enter Liberal MP Martha Hall FIndlay in Question Period Tuesday. Hall Findlay is a member of the Govt Ops and Estimates committee:

Mme Martha Hall Findlay (Willowdale, Lib.): Monsieur le Président, le Comité permanent des opérations gouvernementales et des prévisions budgétaires examine les mesures de stimulation dans le budget 2009. Le ministre des Transports, de l’Infrastructure et des Collectivités s'est engagé à comparaître devant le comité afin de discuter des mesures de stimulation. Or, depuis, le ministre ne cesse de décliner des convocations à comparaître.

Le ministre voudrait-il expliquer pourquoi il a changé d'avis?

Hon. John Baird (Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I was before the committee just last week and I have always made myself available to go to the committee. I would be very pleased to answer any specific questions that the member has and I look forward to doing just that.

Ms. Martha Hall Findlay (Willowdale, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, different committees and let me quote from and email sent by the minister's staff to the clerk of the government operations committee now declining the committees request to appear,“We think it would be more damaging to have him appear than not appear”.

I know I may have been a little firm with the minister the first time he appeared, but he is not usually short of things to say. Could he explain what exactly would be damaging and to whom?

Hon. John Baird (Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I say to the member of the Liberal Party, if I had the opportunity to go before the committee and to read the quote from the Leader of the Liberal Party, “We will have to raise your taxes”.

Canadians from coast to coast to coast want to know from this member for Willowdale which taxes will she raise, how much will they be raised and will the Liberals finally come clean with Canadians and be honest about their tax increasing plan?

But wait there's more — Baird press secretary Chris Day provides more information and context