Bev Oda, the Minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, is totally out of touch with her responsibilities.
Her portfolio, her mandate, is to spend Canadian taxpayers' money to relieve misery, poverty and hunger in the world's poorest communities.
But when she travelled to England recently, the five-star hotel arranged for her was not good enough. She booked herself into the Savoy at $650 a night, far more than the rates at the hotel where the meetings she was to attend were being held and where staff had originally booked her. And ordered orange juice at $16 a glass. And a limousine to take her to the hotel where she should have been in the first place - at $1,000 a day.
Oh sure, when she realized Canadians were going to learn how regal she thinks she deserves to be treated, she decided to pay the hotel-bill difference out of her own pocket. Just as she did when she was found out earlier ordering a limousine instead of taking the van provided.
But she didn't pay back the $1,000 a day for the limousine in England.
This is the same Oda who personally, in defiance of advice from her departmental staff, axed funding for Kairos, a Canadian non-government organization (NGO) that dares to point out injustices around the world, injustices that fall harshly on the poor people CIDA is mandated to help.
The Harper government, which is said to be in budget-cutting mode, could cut Oda. I doubt many people would miss her - except, perhaps, the fellow fat cats who enjoy hob-nobbing about world poverty in some of the world's most expensive hotels.
It all underlines my advice that CIDA ought to cut its spending on bilateral and multi-lateral aid by, say 10 per cent. That's where corruption is rampant, where politicians and bureaucrats with sticky fingers skim money intended for the poor.
The 10 per cent should go instead to fund Canadian NGOs that get right into the impoverished communities where every penny counts. That money never passes through foreign politicians and bureaucrats. Besides, supporting NGOs to which Canadians voluntarily make donations might make Queen Oda popular with at least some Canadian voters.
