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January 9, 2004
Israel supporters in cabinet
Jewish state has friends in the new Martin government, says Owen.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Pro-Israel members of Parliament have significantly more strength
in the new Liberal government under Paul Martin, according to Stephen
Owen, member of Parliament for Vancouver-Quadra and the new minister
of public works and government services.
About a year ago, Owen and about two dozen other Liberal MPs formed
Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel, which is now an official caucus
committee. In the new cabinet, unveiled by Martin last month, members
of the pro-Israel caucus were given significant new positions, including
Irwin Cotler's appointment as minister of justice. Cotler, MP for
the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, is a former head of Canadian
Jewish Congress. Along with Owen, other cabinet members who belong
to the pro-Israel group include Ontario MPs Joe Volpe (minister
of human resources and skills development), Carolyn Bennett (minister
of state for public health) and Jim Peterson (minister of international
trade). Vancouver-area Sen. Jack Austin, who is Jewish, has been
appointed leader of the government in the Senate, another cabinet
position. Returning to cabinet is another member of the pro-Israel
group, Montreal MP Lucienne Robillard, the minister of industry.
Owen, who was first elected in 2000, previously served as secretary
of state for western economic diversification, Indian affairs and
northern development. Earlier, he served as parliamentary secretary
to the minister of justice.
Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel have issued a number of position
papers, which were presented to Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham
in a meeting last year. They outline the committee's stand on Israeli-Palestinian
affairs, expressing specific concern over issues such as the language
used around the debate. "Cycle of violence," for example,
is a bugbear of a term, which Owen said distorts the reality of
the conflict, with Palestinian terror put on an equal footing with
Israel's right to defend its civilian citizenry.
"It suggests an equivalency that does not properly describe
the dynamics of violence in the Middle East," he said.
Other issues the committee has explicitly addressed include Israeli
soldiers missing in action in Lebanon, the struggle for recognition
of Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of Red Cross and Red
Crescent, and the application to the CRTC by operators seeking to
bring the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera to Canadian television viewers.
The committee is also set to consider any Canadian complicity in
funding Palestinian school materials that incite young people to
violence and hatred.
Though Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel is a small group of MPs,
Owen said the orientation of the committee has not met with any
disagreement within the larger government caucus.
"I have not heard one thing in three years [from other Liberal
MPs] that would contradict the thrust of [the committee's views
on Israel]," Owen said. "It's not as if there is an acrimonious
debate, or any debate, going on."
Formal meetings and informal discussions have convinced Owen that
the committee has a friend in Foreign Affairs Minister Graham.
"He was totally supportive of the group and the role we want
to play," said Owen.
Drawbacks?
Though the appointment of a half-dozen cabinet ministers with strongly
stated support for Israel seems like a victory, Owen acknowledged
that the parliamentary system has the potential to make membership
in cabinet seem counterproductive to goals like those of Liberal
Parliamentarians for Israel. Cabinet ministers are, by tradition,
forbidden from speaking out against government policy or even advocating
change outside of the secrecy of cabinet meetings. Cabinet solidarity
has the potential to stifle free debate among those who belong both
to cabinet and Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel.
"A member of cabinet should not be criticizing or even openly
advocating a change in policy," he said. "That should
be done within cabinet."
Though cabinet ministers will be far less likely to speak out publicly
on individual issues outside their portfolio, their views are far
more influential inside the cabinet room, he said.
"We are in cabinet, therefore, as a communication tool, we
have people inside the cabinet as well as educating from the outside,"
he said, noting that the names of some members of the committee
do not appear on some of the committee's reports.
"We are not direct signatories, even though we took part,"
he said.
Owen acknowledged that most members of the committee are either
Jewish or represent ridings with significant Jewish populations.
Though his own Vancouver-Quadra riding is home to part of British
Columbia's Jewish community, Owen has more personal connections
as well, being married to Diane Koerner, a member of a prominent
Vancouver Jewish family. (Owen did not convert to marry. "I'm
a humanist," he said.)
Owen spoke to the Bulletin a week after he was sworn into
the new government and the day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon delivered a speech outlining a potential policy of "disengagement."
"I do not support the approach of Prime Minister Sharon on
all issues," said Owen. "But that rang realistic to me.
That was stating the obvious: If we can't get a bilateral solution
... we're getting close to the time when we'll have to act unilaterally....
The first responsibility of a national government is the protection
of its citizens. That is a responsibility that Israel faces."
Pragmatic views
On the issue of the security fence under construction by Israel,
Owen was pragmatic, saying the policy could have the unintended
consequence of enflaming tensions.
"I'm not a geographer and I'm not on the ground," he said.
"But the first principle is that no country should be criticized
for taking border security measures it thinks are necessary, but
if you're going beyond recognized borders, you've always got to
do the arithmetic and wonder if you're stirring up more violence."
On the issue of a "right of return" for Arab former citizens
of Israeli lands, Owen said any solution needs to consider the similar
expulsion from Arab lands of Jewish refugees after 1948. Either
way, he said, the "right of return" is certain to be little
more than a symbolic measure used as a bargaining chip in any final
peace agreement. He suggested an international fund could compensate
Jewish and Arab claimants.
With a federal election expected this year, possibly within weeks,
Owen said he thinks the Middle East will play a part.
"The issue of peace in the Middle East is an important one
and certainly it should be an issue in the election." But he
cautions that complex issues of public policy, especially those
involving violence and emotion, must be handled very carefully in
the cut and thrust of a campaign. He criticizes the Canadian Alliance
foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day for oversimplifying the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
"When I look at Stockwell Day and the statements he's made,
I've found him very simplistic," said Owen. "One thing
about government and being part of government is that you have to
be coherent and you can't just take simple solutions to every problem
independently. You don't have the luxury of simple condemnations,
simple solutions."
Day and the Canadian Alliance have been vocally and unequivocally
supportive of Israel in the past several years, taking an absolute
position that would be difficult to maintain in a government that
has to deal with other players in the region on a host of issues
both economic and diplomatic, said Owen.
"In my experience, there is nothing more dangerous than the
absolute. We have to be very careful ... not to try and impose absolute
solutions," said Owen.
The new Conservative party of Canada, which is the amalgam of the
Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives, has yet to adopt policies
on the Middle East or anything else. The new party's founding convention
will select a leader and begin creating policy in March.
Vast responsibilities
Of his own new responsibilities in cabinet, Owen noted he was surprised
when Paul Martin first asked him to take on the portfolio of public
works and government services. Owen's experience has been as a legal
scholar, a deputy attorney general for British Columbia and ombudsperson
for the province, among other high-profile responsibilities, before
he entered politics three year ago.
"It hadn't jumped into my mind as a likely portfolio, but as
[Martin] talked to me about it and talked about what he expected
and what my mandate would be, it started to make a lot of sense,"
said Owen.
His department is the largest land-owner in Canada, operates the
country's largest fleet of vehicles and comes with the added responsibility
of receiver general for Canada, a title familiar to most Canadians
as the recipient of and signatory to almost every cheque coming
into and going out of the federal government. The department is
responsible for procurement of almost all government supplies and
services, as well as most government advertising.
"$1.3 trillion went through the account of the receiver general
last year," said Owen. The department itself has a $4.2 billion
operating budget.
"It's vast. I should have known that but I didn't," he
said.
Owen's career experience has put him in positions of adjudicating
the ethical behavior of government and public officials. This experience
has given him a reputation as a judicious public servant, something
he implies was on the prime minister's mind when he appointed Owen
to cabinet.
The department of public works and government services has suffered
from questions about expenditures on such fronts as national unity
ad campaigns in Quebec and the methods of assigning contracts. Political
interference in the administration of federal spending leads inevitably
to the department responsible for procurement, said Owen. Any implication
of impropriety in this facet of government operations calls into
question the legitimacy of federal spending.
"If there is going to be any department of government that
should operate in the most transparent, ethical, accountable, fair
way, it is public works and government services," said Owen.
"That was the message from Prime Minister Paul Martin."
The minister clarified that image as much as reality is important
around issues of spending and ethics in government.
"We are nobly served in Canada by our public service and our
police, our courts," he said. "But it doesn't take much
of a bad example for people to become disenchanted with government."
For this reason, Owen said, one of his priorities is to build a
firewall between the political spending decisions and the ways they
are carried out in terms of contract processes and efforts by individual
MPs to swing federal dollars to their pet projects or local ridings.
In addition, top priorities include the appointment of an independent
ethics commissioner and the smooth implementation of radical new
election financing restrictions, which took effect Jan. 1.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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