Heads up! Here comes the bullshit ball!

The feces seem to be splattering lightly off the blades of the fan in official circles as Canadian monitoring agencies appear to have hacked into servers in Brazil’s ministry of mines. First, Carol McNeil invited a former CSIS director to give his perspective, which predictably turned out to be a thin justification under the heading of a paper exercise where our boys were gaming a terror threat. Spin and damage control filled the screen with nary a challenge from Ms. McNeil. This was followed by a clip from Mr. Harper where he assured us that the government doesn’t share intelligence with private concerns, say, mining companies or energy consortia. It set off a bit of an alarm in that, quite recently, it was revealed that considerable government resources were being directed to the support of a series of energy projects as they move through the permitting process: if actions speak more loudly than words, we would have to assume that there is a good chance that the government is involved in wholesale industrial espionage for the benefit of Canadian business. This is surely jumping to a conclusion, but it’s plausible, and given the government’s record on truthfulness and forthrightness, there seems to be little that emanates from official Ottawa that is worth much trust. It’s particularly amusing to watch the crocodile tears over the damage to the relationship between the two countries (first think Embraer and Bombardier), and to absorb the faux contrition from Mr. Harper as he bemoans what will surely be a loss of faith in Canada’s goodwill. It’s like the husband who had a fling and got caught (no preemptive confession here) but assures his wife that it’s not official policy, or that it’s someone else’s fault. Too bad that the follow-on is likely to fall off the press cycle pretty quickly as back-channel chocolate and roses are laid on to patch up the marriage and ensure that business can go on as usual.