How Dr. Porter was able to gain the Prime Minister’s trust and work his way from sitting on the Canadian Institute of Health Research’s governing council, into the Privy Council, and to the top of SIRC while allegedly participating in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme in Montreal remains in question.
“He appears to have fooled everybody for a long time—some of the most august institutions in the country,” said Ray Boisvert, former assistant director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Mr. Boisvert said that it was not uncommon for political questions to be raised over appointments during his 25-year career at CSIS.
“Every once in awhile there’d be some questions—how did so-and-so get the job, how were they selected and actually vetted,” he recalled.
Mr. Porter remains a member of the Queen’s Privy Council, despite having left the country after abruptly stepping down as executive director of the McGill University Health Centre and chair of SIRC, which is responsible for reviewing the activities of CSIS at the end of 2011.
The Privy Council Office took steps to strengthen its vetting process for SIRC appointees following Mr. Porter’s resignation and the allegations that followed.
Raymond Rivet, the Privy Council Office’s communications director, said that the vetting process includes RCMP and police records, CSIS security vetting, and a review by the Canada Revenue Agency.
“PCO ensures the continued loyalty and reliability of SIRC members through background checks and the cycle of security clearance and background check updates, as well as through follow-up action, which may include a security clearance suspension or revocation, if information is uncovered that raises serious concerns about an individual’s reliability or loyalty,” Mr. Rivet responded by email.
Current SIRC chair and former Conservative Cabinet minister Chuck Strahl said that it was unlikely that a vetting process could have flagged Mr. Porter’s alleged activities while director of MUHC.
“It’s 20/20 hindsight. The best question would be to ask the Montreal Hospital Board whether they saw this coming. I’m going to guess they didn’t see it coming. Nobody did,” Mr. Strahl told The Hill Times. “[T]hat someone might go sideways years from now is an awfully difficult thing to predict. Until something comes up that’s concrete, it’s awfully difficult to predict.”
Mr. Porter was arrested in Panama on May 27 with his wife Pamela Mattock Porter. The two face charges in Quebec of defrauding the Quebec government over the construction of the McGill University Hospital Centre, accepting bribes from construction company SNC-Lavalin, and conspiring to launder money.
Former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime and construction director Riadh Ben Aissa were arrested earlier this year for their involvement in the scheme. SNC has been accused of paying Mr. Porter for confidential information on another construction conglomerate that was bidding on the contract to build the $1.3-billion medical complex.
Mr. Porter, a trained oncologist who attended Cambridge, Harvard, and the University of Toronto, had been operating a chain of cancer treatment centres in the Caribbean and recently self-diagnosed himself as having lung and liver cancer. Although he has appeared visibly weakened in recent footage, he is fighting extradition to Canada while imprisoned in Panama’s notoriously unsafe, unsanitary, and overcrowded La Joya prison.
Concerns have also been raised over a failed effort by Mr. Porter to have Montreal-based consultant and arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe transfer $200,000 to the Russian government in return for $120-million in infrastructure development funding for Mr. Porter’s home country of Sierra Leone, which would be directed to a company owned and operated by Mr. Porter.
Both Mr. Strahl and Mr. Boisvert acknowledged that the allegations were serious, but they downplayed suggestions that Mr. Porter’s dealings in Montreal would have involved national security breaches at SIRC.
While much has been made of Mr. Porter’s access to top secret files, Mr. Boisvert described the former chair’s access to CSIS documents as “indirect.” The information that SIRC requests remains at CSIS headquarters and is often only reviewed by SIRC researchers, rather than the actual committee members.
“There’s no indication of treason, no indication of espionage, no indication that he was associated with a terrorist organization,” Mr. Boisvert observed. “From a national security perspective, I’m not concerned about it. But is it distasteful? The optics are bad.”
Mr. Strahl said that while SIRC members have access to top secret information, it remains on a “need-to-know basis.”
“The chairman himself doesn’t go to SIRC and start browsing—it just doesn’t happen,” Mr. Strahl said. “It’s not like you have unfettered access to CSIS computers or something. There’s no computer linkage between SIRC and CSIS. ... [Y]ou assign professional researchers and experts that receive assignments and work on these projects.”
The government has defended Mr. Porter’s appointment to SIRC and noted that when Mr. Harper appointed him in 2008, it was with the approval of then Liberal leader Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) and then NDP leader Jack Layton.
The Hill Times contacted Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.) as to whether or not his department had investigated if Mr. Porter had compromised national security.
Andrew McGrath, press secretary to Mr. Toews, responded in an email that the minister would not comment on the existence of investigations.
“Mr. Porter’s appointment to SIRC was approved by both the former leader of the Liberal Party and the former leader of the NDP,” Mr. McGrath stated. “Anyone involved in corruption must face the full force of the law. Arthur Porter resigned nearly two years ago. These allegations have no connection to his role with the federal government.”
The Hill Times asked Mr. Dion last week about whether or not he had approved Mr. Porter’s appointment.
“I don’t think I had really been consulted ... we had been informed,” Mr. Dion told The Hill Times in the House of Commons foyer.
However, at the time the government had also consulted with then Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe. He declined to give his approval to the appointment based on reports that Mr. Porter had been in conflicts of interest at the Detroit Medical Centre and left that organization in a financial shambles.
Despite sordid allegations of dealings with international arms dealers and agreements to rig construction contracts, Mr. Porter remains a member of the Queen’s Privy Council, giving him the title of ‘honourable’ and access to classified information, according to the PCO.
The Hill Times asked the Prime Minister’s Office if Mr. Porter was going to be stripped of his membership to the Privy Council. PMO press secretary Carl Vallée did not answer the question.
“Arthur Porter resigned nearly two years ago. These allegations have no connection to the federal government,” he responded in an email.
Retired Conservative Senator David Angus has been identified in media reports as the person who introduced Mr. Porter to the Prime Minister. Sen. Angus was chair of the MUHC board of directors and director of the Conservative Fund of Canada at the time that Mr. Porter was made executive director of the planned medical facility.
Mr. Porter donated the maximum amount of $1,100 annually from 2008 and 2010 to the Conservative Party of Canada, when he was a member of SIRC.
“The entire Mr. Porter matter is under police investigation and criminal charges have been laid against him and his wife. Thus it would be totally inappropriate for me to comment and I accordingly decline to do so,” Mr. Angus responded in an email.
NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.), his party’s ethics, access to information, and privacy commissioner, said that Mr. Porter’s appointment to SIRC calls into question the Prime Minister’s judgment, regardless of whether or not a more rigorous vetting process had been in place.
“Here’s a man who appointed a convicted fraud artist in Bruce Carson and brought him into his inner sanctum. A man who promoted Arthur Porter, who’s now trying to evade justice, and he chose three Senators who have brought real disrepute onto the public system,” he said, referring to Senators Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Patrick Brazeau. “The fact that [Mr. Porter] oversaw Canada’s top spy agency is on the run from justice—I think any Canadian would ask what the heck happened under his watch.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: CHRIS PLECASH
No comments:
Post a Comment