Is he too big to be reined in or at the very least told to lay off Twitter for a bit?
Michael Den Tandt,
“Mr. Speaker, I believe on Monday in question period I quoted a letter from the chief of the defence staff with respect to precision- guided munitions used by other air forces in Syria. The chief of the defence staff has subsequently issued a correction to part of that letter, which I would like to table. He expresses regret for the inaccurate information that was provided. As soon as new information became available, he corrected the record. As the minister of national defence, I am ultimately responsible for all of the information provided by my department. Therefore, I regret this inaccurate information having been put in the public domain and would like to table this to correct the record.” — Defence Minister Jason Kenney, to the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Jason Kenney has long been considered the Conservative party’s best approximation of an heir apparent; a dauphin, if you will. In a caucus notably lacking in strong performers, save for the Prime Minister and a handful of ministers, Kenney is a star. Or was. This minister has a potentially crippling Achilles heel; his very confidence and combativeness, coupled with instant access to social media, lead him to one snafu after another. Making matters worse, having erred, Kenney is incapable of apology.
In this, the defence minister personifies what ails his party as it heads into a make- or- break election; a stubborn refusal to admit error or consider fair criticism until the last grainery has been burned, the last well salted and the last bridge bombed.
Consider the statement Kenney made Wednesday during a quiet moment following a particularly fractious question period. His remarks were later reported to be an apology. But they were not that. Rather, the minister assigns blame for his most recent communications bungle to Gen. Tom Lawson, Canada’s top general.
“I am ultimately responsible,” translated from the doublespeak, means “I personally am blameless, but will honourably express regret for these unfortunate errors by my underlings. So hard to get good help, these days.”
Meanwhile, Kenney incorrectly claimed on Twitter the Ottawa Citizen had got it wrong in reporting the story. He hasn’t, at this writing, expressed even hollow regret for that misstatement.
There has been no true apology from him, even now, for his providing false information to Canadians in making the case for extending the military mission against ISIL.
A glance at the record reveals a pattern.
Last Oct. 22, as Ottawa reeled amid the attack on the National War Memorial and on Parliament, Kenney pre- emptively revealed on Twitter that a Canadian soldier had been killed, short- circuiting DND’s procedures for communicating deaths among its members. No remorse was ever expressed.
In early March, Kenney tweeted photos of the ramp ceremony for Sgt. Andrew Doiron, killed by friendly fire in Iraq. And in doing so, he revealed the faces of special operations soldiers, which is normally forbidden for the soldiers’ own safety. He responded to criticism by insisting that officers in Iraq had made the decision to release the photos.
On March 8, Kenney Tweeted photos of burka- clad women in chains, ostensibly enslaved by ISIL; in fact, the images depicted scenes from a ceremonial play.
The next weekend, the Ottawa Citizen reported that NATO had contradicted claims by Kenney that HMCS Fredericton had been “buzzed” by Russian fighters and “confronted” by Russian ships in the Black Sea.
It was soon superseded by the latest misstatement, correction and non- apology over who is and who is not deploying smart bombs in Syria.
From any government minister at any time, this cascade of self- inflicted wounds, followed by mulish pride, would be cause for concern. From a defence minister in wartime, it’s alarming.
That Kenney is a force within the Conservative party is undeniable. Is he too big to be reined in or at the very least told to lay off Twitter for a bit?