Harper Backs Oda Over Doctored Document

The prime minister said it was Bev Oda’s right to overturn her department’s recommendation to fund the Kairos aid group.

Speaking in the Commons Tuesday, Stephen Harper defended his minister for international co-operation, saying that she had ensured Canadian taxpayers’ money was used for effective foreign aid. That won’t appease opposition MPs however, who don’t dispute Oda’s authority over aid money but say she lied about the handwritten insertion of the word “not” in a funding document. The alteration falsely made it appear as if her department had recommended against funding Kairos. Monday Oda admitted to a Commons committee that she was behind the infamous “not,” even though she had testified earlier she didn’t know where it came from. Opposition MPs could initiate procedures Wednesday to make her the first Canadian to be found in contempt of Parliament since 1913.