The Stephen Harper government was ready to splurge $25 billion or more for fighter jets. It’s spending $9 billion for jails we don’t need. But it has no money for programs and agencies it does not like. It has been axing or starving them — for example, the CBC, the Canadian International Development Agency, the foreign affairs department and the Montreal-based human rights group, Rights & Democracy, in this latest round of cuts alone.

Harper came to office in 2006 harbouring a deep distrust of the federal bureaucracy, which he considered a catacomb of Liberal sympathizers. He held a particular animus for foreign affairs, whose officials he thought of as elitist, having never travelled abroad. More crucially, he feared their resistance to his blind support of Israel.

His compulsive need to control all government communications hit our diplomats particularly hard. It hobbled their ability to publicly speak for Canada, something they have long been very good at. He muzzled them so much that, in 2008, the John Manley commission on Afghanistan publicly criticized him for preventing our embassies and ambassadors from representing our interests abroad.

Harper’s latest cut of $523.5 million over four years at foreign affairs comes on top of two earlier ones. He may be driven partly by the populist notion of stripping the pinstriped brigade of their martini lunches. But in reality, Canadian diplomats are among the hardest working civil servants, besides being among the brightest yet quintessentially modest Canadians.

The government is toying with the idea of selling off some embassies and official residences. We own some attractive properties in choice locations, as in Tokyo across the street from the Emperor’s palace. They are popular destinations and help raise Canada’s profile — an important tool in promoting trade and attracting investments to Canada. Selling them for short-term cash would sell Canada short.

The Harperites boast a commitment to the promotion of democracy, human rights and freedom of religion abroad. Yet they have systematically eviscerated the groups that have long advanced those Canadian values. Among the victims: the Ottawa-based Forum of Federations, which promotes federalism and democratic governance; Kairos, the global human rights arm of 11 Canadian churches; the Canadian Council of International Cooperation, which coordinates public policy on foreign aid; and MATCH, which worked on rights of women in the developing world.

Jennifer Ditchburn of The Canadian Press reported Thursday that “some of the government’s tools for helping democratic institutions flourish abroad are disappearing, including Elections Canada’s direct assistance for foreign elections in developing democracies . . .

“CIDA has virtually vacated the democracy-promotion business, with governance removed as a core priority. As a result, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas shut its doors last fall as CIDA funding virtually dried up.”

And now Foreign Minister John Baird has announced the closing of Rights & Democracy. Established in 1988 by Brian Mulroney, it promoted democracy, including in Afghanistan, Haiti and Myanmar. It helped the cause of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

But it ran afoul of the Harper-appointed members of its board. Angry at three small grants given to one Israeli and two Palestinian human rights groups critical of Israel, they hounded the agency’s president Remy Beauregard. He died in January 2010 of a heart attack on the night of a tumultuous board meeting. On the weekend of his funeral in Ottawa, there was a mysterious Watergate-style break-in at the centre and the only items stolen were two laptops. The staff rebelled. Three managers were fired. More than $1 million was spent on a “forensic audit” and consultants’ fees to find something, anything, to justify the witch-hunt.

Two directors resigned in protest, including Dr. Sima Samar, Afghanistan’s foremost women’s right advocate, who had been awarded the Order of Canada. Her departure was particularly embarrassing, given that our Afghan military mission was being justified, in part, as essential to promoting human rights there. Yet here she was quitting Canada’s own rights agency.

But Harper stood by his appointees. And now he has decided to close the agency that cost all of $11 million a year.

A spokesman for Baird says the agency’s work will be done by his department. It might even be passed off as fulfilment of a Harper promise made in the 2008 Speech from the Throne to create a democracy-promotion centre.

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What matters most to Harper is not human rights and democracy but rather their exact opposite: keeping authoritarian control, both at home and abroad.

Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears on Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiqui@thestar.ca

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