...same as the old boss? The announcement of a proposed new president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Gérard Latulippe, was made today by Lawrence Cannon, who also expressed strong support for the ludicrously redundant forensic audit of ICHRDD ordered by outgoing interim president Jacques Gauthier.
A Liberal turned member (and candidate) of the then-Canadian Alliance Party (now there's a leap), Latulippe is certainly chevronné. But credentials are merely a means to an end--and what end is that?
Paul Wells, who moves with lightning speed, covers some of Latulippe's background--and emphasizes the man's souverainiste credentials. I wouldn't make too much of that: some folks change political parties like underwear, and I offer you Lucien Bouchard as a case in point. Whatever the party, though, it's same old, same old:
The office of former solicitor general Gérard Latulippe broke government rules last year by not reporting a contract worth about $73,000 awarded to a Montreal consulting firm owned by friends of Latulippe and lawyers linked to his former law firm. --Jennifer Robinson, Montreal Gazette, July 3, 1987
But more pertinent, I think, is Paul Wells' point: absent from Latulippe's cv is any expertise in rights. Perhaps, however, given the current government's agenda, that's of no importance.
Meanwhile, Radio-Canada has obtained another document, throwing further light on the affairs of ICHRDD over the past several months. It's the original negative evaluation of the late president Rémy Beauregard written by three recent Board appointees, a secret trash-job that Beauregard had to use Access to Information to see.* It indicates, contrary to disingenuous protestations by Jacques Gauthier and new Board member David Matas, that transparency and so on had nothing to do with the strife at Rights and Democracy and the eventual coup--it was all Israel, all the time.
Let's see what happens now, but readers will forgive me for not being particularly sanguine.