The Wrong Honourable

Barbara McDougall, a cabinet minister in the Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was seen as a hard worker, an intrepid, intelligent woman who had the respect of her peers and those voters who supported her. She was a credit to herself and to her cabinet positions throughout her nine years as a Member of Parliament. She served as Secretary of State for then-External (now Department of Foreign) Affairs, she served as Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Minister of State for Finance, and was awarded Officer of the Order of Canada.

This competent and bright woman parlayed her experience and the respect she garnered through her excellent management skills in administering difficult portfolios into re-inventing herself as a consultant. And she has worn many hats, as an adviser to a law firm, counselling on international business development, corporate governance and government relations. She certainly has all the right credentials to give her credence in that consultative portfolio.

She has served as a high-powered Canadian representative globally, has been a Scotiabank director, served on the board of Stelco, the Independent Order of Foresters. She has been a business reporter, an brokerage analyst, and in 2007 was appointed Chair of the Board of Canada's International Development Research Centre. At the same time that she was serving on the Board of directors of Imperial Tobacco Canada, chairing the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of Imperial Tobacco Canada.

Imperial Tobacco? Social responsibility? Surely an oxymoron? Surely she, as well as those who appointed her felt slightly uneasy about her appointment to the IDRC, while she was still involved with Imperial Tobacco? Was it an oversight that the press release of her appointment made no mention of her connection to Imperial Tobacco, and somehow it was not thought worth a mention on the IDRC website where her biography can be found?

And did the meticulous, knowledgeable, very political Ms. McDougall not feel the teeniest twinge of conscience being inconveniently pricked by principle? Evidently not. But the story did not end there, and allow matters to go on happily. That murky whiff of conflict-of-interest, if not outright conflicted-ethics has cost Canada's International Development Research Centre a hefty and prestigious alliance with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates, evidently, do care, greatly, where they sprinkle their massively-endowed charitable donations. They are meticulous about that kind of thing, that no essence of questionable alliances between the representation of the interests of health-averse Big Tobacco come between them and their charitable causes. Hand over millions for a charitable foundation whose purpose it is to promote an anti-smoking campaign while its chief represents the weed?

Whatever impelled those responsible to select Ms. McDougall to head the IDRC, in its mission to promote improved global health? Most certainly this woman has had immense authority and experience and respect. But surely that respect became just slightly tarnished with her connection at the highest level with the tobacco industry? An absurd misalliance that has come back to bite IDRC.

And embarrass Canada. Deservedly.