Disclosure Incomplete

"The government will review the circumstances in question. Members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee undergo thorough background checks." PMO Office

Perhaps not quite as thorough as should be required.

What supreme irony is in play here; the director of CSIS dramatically warns that Canada is in danger of being infiltrated at the highest levels by agents working surreptitiously on behalf of foreign governments, and here we have a prime example of government ineptitude, introducing to a critical position someone whose background clearance was shoddily undertaken.

Dr. Arthur Porter, a man with wide political, financial and social connections through a complex array of family businesses was singled out by the PMO in 2008 as an excellent candidate and appointed as chairman of Canada's spy review board. Well connected indeed; this Montreal-based oncologist is also chief executive of the McGill University Health Centre (12,000 employees).

He and his family own mining stakes in Sierra Leone, an African country of origin for Dr. Porter. Dr. Porter operates a cancer clinic in the Bahamas. He is an Air Canada director, and sits on numberless corporate boards in Canada and abroad. His family owns a company, Africa Infrastructure Group. This affable man who comes so highly recommended has his fingers splayed into many pies.

His Curriculum Vitae was reviewed in the PCO before his appointment to SIRC. So it appears that they believed he had a clean slate, had much to offer to the position, and was an outstanding candidate to hold that critical oversight position. Did his appointment give a sense of unease to Richard Fadden; might he have been alluding to a suspicion of Dr. Porter just as much as hinting at Chinese penetration into government business in Canada?

Dr. Porter is a personal friend of the president of Sierra Leone. And was named "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone", by Sierra Leone's President Koroma. A title he is proud to display, even using it on the letterhead that identifies him as head of Canada's spy watchdog committee. An unusual diplomatic title, effectively entitling the bearer to speak for the president of the country.

His excellent judgement was recently called into question through revelations respecting a consultancy agreement he had signed with a Montreal-based company, Dickens & Madson (Canada) Inc., owned and operated by a truly shadowy, shady, morally suspect character, Ari Ben-Menashe, whose tawdry exploits in Zimbabwe made news a few years ago.

The deal between the two men would ostensibly have brought $120-million in infrastructure projects to Sierra Leone, through Russian investment, building ports, roads, bridges in an agreement with Dr. Porter's company, Africa Infrastructure Group (AIG). The contract fell through because the signature of Sierra Leone's president was not obtained.

There are hints of money laundering in this awkward, shabby tale, and of graft on a grand scale, where monies transferred might potentially have gone into private hands and not perhaps utilized in ways meant to favour the infrastructure of a tiny, impoverished African country. All of these details throw a jaundiced light on Dr. Porter.

Leading one to ask an innocent enough question: is this the best the Government of Canada can do in appointing responsible, trustworthy characters to positions of national prominence and obvious importance to this country, Canada?