Plausible Deniability, Again?

From Gomery Research, the probable excuse: Look, Colvin didn't use a marker and besides, were we supposed to know about this stuff? Enjoy: The use of this doctrine of “plausible deniability” as an effective strategy to avoid or deflect political fallout from a matter directly under a Minister’s purview was wielded most effectively in the early days of
the Mulroney administration during an incident known as the Al- Mashat affair. Briefly, Mohammed Al-Mashat was a former Iraqi ambassador to Washington and a familiar media spokesperson for his country during the lead up to the first Iraqi Gulf War.Very shortly after being recalled to Baghdad in 1991, he and his wife had entered Canada as landed immigrants in the retirement class.The ensuing public furor
over the arrival of a man so closely tied to the Iraqi dictatorship raised a political maelstrom.The government responded by declaring that the immigration process for Mr.Al-Mashat had all taken place completely at an administrative level within Immigration and External Affairs and that Joe Clark, the Minister of External Affairs at the time, could not be held responsible for what was obviously a highly sensitive and political decision because he was not made aware of the application.
The government held two individuals responsible for this administrative blunder: a high ranking senior official in External Affairs, Raymond Chrétien, and Mr. Clark’s Chief of Staff,Mr.David Daubney.While several issues were raised vis-à-vis the government’s deflection of responsibility for the matter on to a career official, thus circumventing the doctrine of ministerial responsibility which holds a Minister responsible for all actions taken by his or her department, it is with the government’s reaction to the role played by Mr. Clark’s Chief of Staff that this paper is concerned.
In a nutshell,Mr. Daubney failed to inform his Minister of the matter.He argued that although Raymond Chrétien and the departmental assistant had in fact forwarded the information to his attention, they had failed to properly highlight the item with a marker, which was the signal that this item was worthy of special attention.Secondly,he reported that the policy review system that he had implemented in the Minister’s office shortly after his arrival was designed to detect such important matters. For reasons he could not explain, the system was not followed. Further, he felt that even if he had seen the memo, it was unreasonable to expect him to know the name of every former Iraqi ambassador and that this was not his area of expertise (albeit if his Treasury Board job description is to be believed he was the Minister’s top political advisor on issues of foreign affairs). As it turned out, Mr. Daubney had actually read the crucial memo but subsequently lost it.89