Angry in the Great White North

The story of the bureaucrat arrested for leaking government documents is getting weirder. Well, the story is the same -- it's the bureaucrat that's weird:

A federal bureaucrat arrested for allegedly leaking the Conservative government's environmental plan says proposed charges against him "pose a profound threat to the public interest."

"They are without precedent in their disproportionality, they are vengeful, and they are an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization," Jeff Monaghan told a hastily organized news conference on Thursday.

The former temporary worker at Environment Canada was arrested Wednesday for allegedly divulging details of a draft version of the government's regulatory framework for climate change.

Monaghan, whose job was to monitor news reports about the government, was led away from his office in handcuffs as co-workers looked on in what he called a "politically engineered raid of my workplace."

Monaghan is a member of an anarchist collective that runs a bookstore in Ottawa. He has also been listed as a member of a punk band called the Suicide Pilots.

You have to give Monaghan credit. He cleans up nice.

Here is the oathbreaker at the news conference today, May 10:

And a picture of him at his bookstore, the Exile Info-Shop, Bank and Cooper streets in Ottawa, for a news story dated May 2, exactly 8 days ago:

He's behind the vegan girl:

Before anyone panics, Bomb the Suburbs is not about literally bombing peoples' homes, but really about the oppressive mindset of fearful conformity found in the bourgeois mind of the blah, blah, blah. But I wouldn't be surprised if those sorts of books were also available at his bookstore:

But Jeff Monaghan, a member of the groups organizing collective, said the project is much more than just another bookstore.

We base ourselves on anarchist principles, said Pascale Arpin, a member of the collective. These include such things as anti-oppression, equality, community building and worker control, she said.

Considering that Ottawa is the country's political capital, it is surprising that there was never been a space so overtly dedicated to fostering dissent, a statement from the group said.

Decisions about the shop are made by the eight-member collective, based on a model of non-hierarchy where every member has an equal say.

OK, if you say you didn't immediately think of the peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you're a liar:

DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week...
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: . . . by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major...
[...]
ARTHUR: (Grabbing Dennis) Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

I wonder if that's what he was yelling as the Mounties were leading him out, under arrest and in handcuffs. He certainly was saying it at the press conference:

Jeff Monaghan was arrested Wednesday and led out of his Environment Canada office in handcuffs by the RCMP. He was quickly released, but still faces possible charges of breach of trust for allegedly sending documents to a journalist and environmental activists.

[Monaghan] is portraying himself as a defender of the public interest and a victim of a politically motivated "witch-hunt."

On Thursday, he fired back at his accusers, calling the proposed charges a "profound threat to the public interest." He said they're part of a Tory communications strategy "pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

"The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release, and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered," Monaghan told a news conference.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed by the oath I freely took in order to land this job!

But unlike Dennis the Repressed Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant, Jeff Monaghan is not really that funny. His band, The Suicide Pilots, has a grotesque cartoon as the band's symbol:

Which is more sick? That Jeff Monaghan thinks a plane smashing into Parliament Hill is a good icon for a band, or that the anthropomorphic airplane looks like something from a child's cartoon. And we're not supposed to think this guy is partisan and embittered? He accuses the government of being paranoid?

He plays in a band that sings songs denouncing Stephen Harper and doodles drawings showing planes killing Harper and the rest of the members of Canada's federal government.

How is it that this person was trusted in a government job? If he did in fact leak the document, I wonder if how long he planned to be a mole for the anarchists. You see, Monaghan is also a board member of the OPIRG-Carleton (Ontario Public Interest Research Group -- see page 77). The OPIRG's policy it to take action to push forward the Kyoto agenda:

These misguided projects are not moving us forward to securing a clean and just energy future. They will not decrease US dependence on foreign oil; they will prevent Canada from meeting Kyoto emission reduction targets; and they will not save consumers a dime at the pump. We deserve safer and smarter energy policies that embrace already available 21st Century solutions that make cars go farther on a gallon of gas, promote conservation, invest in clean renewable energy, and protect our natural heritage.

We need to mobilize our generation to confront these challenges - our future is at stake.

And Monaghan just happened to be working at Environment Canada? And we are expected to believe that he could be trusted to keep his personal feelings separate from his responsibilities at the Ministry?

This isn't about just one leaked document. If the allegations hold up, this is about reviewing all the work he has done, all the documents that passed in front of him, all the areas to which he had access, and determining what damage this guy might have done. He'd been working there for four years. Actually, the entry in GEDS that names him a Media Monitoring employee was created on January 18, 2007. What was he doing before that?

I don't think for a second Jeff Monaghan is capable of being a real suicide pilot. Faced with an actual terrorist, wannabes like Monaghan would immediately soil their hemp underwear. But though the most he could accomplish would rise to the level of mischief and not much more, his shortcomings as an anarchist don't earn him a pass on this. Who knows who got what information and what they did with that information? He allegedly broke the rules, maybe planning for this day from the moment he was hired (perhaps thinking he could impress that vegan girl at the bookstore). If the evidence supports the charge, he needs to be called to account on this. The notion of personal responsibility is no doubt foreign to a member of an anarcho-syndicalist commune. But I would like to know who else from this circle is working in the bureaucracy, undermining Canada's elected government.

Call it a witch hunt. Call it spring cleaning. Just get on with it.

Hey, here's a thought. Do you think there's enough probable cause to get a warrant to toss the Exile InfoShop looking for other government documents? Four years is a long time...