OTTAWA — The truth is a slippery devil on Parliament Hill with politicians regularly employing half-truths, obfuscation and distortion to squirm out of trouble — or to squeeze facts into a more favourable frame.

So it’s a surprise when a cabinet minister is caught out in an old-fashioned lie. Didn’t she read the memo on how it’s done?

Opposition MPs are now demanding that International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda be removed from cabinet based on her admission that she misled a Commons committee.

Oda told the committee in December that she didn’t know how a document that recommended $7 million in funding for a foreign aid agency came to have the handwritten word “not” added to it, effectively reversing the federal grant. The document had already been signed by Margaret Biggs, president of the Canadian International Development Agency.

The minister this week conceded that she had ordered the change.

The question now is: can a minister continue to serve in cabinet once she has admitted being dishonest with Parliament?

Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor David Docherty is among those who contend that such conduct should carry the ultimate political price.

“I think she has to go because she misled the House: this is about respect for Parliament,” he argued. “It’s hard to see a clearer case of an abuse of Parliament, a contempt of Parliament, than this one. It’s one thing for politicians to use weasel words and sucker clauses — ‘It is my understanding that’ — but this seems to have gone far beyond that.”

Truth has become a devalued commodity in government, where ministers much prefer the factual flexibility offered by “spin.” To that end, it’s surprising that Oda’s conduct has caused such a stir: isn’t this just an extension of business as usual?

Docherty has a theory about why the Oda case has gained traction: “I think because it’s in writing that this one has caught more attention. We have the ‘not’ in writing.”

One of the country’s leading parliamentary experts, professor emeritus Ned Franks of Queen’s University, said he believes Oda should be found in contempt. “I think this is an opportunity for MPs to defend the integrity of Parliament,” he told the Ottawa Citizen.

He compared the situation to that of John Profumo, a British MP who resigned his seat in 1963 after admitting that he lied to the House of Commons in denying his affair with call girl Christine Keeler. Profumo, Franks said, did the right thing.

In the Oda case, the foreign affairs committee has asked Speaker Peter Milliken to decide whether a prima facie case of contempt exists. If he agrees, Milliken likely will refer the issue to another committee to further investigate the minister’s conduct.

In 2002, a Commons committee was tasked with a similar job when then-defence minister Art Eggleton was accused of deliberately misleading the House about the transfer of prisoners from Canadian to U.S. custody in Afghanistan. MPs were told that precedent suggested three elements were needed to establish contempt: that the statement was misleading; that the minister knew it was incorrect at the time; and that the minister intended to mislead the House.

The committee said it had no evidence that Eggleton deliberately misled Parliament.

Those found in contempt of Parliament can be reprimanded or imprisoned through a House of Commons vote. MPs also can have their seats declared vacant.

Parliament’s contempt powers, derived from centuries-old British parliamentary tradition, are broad, poorly defined and rarely exercised.

The powers are designed to preserve the integrity of Parliament and the decisions made by its members. In theory, at least, government decisions must be based on the truth. The same theory informs parliamentary privilege, which gives MPs immunity from lawsuits for libel, slander or other civil offences during House proceedings. Privilege is supposed to ensure that the truth is heard regardless of the cost to individuals.

Parliament and the courts rely on contempt to police the truth. (Historically, Parliament functioned as a high court: until 2009, the House of Lords served as Britain’s final court of appeal; in Canada, until 1968, divorcing couples in Newfoundland and Quebec needed a private Act of Parliament to end their marriages.)

In practice, the House of Commons has rarely invoked its power to hold untruthful or unco-operative witnesses to account. What’s more, those found in contempt for misleading Parliament have usually received a slap on the wrist.

There have been two notable exceptions. In 1891, Quebec MP Thomas McGreevy was expelled from the Commons for failing to answer questions about a government contracting scandal. And in 1913, Montreal businessman R.C. Miller was found in contempt for refusing to answer questions from the public accounts committee about whether bribes had been offered to government officials. He spent 3 1/2 months in jail.

As the second edition of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice notes: “The reluctance to invoke the House’s authority to reprimand, admonish or imprison anyone found to have trampled its dignity or authority and that of its members appears to have become a near constant feature of the Canadian approach to privilege.”

The U.S. Congress takes a much more aggressive approach to punishing those who lie to its committees. Congressional contempt cases can be referred to criminal or civil courts for action.

Former baseball star Roger Clemens, for instance, is now facing charges of perjury and obstruction of Congress in U.S. Federal Court. In testimony before a House committee, Clemens denied allegations that he used human growth hormone during his 24-season career.

There have been several calls to update the contempt powers of Canada’s Parliament, most recently in 2007.

Writing in the Canadian Parliamentary Review, Senate principal clerks Charles Robert and Blair Armitage said Parliament may not have the power to jail anyone in the charter era, leaving MPs in a weakened position. “The traditional forms of admonition and reprimand,” they noted, “may not be the most effective means of persuading reluctant or stubborn witnesses to co-operate.”

Ottawa Citizen