The Canadian International Development Agency CIDA: Treasury Board

Julian Fantino Dept: The two letters were written by International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, who is responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency CIDA , and posted to the department s website. The letters were originally written to publications in response to published commentary by opposition critics, according to CTV. It is clear that Parliamentarians may have a different understanding of what constitutes political activity by departments than what the rules allow, McCallum, his party s Treasury Board critic, wrote to Martin. It is essential that Parliamentarians be informed of the rules and be provided with an opportunity to make suggestions for their improvement and the opposition parties are calling for parliamentary committee hearings into the political operations of government departments after partisan letters written by a Conservative cabinet minister were posted to a federal government website. On Wednesday, Liberal MP and former cabinet minister John McCallum wrote to NDP MP Pat Martin, chair of the House Government Operations Committee, and suggested that a sub-committee be formed to hold hearings on the issue, so as not to over-burden the committee s workload. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.