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The Pea (CO)

By Kevin Steel ⋅ October 16, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

There is an intriguing piece in The Hill Times about the Arar inquiry Committee to probe what Zaccardelli told ministers. In particular, I find these two paragraphs interesting, on the nexus of the Privy Council Office (PCO);

A former CSIS agent, who asked not to be named, told The Hill Times that he would not at all be surprised if ministers were kept in the dark because RCMP, CSIS and PCO officials would not have wanted to divulge some secrets to ministers. He said ministers are often told as little as needed to get them through Question Period and media scrums.

"This is not a minister with a lot of clout, or power. He would have been the mouthpiece but he might not even have been kept completely in the loop. That is up to PCO," the source wrote in an email. "It’s like a shell game. People keep pointing to the RCMP, to CSIS, Foreign Affairs, etc., but all along the pea is under PCO."

Then the story just goes off in other directions, doesn’t explain what "the pea is under PCO" means, and it doesn’t say whether the clerk of the PCO at the time, Alex Himelfarb, or anyone else from the PCO will be called to testify before the House Public Safety and National Security Committee. Curious.