Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

Last December, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen "Steve" Harper paid a visit to Her Britannic Majesty's representative in Canada, Governor-General Michaelle Jean. Harper wanted a small favour. He wanted the GG to say "yes" to his request to prorogue (adjourn) Parliament so he wouldn't have to face a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, which he would have lost.

The Governor-General had an option. As Brian Mulroney would have said, she could have said, "No, it's wrong and I'm not going to do it." But she didn't. No surprises there. And so the Harper government lived to pick fights with the opposition another day.

One wonders what the conversation at Rideau Hall must have been like. Might we suppose that at the end of their colloquy Harper said to Jean, "Thanks! I owe you one."? Perhaps so, judging by what happened last week.

Yes, fellow taxpayers, last week Harper, on our behalf, forgave the republic of Haiti foreign aid loans totalling in the neighbourhood of $2.3 million. Michaelle Jean, lest we forget, is originally from Haiti. Perhaps she still has Haitian citizenship. (It never hurts to have another passport.) Perhaps she called the Prime Minister, at the behest of her countrymen (and countrywomen, to be politically correct) to call in the marker, as it were.

Will any good come of this? Not likely to the people of Haiti. Remember when Brian Mulroney paid an official visit to Zimbabwe. He also paid fulsome tribute to Robert Mugabe, one of the worst of the many dictators with which Africa has been cursed. And he generously said that Zimbabwe would not have to repay the millions of dollars in soft loans previously given by the Canadian government with our money. And where is that money now? Look in Mugabe's bank accounts in Switzerland and other havens!

Nor will any good come to Canada or Canadian taxpayers. Of course $2.3 million dollars is just a drop in the ocean of a $50 billion deficit. Still, one wishes that the Harper government would exercise just a little restraint every now and then, just for show, as it were.

Finally, let us ask who will forgive the Harper government for the mismanagement and profligacy that somehow turned the surplus inherited from the Liberal government of Paul Martin into the greatest deficit ever planned -- planned, mind you -- by any Canadian government at any time in history. Who indeed?