On CTV's Power Play show Wednesday host Tom Clark asked Brian Wilfert, the Vice-Chair of the Special Committee on Afghanistan (paraphrased) "Did Laurie Hawn contact you regarding participating in committee via teleconference, as he claims?" Wilfert's answer was a categorigal "Absolutely not!". You can choose who you believe.

I hope that a majority of Canadians do not care at all if there are partisan implications, for any party, in the Afghanistan detainee affair. We just want to know the truth.

We aren't getting the truth from our government.

Today in a sixteen page brief (PDF) addressed to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, Richard Colvin continued to set the record straight. Do read it.

Of the many issues noted, in my mind the most troubling accusation levied is that senior public service staff who both brief and take orders from Ministers and the Privy Council Office (the PM and his anointed) appear to have counselled Colvin and other embassy staff to lie about the situation in Afghanistan.

Think about it - the most senior levels of our government have institutionalized lying.

We aren't talking about some misdemeanor or minor public fraud but an issue of huge public importance, one that can bring down a government or, back then, hobble a new government. We are talking about a war which has cost Canadians dozens of billions of dollars since 2006. The financial and ideological capital tied up in this war are immense, not to mention the human casualties and suffering that are as a direct result of policy decisions made in the comfy confines of Ottawa area office buildings.

Given the obvious attempts by the government to hide the truth, or run from it, nothing less than a full judicial inquiry will do.