By Lloyd Mackey

THE LATEST developments in the Bill Casey and Chuck Cadman stories provide some opportunity to return to my periodic theme: The roles of deification and demonization in Canada's faith/political interface.

In today's OttawaWatch, I hope to be able to make the point, through the Casey and Cadman developments, that there are good and not-so-good ways for the Christian gospel to impact on what happens in federal politics.

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Bill Casey is the popular independent MP for Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit. He was a Conservative member for 20 years. His independent status came because he chose to vote against the Conservative budget in 2007.

That is the brief background to what happened when he rose in the House of Commons a week ago Tuesday, February 3, to ask the Speaker to investigate what he described to be a smear on his character.

In a 20-minute statement, he said, among other things, that "I just did not even know how devastating it was until this morning, when I had to call my two daughters to tell them I was going to get up in the House to defend myself against accusations of theft and embezzlement."

At issue was the transfer of $30,000 from Casey's riding association to an election campaign fund before he left the Conservative caucus, in June 2007. The money was returned to the federal party nine days after his expulsion.

As it turned out, one or more members of the Conservative riding association had complained to the RCMP, during the period leading up to the October 14, 2008 election, that Casey's action was, in effect, an alleged "embezzlement."

Casey said that he had learned of the RCMP investigation when a reporter from La Presse, a Montreal newspaper, contacted him. The newspaper had obtained the RCMP report through an access-to-information request.

To a person, Conservative spokespersons, both in Ottawa and Nova Scotia, have strongly denied any involvement in the complaint.

The point of this particular retelling of the story is to note that the only name to break the surface, connected with the complaint, is Diana Read-Miedema. She was the official agent for Joel Bernard, the Conservative -- and losing -- candidate in the CCM riding in last fall's election.

The official agent in an election is supposed to be an independent liaison between a candidate's campaign and local Elections Canada officials. Conservative though she might be (and I will comment on that in a moment), Conservatives volunteers and officials are quite in line to distance themselves from the complainant.

Atlantic Canada reporters and bloggers have uncovered some other information about Read-Miedema that causes this item to become one through which a faith-political interface point might be made.

Her regular line of work is the running of a tax and accounting business in Truro, Nova Scotia. In her spare time, she writes on a Christian prophetic-oriented blog, called Third Watch Ministries. Or at least was writing there. I had a close look at it before it was suspended temporarily, this past weekend.

Read-Miedema's writing has been strongly supportive of Stephen Harper. She has variously described him as "God's arrow" and "God's appointed person". And she is not hesitant at attributing her insights to words from the Lord or prophecies.

These kinds of utterances, of course, draw considerable skepticism from people who believe they are not plugged in to God. They lead to the kind of "deification" that, in this writer's modest view, brings discredit and misunderstanding to the Christian faith, and to Christians who are involved in politics.

But further, they are often accompanied by insights of "demonization." People who are so convinced of the God-directedness of their views regarding people they like, will sometimes -- not always, mind you -- "demonize" those who oppose them. In this case, if the linkages are correct, Read-Miedema attempted to place a criminal aura around Bill Casey, by making the embezzlement complaint, then doing whatever was necessary to try to get reporters to pick up the scent of an RCMP report.

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No matter that the report itself said there was not enough evidence to pursue the investigation. The damage was done and Casey appears needlessly to have been placed under a cloud. The point that the alleged cloud-maker is known by some to make claims to be a Christian prophetess should not be lightly shoved aside.

From this perspective, the Casey story is a not-so-good example of the Christian faith's impact on the body politic.

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The Chuck Cadman case, on the other hand, is, on close examination, a good example of such an impact.

That's is why it is good to hear that the Conservatives and Liberals have agreed to settle, out of court, Stephen Harper's lawsuit against what is described as the "Liberal Agency of Canada," for their website accusation that he had countenanced what they described as a "bribe".

The whole issue began when Tom Zytaruk, a Surrey newspaper reporter and -- as it happens, a committed and informed Christian with a Trinity Western University education -- wrote a book about Chuck Cadman.

Cadman was the Surrey North MP who died a few years ago of skin cancer. To tell his story in 25 words or less is not to do it justice. But, in short, he entered politics as a Reform MP after his son was knifed to death at a Surrey bus stop. He did a most effective job on justice issues, in opposition. Then, in the 2004 election, he lost the Conservative nomination to a block voting effort, but won the riding as an independent, mainly because he really understood and was understood by his community. A few months before he died, he cast the deciding vote that kept the Paul Martin Liberals in minority office for a few more months.

The Cadman-Harper issue, in a nutshell, was that some Liberal tacticians tried six ways to Friday to twist Zytaruk's quotes of Harper to make it appear that he had approved an illicit payment.

As a fellow Christian-cum-journalist, I felt badly for Zytaruk, because a couple of Harper's taping experts suggested that his tape of the Harper interview had been altered. (And another expert contradicted those findings.)

I think a perfectly plausible explanation is that some of the "small talk" during the Zytaruk-Harper chat was not caught on tape, particularly detailed references to the then-opposition-leader's deep respect for Cadman. There is a hint of that regard on the tape when Harper says that he knew why Cadman was voting with the Liberals and he respected those reasons. Could Zytaruk attest to the accuracy of the "small talk?" Not if he did not have it on tape. Good notes and/or an accurate tape are essentials, when collaborating a published report in a court of law.

Personally, I believe that the difficulties began for Zytaruk when Paul Martin, unsolicited, offered to write a foreword for the Cadman book. That meant that the galley copies would have been available to the former prime minister and, by extension, to the Liberal party. So, it could be argued, if they kept their powder dry, they could provide a bit of an explosion upon the release of the book. Further, the publisher could, judiciously, release excerpts from the book, pre-release, to heighten its sales potential.

Now that the suit has been settled, not to mention that Chuck Cadman's widow is the new Surrey North MP, is there anything else to be done?

I would like to suggest that people read the book, especially the parts that talk about Dan Nicholson, the Cadmans' neighbour who extended pastoral care to them at the time of the slaying of their son. Nicholson was the pastor of the influential Johnston Heights Evangelical Free Church for many years, and continued, when invited, to offer that counsel, right up until Cadman's death.

I would like to see Zytaruk write the rest of the story, because, as I have said in this space before, it is fraught with reconciliation, redemption and the kind of gospel stuff that make very good faith-political interfacing. I believe that Dona Cadman's tenure in Surrey North will continue what her husband did. And it will allow her to emerge from his shadow to be, in her own right, a community-based and authentically faith-shaped politician.

And, maybe Stephen Harper could write the foreword for that account. I believe he could do it with real class.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

February 12/2009