By Lloyd Mackey

Q. WHAT do a big black beer truck and Lisa Raitt have in common?

A. They both provide evidence that, in federal politics, what you see -- or hear -- is not always what you get.

The big black beer truck loomed before my eyes a few days ago, during my daily heart-pumping 50-minute walk.

Passing the Langevin Block, the massive stone edifice across from the Parliament Buildings, I noted several black vehicles, some topped with red flasher lights, parked alongside.

That was not so unusual. After all, the Langevin houses the prime minister's office (PMO) and several black cars are often parked there, waiting to whisk him away to his next assignment.

The unusual was the scene, on this particular day when the third of four vehicles in line was the aforesaid beer truck.

It appeared that the prime minister's security detail, that day, was fully engaged in guarding a cache of "liquid-ation" for the next Langevin staff party.

Closer observation showed, however, that a few cases of beer were being unloaded from the truck into an empty store across the lane from the Langevin. The store was apparently being used for storage by the managers of a nearby unidentified watering hole.

The beer truck was momentarily blocking the driveway to the Langevin's lane entrance, in its crew's urgent need to unload its precious cargo. That it was not being ticketed by Ottawa's infamous Green Hornets, for illegal parking, could provide grist for another potential scandal.

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All this sets us up for another "what you see or hear is not necessarily what you get" example, relating to Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt.

She became famous, last week, for being caught on tape allegedly denigrating Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq. Her rap on her cabinet colleague was that she was too used to "co-operative" governance and not ready for the "rough and tumble" of federal political life.

Aglukkaq, like Raitt, is a rookie cabinet minister, elected for the first time in last year's federal vote.

And Raitt was in hot water last week, in part for her private comments, in January, about Aglukkaq. The comments became public because her then-communication director lost the tape and it found its way into the hands of an enterprising journalist.

Raitt's comments about "co-operative" and "rough and tumble" require some context.

Aglukkaq, who happens to be Canada's first Inuit cabinet minister, used to be the health minister in the Nunavut legislature. That body runs on a consensus basis, with much less emphasis on adversarial party politics than prevails "down south."

Raitt, for her part, was formerly chief executive officer of the Toronto Port Authority, which exists in a big city combative context that would be an anathema "up north".

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Her private comment reflected, in this writer's modest view, her attempt to come to grips with the consensus style.

Between January and now, Aglukkaq has won plaudits for applying consensus in the communication process during the swine flu outbreak. She proved effective -- and disarming -- at maintaining advanced contact with opposition health care critics -- like sometimes-firebrand Carolyn Bennett -- as well as with her provincial health minister counterparts.

By the time the Chalk River isotope controversy hit the fan, Raitt and Aglukkaq, had turned into a pretty good tag team. Raitt combatively dealt with the issue on an international level, in line with her responsibilities as natural resources minister. And Aglukkaq worked with provincial health ministers at lining up alternative isotope arrangements that would work for heart patients, so that scarce nuclear resources could be more usefully targeted for people needing cancer tests.

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To change the subject, it is worth noting that at least three of Canada's emerging Protestant universities are benefitting from economic stimulus funding under the federal Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP).

The three are Tyndale University College and Seminary and Redeemer University College, both in Ontario, and Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Some $1.2 million is going to Tyndale, to make its Toronto campus home for the past 33 years more energy efficient and to renovate its nearby $50 million Bayview Avenue campus, being acquired from the Sisters of St. Joseph. The present enrolment at Tyndale is around 1,500, and long range plans call for 4,000 or more.

At Redeemer, a $2.9 KIP grant will meet half the costs of some 25 sectors of the school's Academic Complex Renewal Project. It should enable the school's student body to break the 1,000 mark.

And, at Atlantic Baptist, a total of $12 million in both federal and provincial funding is being applied to new building construction and renovations totalling $24 million. It will allow the school to grow from its present 800 enrolment to 1,200 and pave the way to a range of masters' degree programs.

It should be noted that the grant announcements have created some lively discussions online. The tussles are between opponents of government aid to Christian universities and those who maintain that the grants are a good investment because such schools take some of the cost loads off overly-stretched public campuses.

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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.

June 18/2009