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By Lloyd Mackey
 BURIED in the fourth paragraph of a January 30 Globe and Mail story by Daniel Leblanc, entitled 'PMO blasted over development deal intervention,' is a reference to a "mediated solution."
The story concerns a dispute currently before the courts, involving the federal public works and a real estate development firm.
The reason that the opposition parties are blasting the prime minister's office is because Dimitri Soudas, the PM's deputy press secretary, responsible for the French side of Stephen Harper's media relations, called a meeting recently.
The meeting, reportedly held in the Langevin Block, where many of the offices connected with the prime minister are located, was to permit Soudas to ask whether the dispute could be resolved by mediation.
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That "mediated solution" reference caught my eye, in part because in less than three weeks, I will be attending a three-day seminar which will look at, among other things, some biblical approaches to conflict study and resolution.
The seminar is at St. Paul University, an Ottawa Catholic graduate school in theology and social science, and is sponsored by SPU's Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (CICR).
Before returning to the main point of this OttawaWatch, permit me to make a couple of points about SPU and CICR.
The university, although Catholic, is the graduate school of choice for many evangelical Protestant pastors and leaders in Ottawa, in part because it permits them to take advanced classroom work while remaining active in their pastorates or other Christian ministries.
SPU includes a conflict studies program with a master's degree and a soon-to-be-initiated doctorate. The program is led by Vern Neufeld Redekop. His book, From Violence to Blessing (Novalis, 2002) is a well-regarded work exploring both biblical conflict resolution theory and some case studies regarding the application of such theory.
The seminar will enable its participants to take a close look at the book, which is admittedly quite densely written and requires some interpretative assistance for some of us who are not involved every day in the fine nuances of conflict resolution.
The facilitator for the seminar, as it happens, is Brian Strom, the CICR director. Two points worth noting about Strom are that he is the son of the last Social Credit premier of Alberta, the late Harry Strom and he is a serious Nazarene church lay person by persuasion. All of which is to make the point that he has a fair understanding of both evangelical belief systems, on the religious side, and the adversarial nature of parliamentary democracy, in the political sphere.
I hope, by attending the seminar, to get a bit better grasp, as a journalist active around Parliament Hill, of the possible applications of biblical conflict resolution in an adversarial political setting.
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Some of the opposition criticism of Soudas comes from the fact that he is a communications person, not a professional mediator.
But one of the biblical concepts which help to drive a conflict resolution agenda is articulated thusly: "Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners." Another is the biblical text that suggests: "He who is not against you is for you."
Yes, I am aware that citing a couple of textual references puts me firmly in the pathway of being a proof text practitioner. And some of my best friends could quickly find texts that would decimate the arguments of good will coming out of these particular references.
Be that as it may, I believe it is worth exploring the Soudas question through throwing some conflict resolution light on the subject.
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In brief, the root of the conflict is a dispute between the federal public works department and Rosdev Group, a Montreal real estate and development firm among, whose holdings are two government office complexes in, respectively, downtown Ottawa and its Quebec appendage, Gatineau.
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I will reflect on the Ottawa complex, known as L'Esplanade Laurier. As it happens, I walk through the shopping complex on the main floor of this white 22-storey twin-tower structure most days, as part of my heart-friendly constitutional 50-minute daily walk.
L'Esplanade was built in the early '70s for the federal government by Olympia and York, the developers made famous by the Reichmann brothers of Toronto. In 1996, O&Y sold the towers to Rosdev, who continue to lease it back to the feds. Some 2,000 government employees in the finance department, treasury board and public service commission work there.
The court action involving public works and Rosdev involve the feds' contention that the development company maintains the building poorly. The government would like to take ownership of L'Esplanade, as well as the Gatineau property referred to earlier, in 2010.
One of the disputes involves the replacement of falling marble cladding, for which Rosdev claims there is no agreed on deadline. Further, Rosdev says many of the maintenance problems were inherited from O&Y and may well have involved design or construction problems dating to the origins of the projects.
Whatever the issues, they are currently tied up in costly litigation involving seven lawsuits, two from the government (totalling $24 million) and five from Rosdev (claiming $10 million).
Complicated? That is about 10 per cent of the story.
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But, as in many of these cases, they are often settled on the courthouse steps. And sometimes, mediation law or procedures known as "alternate dispute resolution" are used in the settlements. Christian lawyers who take the mediation approach often refer to a biblical understanding of the concept.
Now it is not likely that Soudas cited biblical chapter and verse in responding to some requests to facilitate a meeting between Rosdev and public works. But he was using a valid conflict resolution process. A bit risky, perhaps, because critics could -- and have -- interpreted his actions as getting too close to the conflict.
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The New Democrats have asked the federal ethics commissioner to rule on the issue.
In doing so, I would hope that the commissioner will comment favourably on the need for more, not fewer, alternative dispute resolution efforts. And, being a communications person, Soudas should be commended, not attacked, for trying to encourage a mediated settlement.
Granted, such closed door negotiating sessions provide potential for abuse. Part of Canada's recent political history has been replete with allegations of unauthorized uses of money to grease political action. Ostensibly, the Accountability Act was designed to end such abuse, without grinding the whole governance process to a halt.
So far, Soudas' attempts to explore mediation have proved to be in vain. The case is still before the courts, where the adversarial approach will run its course at, perhaps, great cost.
But it might be time to get some clear guidance on the ethics of mediation, and the ways, as well, to avoid the abuses that could be associated with it.
Hopefully, I might have more to say about this after the CICR seminar.
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One more thing: In the interests of full disclosure, Soudas, along with his colleague in the PMO, Karine Leroux, and the prime minister's spouse, Laureen Harper, supplied the photos for Stephen Harper: The case for collaborative governance, authored by your humble scribe. None of them charged me for their photographic services. Neither did I charged them for the publicity the book afforded.
Just in case anyone was wondering.
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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). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
February 6/2008
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