It's Okay if You're a ReformaTory.

There's a reason we call them Con jobs. In this morning's blogpost, Canadian Cynic: You have to give him credit for initiative demonstrates the fine art of prevarication, also known in older times as selling snake oil.

Andrew Coyne has more about that splendid duo in his aptly named: Rahim & Patrick’s Don’t Pay a Cent Event; he deconstructs their initiative.

Let’s assume everyone’s telling the truth. Rahim Jaffer and his partner, Patrick Glémaud, never got paid for their activities. They were simply making inquiries about the terms and conditions on which certain types of government grants might be available to certain companies. The companies in question never hired them to act as lobbyists. And nobody got a dime of government money. How do we make sense of this?

The scrutiny to which these 'businessmen' have been subjected may very well be the flip side of a recent incident regarding an international cooperation project based in Halifax.

For years, the Nova Scotia Gambia Association has sent Canadian nurses, students and other volunteers overseas to teach HIV-awareness and other health education programs to people in the small West African countries of Gambia and Sierra Leone.

This year, the non-profit group decided to bring eight of its Gambian staff to Canada, to attend the group's 25th anniversary celebrations in Halifax, and to talk to students in local schools about life in Africa.

A Halifax church and a handful of schools across Nova Scotia raised $23,000 to pay the costs of bringing the Gambians to Canada. But plans for the trip were cancelled this week when Mr. Kenney rejected visitor visa applications for the group.

More about the organization, including its board membership.

Of course, speculating that Jason Kenney may be recoiling at the moment from initiatives that involve dusky-skinned people, especially those that do not have the right party and correct church affiliation would be premature until more information is available.

Or until Harper's bullies cut Jaffer and Glémaud off and let them twist in the wind.