Conserving Memory » democracy

Dose of Democracy for Harper’s Obstructivist Conservatives

Joshua Chalifour — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:17:25 +0000

As far as I understand there are three overarching things to consider with respect to the Afghan detainee issue. The first, is whether Canadian personnel may have breached the Geneva Convention. The second is how Harper’s Conservative government handled the issue. The third, is how Harper’s Conservative government operated in relation to the rest of parliament–and that’s really the focus of this post.

We cannot yet fully understand the first issue because of the second issue. The second issue remains cloudy because the Conservatives have denied, attacked, and generally misdirected any attempts to understand the first issue, and now we know that they’ve done so in breach of parliamentary privilege. So to get to the bottom of the first issue, we’ve got to start by resolving the third. Fortunately, yesterday’s (28 April 2010) ruling by Commons Speaker, Peter Milliken¹ finally gets things moving.

Some background:

Since at least 2007, groups like the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission, Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have been attempting to uncover what may be an improper way in which detainees in Afghanistan were handled. They uncovered a fair amount of information to raise serious red flags. Sworn testimonies from senior officers that countered Conservative, Peter MacKay’s comments attempting to dismiss the allegations.

Back in 2007, we also started learning how the Conservatives’ orchestrated themselves to disrupt parliament. The Conservatives censored documents that they knew would prevent parliament from further investigating the Afghan detainee potential problem. But that was 2007. Things only got worse (from the perspective of accountability, transparency, and democratic governing) as the Conservatives launched a vicious attack on the respected whistle-blower Richard Colvin, then boycotted a special parliamentary committee that was supposed to look into the detainee abuse allegations. The Globe and Mail² has a timeline of some of the events that transpired between 2007 and 2010.

“November, 2009: The Commons committee reports to the House what it considered to be a breach of its privileges in relation to its requests for documents from the government.

December, 2009: It is revealed that the government has blacked out large sections of relevant files handed over to the MPCC inquiry. The Commons committee’s efforts to obtain information, including the unredacted reports of Mr. Colvin, are similarly stymied.”

The great problem is the third point that I mentioned at the beginning. The Conservatives repeatedly censored or otherwise blocked parliament from seeing the information they had. Often they reported that they had to do this in the interest of security. But that’s not a believable statement. It’s unlcear how it can be ok for your own party to see the documents but not others in the House of Commons elected by the Canadian people. It’s never been clear why non-Conservatives operating with all kinds of other sensitive issues to run the country could be considered a security risk–and as I’ll point out below from Milliken’s ruling, it’s also contrary to how our form of government is supposed to work.

Fortunately, after significant and careful consideration, Speaker Peter Milliken ruled on the issue. The CBC³ reported (26 April 2010)

“The federal government breached parliamentary privilege with its refusal to produce uncensored documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees and must provide the material to MPs within two weeks, Speaker Peter Milliken has ruled.”

And this all goes toward the title of this post… a dose of democracy. Harper’s Conservative government hasn’t been operating within our democratic framework. Milliken’s ruling re-sets our expectations–it is simply not acceptable to abuse our democratic institutions. Milliken remarks in his ruling on the gravity of what he had to determine:

“As Speaker, one of my principal duties is to safeguard the rights and privileges of Members and of the House. In doing so, the Chair is always mindful of the established precedents, usages, traditions and practices of the House and of the role of the Chair in their ongoing evolution. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a rare event for the Speaker to be seized of a matter as complex and as heavy with consequence as the matter before us now.”

Referring to parliament’s power to have access to the documents, Milliken said

“In the arguments presented, the Chair has heard this power described as ―unabridged, ―unconditional, ―unqualified, ―absolute and, furthermore, one which is limited only by the discretion of the House itself. But this view is not shared by all and so it is a privilege whose limits have now been called into question.”

Who was calling those limits into question? Harper’s Conservative Government, by refusing to deliver upon the Hosue of Common’s request. Milliken’s logic on this is quite clear. After he enumerates previously established expert insight on parliamentary power and procedure, all of which support the point that parliament has unlimited power to request the documents in question, he discusses the Conservative government’s position.

“With regard to the extent of the right, the Chair would like to address the contention of the Minister of Justice, made on March 31, that the Order of the House of December 10 is a breach of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the legislature. Having noted that the three branches of government must respect the legitimate sphere of activity of the others, the Minister argued that the Order of the House was tantamount to an unlawful extension of the House’s privileges. This can only be true if one agrees with the notion that the House’s power to order the production of documents is not absolute. The question would then be whether this interpretation subjugates the legislature to the executive.”

In other words, the Conservatives (wrongly) tried to make parliament subservient while at the same time (rightly) reaffirming that the branches of government had to respect the “legitimate sphere and activity of the others.” It turns out the House hadn’t made an unlawful extension of its privileges. Thus the Conservative government must obey the House’s request.

“No exceptions are made for any category of Government documents, even those related to national security. Therefore, the Chair must conclude that it is perfectly within the existing privileges of the House to order production of the documents in question. Bearing in mind that the fundamental role of Parliament is to hold the Government to account. . .”

To finish things off Milliken gave the Conservative government two weeks to work with parliament to comply with the document requests. According to an article in the Toronto Star⁴ (27 April 2010)

“If they don’t, the Conservative government could stand charged with contempt of Parliament and the supreme law of the land.”

We’ll have to wait and see if the Conservatives take the ruling to heart and decide to operate in accord with our democratic institutions, rather than obstruct them.

(PS, here’s a link explaining the relevant parlimentary procedure)

La manifestation contre la prorogation – Montréal Photos

Joshua Chalifour — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:24:24 +0000

Here are some photos from the demonstration that took place in Montreal today (against the Harper Conservatives’ attacks on democracy). Although the catalyst was Harper’s unilateral decision to run from democracy by proroguing parliament for an extended period, people were protesting the wider problem of his multifold abuses.

The NDP, Liberals, Bloc Québécois, and Greens all had representatives speaking among a number of performers, which received applause and support from everyone. As the organizers pointed out, the issue of legitimate democracy is non-partisan.

I took the photos below (posted on a Picasa Web album) to try and capture a the variety of signs. Not all are entirely legible but I thought it was interesting to see that people protested issues like Harper’s poor environmental record, other than just the abuses of democracy. For example, the signs with oily maple leaves with the red bar through them have a message protesting the oil sands.

News reports from The Gazette¹, La Presse², La Presse³ (23 January 2010)

start at Parc Émilie-Gamelin

marching

le Carré Philips

marching

le Carré Philips, Thomas Mulcair (NDP)

le Carré Philips, Thomas Mulcair (NDP), Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois)

le Carré Philips, Justin Trudeau (Liberal)

le Carré Philips, les nanas déchaîné

le Carré Philips, Marc Garneau (Liberal)

le Carré Philips, Jacques Rivard (Green)

le Carré Philips, Thomas Mulcair (NDP), I was pleasantly surprised
to hear him receive the loudest applause

le Carré Philips, Thomas Mulcair (NDP)

le Carré Philips, Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois)

le Carré Philips, the raging grannies

le Carré Philips

Harper’s Important Work Takes Place Outside of Democracy

Joshua Chalifour — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:16:32 +0000

The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa Notebook¹ (12 January 2010) raises some sore issues for Stephen Harper’s prorogue problem.

First, there’s the Business News Network² (BNN) interview he did the previous day. When BNN asked him about the risk of the prorogue to our reputation in the world as a “reliable” and “stable” country he responded that there was

“…zero risk… The games begin when parliament returns. The government can take its time now to do the important work to prepare the economic agenda ahead.”

That little statement implies a lot. Harper gives the impression that important work doesn’t take place while parliament is in session, but rather games do. That’s something of a slap to our democratic institutions. The idea that the “important work” is done by just a small group of individuals, not even representing the majority of Canadian votes and outside of the government institutions created to democratically represent our will, is pretty presumptuous for a prime minister. The prime minister was once considered “first among equals”³ it’s too bad that Harper has so powerfully furthered the trend away from that stance.

In addition, it’s not too hard to recall that the Conservatives are the ones directly responsible for any games that may be taking place in parliament. Let’s review.

2007 there was the 200 page book the Conservatives made for their members on how to obstruct parliament.
2008 there was Harper’s prorogue precedent, which he pulled off largely in reaction to the crisis he provoked through his own parliamentary budgeting games.
2009 there was the underhanded procedural trick the Conservatives came up with to kill bills and invalidate parliament’s work.
2009 there was the Conservative boycott of a special committee looking into the Afghan detainee abuse issue

The Tories are guilty of causing parliament to operate in a dysfunctional way and then running from that dysfunction under a number a of guises, the most recent being Harper’s need to do “important work.”

But can we really believe this latest excuse for running from Parliament? In the same Globe and Mail article we find out that Tom Flanagan, who was the former chief of staff to Stephen Harper was interviewed on CBC. Flanagan seems to have made the point that Harper requested the prorogue in order to put an end to the inquiry on the Conservatives’ Afghan torture scandal.

(Update 13 January 2010 – MP Charlie Angus (NDP) wrote up a good piece on Harper’s “coup of pinstripes” notion that parliamentary democracy creates instability)