Whether or not you agree with the ruling itself, it was a significant declaration from Speaker of the House Peter Milliken:
“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,” Mr. Milliken observed.
To state it simply, be that possible, the matter before us had only to do with the power and precedence of the House of Commons, the primary legislative body of our democracy, filled, as it is, with our duly elected representatives. A majority of members of the House have demanded that the government produce, wholly and unredacted, various documents related to the country’s handling of detainees seized in the process of conducting our mission in Afghanistan. The government has so far refused on a claim of national security authority and responsibility.
It is, of course, not even that simple—complicated by doubt, accusation, inconsistency and war—but ultimately there is this question of power.
(...)“It seems to me,” he said, “that the issue before us is this: is it possible to put into place a mechanism by which these documents could be made available to the House without compromising the security and confidentiality of the information they contain?”
(...)
“Accordingly,” Mr. Milliken said, “on analysing the evidence before it and the precedents, the chair cannot but conclude that the government’s failure to comply with the order of December 10, 2009 constitutes prima facie a question of privilege.”
Milliken has left the door open for a compromise on this, as he asked Parliamentarians for “common ground” and “collaboration” on this. MPs now have two weeks to try and come up with something.
In response, Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson offered this statement:
“We’ve just had the Speaker’s ruling ... We’ll be reviewing it very carefully and we welcome the possibility of a compromise while respecting our legal obligations as acknowledged by the Speaker. The government will not knowingly break the laws that were written and passed by Parliament. Our government will not compromise Canada’s national security nor will it jeopardize the lives of our men and women in uniform. That being said, we welcome the possibility of a compromise while respecting our legal obligations as acknowledged by the Speaker.”
One can read a lot into that statement - on the surface, there appears to be a willingness to compromise, but only to a point. The government seems to be hinting that it's still prepared to draw a line in the sand if it feels it needs to.
If the government is going to go that route, it needs to do a far better job than it's done to this point in explaining that to Canadians. More often than not, the government's actions make it appear as though they have something to hide.
To that end, it would do the government well to make an honest attempt to reach a compromise over this. One major concern Conservatives should have is what precedents they might be setting for a future Liberal minority government.
The opposition parties meanwhile, need to do a much better job of showing sincerity on this - that their desire to view these documents is based on a legitimate reasons, and not merely a fishing expedition in the hopes of turning up something embarrassing to the government.
The opposition's conduct on this file has frequently verged on the shameful with their loose rhetoric and eager pouncing on rumours and hearsay. The Liberals, specifically, often seem to forget that they were the ones who signed the original detainee transfer agreement with the Afghans in the first place.
Meanwhile, one wrinkle in the document-sharing plan:
Records of Afghan detainee transfer orders showing whether Canadian military commanders took the risk of torture into account are buried in sea shipping containers and "may take years" to locate, the Military Police Complaints Commission was told Tuesday.
Further background here.
UPDATE: Election? Bring it on, says Ezra Levant. Not sure I'd agree - I'm not sure that being held in contempt of Parliament would be the best election springboard for the Conservatives.
On the other hand, if the opposition parties appear intransigent on this, or now make extravagant demands about who gets to see these documents and what they can say publicly, the Conservatives would be in a much stronger position to go to Canadians and make the case that the other parties are playing politics with sensitive national security matters.
Meanwhile, Tasha Kheiriddin speculates on other reasons why MPs may be eager to compromise on this and avoid an election.
UPDATE #2: Contrary to Ezra's advise, Andrew Coyne believes it would be foolish for the Tories to push this one too far:
It is impossible to believe the government could be so reckless. The means of addressing its national security concerns have always been available to it. That it has refused to engage the opposition on these raises two distinct scenarios. Either it is simply too bloody-minded to give an inch to its political foes, on whatever matter, or the documents contain something truly awful, so scalding to the national conscience that it would be prepared to go to almost any length to suppress them. Either, that is, it is behaving completely irrationally, in a way that can only be harmful to its own best interests. Or it is behaving all too rationally.
No comments:
Post a Comment