At Coast Reporter press time, I am scanning The Globe and Mail and CBC websites looking for word from Ottawa. Perhaps the earthquakes of late have done something to shift the balance of the earth. I have no evidence of this other than looking at the potential shifting balance of power in our own Parliament.
The Speaker of the House, Peter Milliken, is expected to rule Thursday or early next week on whether the Stephen Harper government is in contempt of Parliament for ignoring Parliament's March 19 motion to turn over unredacted documents related to the transfer and possible torture of Afghan detainees.
Parliament wants documents, the government says 'no' on the grounds of national security - an excuse that is starting to wear a little thin.
At stake is the entire West-minster-style of government we have been using for 143 years.
Two of Canada's top legal scholars (and authors of my political science text books in university), Errol Mendes and Patrick Monahan, have gone on record with The Globe and Mail saying this decision could be massive in setting precedent. Imagine. An executive government that can disregard the will of the duly elected parliament. Canada's executive branch, compared to other western democracies, is already quite concentrated, as delightfully argued in Globe columnist Jeffery Simpson's 2001 book The Friendly Dictatorship. The cover features a PhotoShopped imagine of Jean Chrétien smiling and dudded-up in ceremonial military dress like a Third World tyrant.
The speaker is charged with the duty of running Parliament. Speakers are MPs elected by their riding and then elected within the legislature by sitting MPs. Milliken is a Liberal from a riding in Eastern Ontario who has a reputation for being fair. I'm sure he knows the gravity of the decision he has to make. At least I hope he knows.
The Conservative Party (and NDP and Bloc) rubbed the Liberals' noses in it after the sponsorship scandal, and rightly so. It also gave the Conservatives licence to campaign as the party of accountability, and in every election since 2006, they've run on the ticket promising more openness and transparency.
So when all three opposition parties, which make up the majority of the seats in Parliament, pass a motion asking the government to turn over the documents, what do we get? The government of the day would rather see this pushed to a constitutional crisis than just offer up some of that openness and transparency.
At the rate this is moving, we will have pulled all our troops home to meet the 2011 deadline, and we still won't know just what happened.
Also, as of press time, the most recent EKOS poll shows the Conservatives continue to enjoy a four-point lead over the Liberals. Maybe it's evidence that the strategy is working, Maybe it's evidence of the assertion Harper made when the detainee scandal emerged and he prorogued Parliament: that Canadians just don't care. Either way, poll numbers like that will only lead to another minority government should an election be called, and guess what? If Milliken rules in favour of the government, Harper no longer needs to act like he is a majority Prime Minister. In effect, he is one.
