This Prorogation Should Trigger Reform of Parliament

At a time like this, when our Parliamentary government has been abused, we are made more aware of the disrepair the whole edifice is falling into. The most urgent problem we face is the loss of authority Parliament has suffered. Parliament's committees are ineffectual, and more importantly, Parliament can be cowed into following the Prime Minister's wishes through threats of confidence votes.

One of the roots of this loss of authority is the lack of deliberation that occurs in Parliament. Parliamentary debate in Canada is determined for the large majority of issues on the basis of party affiliation. This, along with the growing impotence of committees, is leaving MPs with a less significant role. Consequently, Parliament is on its way, gradually, of becoming a rubber stamp as there is no doubt as to how MPs will vote.

Party discipline is often essential for efficient government. You need only look to the US Congress to see the rampaging effects of loose party discipline. However, it is still possible to have a Westminster style for of government and still give MPs more leeway. One way this could be done is to require confidence votes to be on budgets and Opposition days. This would prevent the fearmongering by overzealous and domineering PMs who render every vote a confidence matter.

I have by no means examined this proposal thoroughly, or examined others in depth either. However, it is clear that their are problems endemic to our Parliament that should be reformed. And what better time to do this than when the case for reform is being most eloquently put by a PM's prorogation of Parliament?

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

The Economist takes note of Harper's high handedness

The Economist's article on Harper's prorogation of Parliament mentions two interesting ideas that, while they have been cursorily addressed, are deserving of more consideration than have been given them by the media and the public here.

We have concentrated much on the disdain for Parliament that this chronic prorogation represents. However, Harper's case is not just one of disdain for Parliament, it is a desire to make "Parliament accountable to him rather than the other way around." This idea has been grasped, but it is emphasized further when stated this way. It really reveals the sheer incongruity between Harper's actions and democratic principles.

What's more, and this is the second thing the Economist picks up on, Stephen Harper's announcement itself confirmed a disdain for our democratic constitution. He announced, through his spokesman, that Parliament had been prorogued, prior to an announcement from the Governor General. He has effectively taken over her role of approving prorogation. If there were any doubts, this is confirmed by the irreverent manner in which Harper petitioned the Governor General: a phone call. Instead of acknowledging prorogation as within her powers, not his, Harper heavy handedly took control of this.

We see then that Stephen Harper has taken two things unto himself which were never meant for a Prime Minister: Parliament is now accountable to him, and he has taken the power of prorogation from the rightful wielder of that power. He is continuing not only his tradition of avoiding scrutiny and democratic accountability. He is also ensuring through this prorogation that his power continues to grow inexorably.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

Liberal MPs to defy Prorogation, Show up to work on Jan. 25

In a news bulletin published an hour ago on macleans.ca, Liberal MPs will meet in the House of Commons or near it in defiance of prorogation. Instead of not showing up on Parliament Hill, they will carry out to the best of their abilities Parliamentary work.

This would not seem to be only a handful of MPs doing so unofficially, as Bob Rae announced that “[Harper] can’t shut down the issues. He can’t stop people from asking questions about the Afghan detainee issue. He can’t stop people from asking questions about the budget. He can’t stop people from talking about politics.” The intention clearly is to keep the spotlight on these issues, whether the government likes it or not.

This was the right move as critics were lambasting the opposition parties for whining about prorogation without even being willing to engage in a mock Parliament. Now that criticism is refuted and the contrast between the Liberals and the Conservatives should emerge, showing the one's willingness to acquit themselves of the duties they were elected to perform, and the other's growing disregard for democracy.

What has to happen now is that the NDP and the Bloc sign on. This will give this form of protest legitimacy. It would give validity to the claim that Parliament is sitting despite being prorogued. It would hearken to the days of the French Revolution when the Third Estate met in the tennis court, in defiance of the rest of the Estates General oppression of the masses.

Only if the other parties join in can this have its maximum impact. Now if only there were courageous Conservative MPs that joined in. They would be doing their country a great service by putting the national interest above partisan politics and party discipline.

This, coupled with the now 79, 310 members strong Facebook group should show the Conservatives that the nation is truly incensed by his disdain for democracy.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

Debunking Conservative Myths on Prorogation

As fig leaves covering the real reasons Parliament was prorogued (the Afghan detainee issue and the composition of Senate committees), Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have advanced two myths or half truths regarding prorogation: that is a common procedure and that it is necessary for the government as it seeks to recalibrate its agenda.

While prorogation is common, occurring 105 times, as the Conservatives are fond of reminding us, since Confederation, it is highly uncommon to have such long prorogations This is important because it reveals that prorogation was often a matter of course, necessary, and that it was never used to suspend Parliament for extended periods of time. This is what the Conservatives have done, with 37 days of prorogation.

A look at the length of a Parliament (this is the duration between elections) and the proportion of that Parliament being spent in session bears this out. (Consult this website for parliament lengths and session lengths) With 354 of 416 days of this current Parliament spent in session, the percent of this Parliament spent in session is 86%.

Compare that with Harper's own previous Parliament. For some reason the percentage of the Parliament spent in session was 96%. Notice any discrepancy? The trend continues with further historical data. Previous Parliaments had rates of 100%, 92%, 98% and the list goes on.

So, for Harper to say that prorogation is common is right, but this obfuscates the fact that it has never previously been used to lock out MPS for any substantial portion of the duration of that Parliament.

As for the second myth, that the government needs prorogation to set their agenda for next year, that could not be further from the truth. Consider Harper's own previous Parliament. If that is the case, then why wasn't he proroguing so much, and locking out MPs for months at a time? Either Mr. Harper has to admit that he was previously incompetent in this matter or that he is twisting the truth. And as we know the first proposition is false, it must be the latter.

Shame on the Conservatives for such twisting of the truth. They deprive us of democracy and attempt to convince us that this has been commonplace, and that moreover it is necessary.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

The case for Ignatieff's environmental policy

The central focus of Michael Ignatieff's plan to reduce carbon emissions is carbon pricing, whether that be through a carbon tax or a cap and trade system. There are many good reasons for advocating carbon pricing. In fact, Harper, due to his policy of shadowing American environmental policy is being forced to admit that carbon pricing is not as evil as he once portray it to be.

Here is the case for carbon pricing:

1. Assuming the quasi-universally accepted proposition that global warming is the result of carbon emissions linked to human activity, it is clear that the necessary response is to change human behaviour. This has to be done throughout society, especially at the industrial level. To change behaviour so that cuts in emissions can be made, a price should be put on carbon, in the form of either a carbon tax or a cap and trade system. These systems discourage the use of carbon and encourage a more efficient use of carbon, technological innovations, and shifts in the economy, as much as possible.

2. The Economist and economists in general see such a carbon price as an insurance policy against the uncertainties of climate change. It is estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN sanctioned scientific body, that global temperature will rise by 1.1-6.4 degrees by the end of the century. Suffice it to say that if temperatures do rise by 6.4 degrees, the results would be catastrophic. By instituting a carbon price and thus regulating and capping emissions, we can eliminate most of this uncertainty and reliably limit temperature change to 2 degrees or less.

3. The reason this insurance policy is the reasonable route to take for policymakers and politicians is that the costs of doing so are well within the range that can be afforded. The Lord Stern report, commissioned by then British PM Tony Blair, estimates that to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees would cost at most 5% of GDP at the end of the century. However, Stern estimates that if carbon pricing policy is implemented efficiently the most likely result would be a cost of 1% of GDP. Comparatively, it cost 5% of last year’s GDP to bail out the banks.

4. The fact is that if we do not engage in carbon pricing, the adverse effects of global warming will increase dramatically. There will be increased droughts, famines, floods, freak storms and heat waves. What’s more, these will disproportionately assail the developing world, which has not contributed as much historically, and is still contributing less, as the developed world to global emissions. When my honourable opponent mentions the moral dilemma, this is where it really lies, as many more will be affected by inactivity on climate change than by carbon pricing. And they shoulder a lot less of the responsibility for global warming than those that work in carbon intensive industries.

5. Moreover, those whose livelihoods depend on such industries as the tar sands in Alberta will not be left without a job. One of the aims of carbon pricing is to encourage the development of green industries, such as building renewable energy sources. With proper job retraining, which could be funded through money collected through carbon pricing, some workers could transfer to new industries.

6. Furthermore, it is expected that carbon intensive industries would either become more efficient or develop new technologies. If this is the case, there would be no need for these industries to disappear. All that is needed is for them to adapt.

7. The problem with geoengineering is that it is unproven and could even have adverse effects of its own. Some of these include changes in weather patterns or could present danger to wildlife. It is very possible that many of these schemes, from creating sulphate clouds to dissolving CO2 in the oceans could disrupt many ecosystems. Whereas with carbon pricing we are sure of its effects: increased carbon efficiency, stimulated innovation in green technologies, and necessary restructuring of the economy.

8. Carbon pricing is the only policy that allows us to cut global emissions by 25-40% by 2020. This is the cut required to mitigate global warming and contain it in the 2-3 degree range. Therefore, if we do not institute carbon pricing, global warming will be beyond our control.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

The Potential Beginnings of a Full Blown Parliamentary Crisis

I was reading the macleans online and found this article by Andrew Coyne. Instead of writing my own thoughts on the issue, I will just reproduce here the article in full, the article is that good (imo).

Parliament will fight

What’s at stake here is nothing less than our system of government
by Andrew Coyne on Monday, December 21, 2009 12:10pm - 170 Comments

We are not yet in a constitutional crisis over the government’s refusal to release the Colvin memos to Parliament, but we probably should be. A secretive and overbearing government has turned an ordinary political dispute into an extraordinary confrontation over the powers and privileges of Parliament. Unless some compromise is found, Parliament will fight, and Parliament will be right.

What began as a manageable controversy over the Harper government’s faltering attempts to deal with a problem it inherited from the Liberals—what to do with the prisoners our forces captured in Afghanistan—has been transformed, via the Conservatives’ reflexive paranoia and insularity, into a full-blown political debacle, complete with martyred whistle-blower, outraged former ambassadors, self-correcting generals, and befuddled ministers. And running throughout, a drumbeat of press reports contradicting virtually every aspect of the government’s story.

It now appears, contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, that at least some of the prisoners we transferred to the Afghan police and security services were tortured, or at least abused; that at least some of our troops knew this; and that serious concerns about the treatment of these prisoners, and about our own procedures for reporting on their whereabouts, were relayed to government and Defence officials, not only from Richard Colvin, the diplomat at the centre of the storm, but from multiple sources.

None of this is evidence of a deliberate policy of transferring prisoners for torture, or even negligent disregard of their probable fate—the stuff of war crimes charges. Neither can we say for a fact that senior officials knew prisoners were being mistreated. The facts, at least so far, remain consistent with a story of officials’ evolving awareness of the seriousness of the problem, and of the inadequacies of their initial responses.

It was, after all, at Canada’s insistence that an agreement was first struck with the Afghan government in December 2005, requiring that any prisoners be treated humanely according to the Geneva Conventions, and ensuring access to Red Cross inspectors at any time. As the weakness of that agreement became apparent, a new arrangement was struck in February 2007 providing for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission to make inspections as well. Corrections Canada officers were flown over to make recommendations for improving Afghan prisons. And when even that proved deficient (the AIHRC complained it was being denied access), after the publication in April 2007 of prisoners’ allegations of mistreatment the protocol was changed yet again, to provide for inspections by Canadian officials.

It is legitimate to ask why it took so many months for the Harper government to arrive at the same protocol that was insisted upon by the British and Dutch forces from the start. It is equally legitimate to ask why the previous Liberal government did not simply hand any prisoners taken over to the American military, rather than gamble on the prison system of a country whose notion of justice might charitably be described as medieval. Even allowing for the confusion that typifies any war zone, let alone Afghanistan, the answers might well have reflected poorly on both governments.

But whatever controversy might thus have been aroused would have been nothing like the firestorm in which the Conservatives now find themselves, owing entirely to their refusal to allow the evidence to come out—a policy that, whatever its motives, has only fed suspicions of wrongdoing. If the government has nothing to hide, it sure seems determined to hide it.

It is not only Parliament, we should recall, that the government has been stonewalling. Colvin’s sensational appearance before the Commons special committee on Afghanistan only came about after the chairman of the military police complaints commission, Peter Tinsley, discontinued hearings into the treatment of Afghan detainees in the face of the government’s persistent refusal to release the relevant documents to the commission.

Obstructing the work of a quasi-judicial commission is one thing—regrettably, hardly unusual in this country, where the shutdown of the Somalia inquiry caused barely a ripple. But refusing a Commons committee’s demand for the documents—and, more remarkably, last week’s vote of the full House—is

This is hardly a “fishing expedition,” after all. The Colvin memos, in particular, are clearly relevant to some of the central questions in dispute: what happened, what the government knew, what it should have known. If nothing else, they go, as the lawyers say, to the question of credibility. Colvin told the committee he warned his superiors, repeatedly, that Canadian-transferred prisoners were being tortured; his superiors, military and civilian, testified they received no such warnings—that, indeed, the memos said no such thing.

The release, after much delay, of the “redacted” memos, did little to resolve the question, so many and extensive were the blacked-out portions: much as other documents were blacked out before their release. The defence offered by the government, of national security concerns, is a legitimate one in principle. But whatever benefit of the doubt the government might have enjoyed has been diminished as we learn what some of the redactions conceal.

Much controversy, for example, was aroused by the publication of a Canadian soldier’s field notes describing the capture and transfer of an Afghan prisoner who, it later emerged, was beaten by the Afghan National Police—in particular, by the following passage: “We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition.” (Emphasis added.) In the version released to the MPCC, the same document reads: “We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over [redacted].”

So we need to see the documents, in unedited form. Or rather, Parliament (technically, the House of Commons, but I’ll use the shorthand) has demanded to see the documents. With that, and with the government’s brusque rejection of its demands, the dispute has entered an entirely new stage. It is difficult to overstate the importance of what is at stake. It is no less fundamental than whether the government is answerable to Parliament—the bedrock principle of our system of government. That’s not only a political matter. It’s also, arguably, a legal one.

I say arguably, because legal scholars appear to be divided. There is no debate that Parliament has the power to subpoena records and compel witnesses, one of a broad array of powers and immunities known as parliamentary privilege. What is in question is how far these apply to government officials—that is, to the Crown.

Some, such as Patrick Monahan of Osgoode Hall law school, accept the government’s argument that it is bound by statute not to release the redacted information, notably by the Security of Information Act and the Canada Evidence Act. If Parliament would like to make an exception to these laws, runs the argument, it is obliged to amend the legislation. Others, such as McGill’s Stephen Scott, emphasize Crown prerogative as a limiting factor on parliamentary privilege. Whatever powers Parliament may have to demand documents, he argues, they are not sufficiently explicit to override the Crown’s.

The Commons law clerk, Rob Walsh, takes the opposite view. In a strongly worded exchange of letters with the Department of Justice, Walsh puts the onus the other way around: in the absence of a specific exception in the statutes, the general presumption of parliamentary privilege should apply. If Parliament had wanted the Canada Evidence Act to limit its right to compel evidence, it would have said so. In fact, the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister at the time was at pains to spell out in debate that the intent of the bill was that “Parliament’s privilege to send [for] persons, papers and records not be affected.”

But Walsh’s views are mild, compared to those of Derek Lee. The lawyer and Liberal MP could fairly be said to have written the book on this issue—literally. The Power of Parliamentary Houses to Send for Persons, Papers & Records: A Sourcebook on the Law and Precedent of Parliamentary Subpoena for Canadian and Other Houses, his 1999 opus, would seem to have been written in anticipation of just such a dispute. Lee himself is categorical: Parliament’s powers in this respect are absolute and total, even with regard to government officials. “There is no barrier—none.” Well, short of summoning the Queen.

How should Parliament respond to the government’s apparent rejection of its demands? Lee is unequivocal. “There are only two or three times every century when parliaments have an opportunity to benchmark their powers,” he says. “This is one of those moments in time, when Parliament says the king must submit to the will of the people’s House.”

The matter won’t be settled in court, he vows: indeed, the courts will not even look at it. Rather, he intends to move a motion asserting parliamentary privilege just as soon as the House returns. Should the Commons vote to find the government in contempt, it has a range of punishments at its command, even as far as banishing the Prime Minister from the House. And should the government deem this a confidence vote? “This is so fundamental it’s not even a matter of confidence. Parliament might not allow itself to be dissolved, and the Governor General should be aware of this.”

It needn’t come to that, of course. No one is suggesting the documents should be released to the general public. So far as national security concerns are an issue, committee meetings could go in camera. Committee members could be required to swear an oath not to disclose the evidence they received, as is the practice in other democracies. As it happens, Lee is the sponsor of a private member’s bill that would set up a national security committee on these lines, reviving a government bill that died with the 2006 election. He has written the Prime Minister asking his support for the legislation. Now would seem a good time for the PM to respond.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere

Harper is redefining prorogation

Canada's constitution lies in the written constitution as well as in parliamentary traditions or conventions. One of these is that prorogation of the House of Commons occurs after the agenda set forth in the Throne Speech is accomplished, or before elections. This definition of prorogation is being progressively amended by Harper and his Conservatives, rendering it instead a powerful government tool to escape accountability and to leverage power.

The first instance of this was last year, during the parliamentary crisis. Under unusual circumstances, the Prime Minister asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament so as to avoid an impending vote of non-confidence. By misguidedly accepting this request, the Governor General ceded prorogation to the Prime Minister as a political tool. Last year the government used it to stave off defeat. Now they are musing about using it for other, similarly unconventional and partisan motives.

The Conservatives are worried by the prospect of further questions on the issues surrounding Richard Colvin's testimony on the transfer of prisoners to the Afghan police. They have been losing, albeit not at an exceedingly rapid rate, support in the polls.

Furthermore, the fact that in the new year the Conservatives could have a majority in the Senate is driving them to consider prorogation. The problem is that if they do not prorogue Parliament, they will have a majority in the Senate, but not on the Senate committees. Only prorogation can do this.

It would be a prorogation for purely partisan motives and for this reason, if the Conservatives do ask for the proroguing of Parliament, the Governor General should do what she should have done last year, and deny this request.

Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers If you liked this post, please vote for my blog at Canadian Blogosphere