Democracy diminished, accountability avoided

Globe Editorial

Democracy diminished, accountability avoided

By suspending Parliament, Stephen Harper allows the governing party to elude the detainee issue, a move that undermines the democratic rights of the people

From Thursday's Globe and MailPublished on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 11:18PM ESTLast updated on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009 9:58AM EST
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/democracy-diminished-accountability-avoided/article1415461/

For the second consecutive December, Stephen Harper is putting Parliament on ice. In the act, the Prime Minister is turning prorogation, a sometimes sensible parliamentary procedure, into an underhanded manoeuvre to avoid being accountable to Parliament. In the interests of political expediency, the government will diminish the democratic rights of Canadians.

Proroguing stops committee work and makes all legislation pending before Parliament vanish. Historically, it has been used when a government has implemented most of its agenda. Until Mr. Harper's innovation, it was not an annual occurrence; the last minority government to use it more than once was Lester B. Pearson's Liberal administration in the 1960s.

Today, the Conservative agenda remains unfulfilled. More than half of all government bills – 37 of 64 – introduced since January, 2009, have yet to be passed into law. Eleven of these are justice bills, dealing with such weighty matters as elimination of the faint-hope clause (which still needs to be taken up by the Senate) and tougher sentencing for white-collar criminals and drug traffickers. These can be re-introduced when the new Parliament resumes in March, but they will need to go through the legislative process anew. In any case, Mr. Harper's decision means Parliament will lose more than 20 days: time that could have been used debating, amending and passing these bills.

There is a tactical political advantage to prorogation. The government temporarily eludes an issue of national importance that is particularly inconvenient: its knowledge of torture of Afghan detainees. Government members have already acted as truants when Afghanistan committee hearings are called. The government failed to provide documents to committee members, and implied it will disregard a parliamentary order to produce those documents. Prorogation is the logical extension of such thinking: shut down parliamentary debate entirely.

Prorogation would also allow the government a freer hand in the Senate: five vacancies need to be filled, and committees can be reconstituted after prorogation, giving Conservatives a “governing majority.”

Political calculation is clearly behind the decision to prorogue. The Conservatives are hoping to bask in the glow of Olympic glory while dodging the mess and scrutiny of lawmaking, Question Period and an outstanding, unprecedented order from Parliament to provide transparency and truth on the detainee file. Then, they hope to return in March, stronger in the Senate and ready to reclaim, they hope, the public agenda.

Canada's democracy should not be conducted solely on the basis of convenience for the governing party. If the debate over detainees cannot be carried out in Parliament, then it should continue among Canadians at large. On this and other important issues, the government cannot delay accountability forever.

Proroguing Parliament – a travesty, yet clever

John Ibbitson

Proroguing Parliament – a travesty, yet clever

Move by Harper a defeat for those who think government should be honest, open and accountable

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/proroguing-parliament-a-travesty-yet-clever/article1415391/

John Ibbitson

Ottawa —Published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 9:13PM ESTLast updated on Friday, Jan. 01, 2010 1:14AM EST

The Harper government's decision to have Parliament prorogued in the dead of Christmas week sets a record for taking out the trash.

That's the political term for a government dumping unwelcome or unpopular announcements at times when the news is likely to be ignored. Embarrassed by a damning report? Release it on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend.

Determined to short-circuit an investigation into how the government mishandled the treatment of Afghan detainees? Wait until the eve of New Year's Eve – when MPs are in their ridings or down south, readers and viewers are few, and that day's news is dominated by the picks for the men's Olympic hockey team – and suspend Parliament.

For anyone who believes that our governments should be honest, open and accountable, this is a travesty. But it's devilishly clever.

A senior government official, speaking on background, insisted that calculations concerning the Afghan detainees controversy played no part in the decision.

Rather, said the official, the government wanted to give itself time and breathing room to think through how to manage the economy as it emerges from recession and to put in place a long-term strategy for balancing the budget.

Conservatives will tell you that this newspaper, a few other journalists and opposition politicians are the only ones concerned with the detainees issue. It's “old news,” as press secretary Dimitri Soudas put it in a conference call with reporters yesterday.

That government officials or politicians may have been negligent in safeguarding the treatment of Afghan detainees, thus violating the Geneva Conventions, is of no real concern to most Canadians, the Tories maintain.

They are almost certainly right. But the fact remains that proroguing Parliament shuts down the committee that was the source of the most embarrassing revelations about government bungling in Afghanistan. The Military Police Complaints Commission, which was also looking into the affair, is effectively suspended until the government gets around to appointing a new commissioner.

By government design, all official inquiry into this matter has been terminated until March, at least. The Conservatives aren't concerned? They have a strange way of showing it.

There are plenty of other good reasons to prorogue, from the government's perspective. Stephen Harper will be able to rejig Senate committees to reflect the imminent arrival of five party loyalists whom we all expect him to appoint early in the new year. The Throne Speech, now scheduled for March 3, and the budget on March 4 will politically embarrass the opposition parties, forcing them once again to support a government they detest rather than bring on an election that would devastate the Liberals, in particular.

In partisan political terms, proroguing Parliament this week was inspired.

All we lose is a chance to talk. Had Parliament reconvened Jan. 25, as originally planned, MPs could have debated the priorities for the coming budget; the government's plans – oh, sorry, lack of plans – to meet its Copenhagen promise to do something, some day, about fighting global warming; whether and how to reform pensions in both the public and private sector; Canada's future commitments in Afghanistan. That is what Parliament was to have talked about through February, before it was silenced.

“It's no way to run a business,” as NDP Leader Jack Layton put it yesterday. But never mind: The people will have their Olympic circuses, and the government can plan for our future unhindered by oversight.

Mr. Layton remembers when Mr. Harper, as leader of the Official Opposition, lambasting the Chrétien government's plans to prorogue Parliament back in 2003, to prevent the Auditor-General from reporting on possible abuse of the sponsorship program in Quebec.

“The government will prorogue the House so that it will not be held accountable for its shameful record,” Mr. Harper thundered.

But that was so long ago.