Milliken: Parliament has the power to force government produce documents

Just this in from Kady's live blogging:

"In light of these various arguments," Milliken notes, the House does, indeed, have the right to order the documents in question, as it did in December. Got that, everyone? Now, the question is whether it would be a breach of privilege to refuse to comply. Oh wow, that last line just got a round of applause from the opposition benches. On the other side? Silence. Kind of unsettling silence.

Fingers crossed...

And the result is... two more weeks for Parliament to come up with a plan that deals with security concerns while still allowing for the unredacted documents to be viewed.

And, says Milliken, this is a Matter of Privilege, so if the government refuses to play ball, there's going to be trouble.

So far, our stumbling parliamentary democracy appears to still be intact.

My fear? Harper is preparing to lawyer up, and frag this through our courts.

"If we don't stand up to protect our democracy, we're going to lose it"

Paul Kennedy, former head of RCMP complaints commission, interviewed on Power and Politics, has some startling and depressing things to say. Watch the whole 10 minutes.

Some of his comments:

"I beleive that these commissions that we have are one aspect of the democracy that we have in this country and I have seen a number of steps taken that I think are goign to erode democracy. If there's an inheritance that I want to leave to my children its the democracy that we've had in this country..."

"I haven't got the slightest idea what is on the mind of Stephen Harper... what I do see causes me concern and if it isn't arrested I think we've got problems."

"I am campaigning for is these commissions should be there they should be properly empowered they should have proper financial base and they should have proper effective leadership. Those attributes aren't there... If people lose confidence in the RCMP I think that hurts them as a police force I think it hurts the service that is delivered to Canadians."

"Parties come and go. Leaders come and go. Democracy and the system we have, that's what's important. That's our legacy... If we don't protect those cornerstones, we're in trouble... I think there's potential here if we don't stand up to protect our democracy, we're going to lose it."

He thinks that the commission is just being put to sleep so that it can not embarrass the government. He's very clear in that its a conflict of interest to have the minister appoint the commissioner. He doesn't think that the interim commissioner has the proper background to do the job.

(It's been widely reported that the new commissioner, Ian McPhail, is a purely politicized appointment. His legal knowledge is in estate law, and his qualifications seem to stem from many years of service to various Conservative parties.)

Commissioners would have more independence if they were beholden to Parliament not the government of the day.

I'm not the only one seeing a pattern emerge of what reforms we need, am I?

Parliamentary supremacy.

Conservative win on the In and Out front

The Conservatives have a win on the In and Out 'scandal.'

I haven't time to read the ruling, but it appears, sadly, that it is now legal for a central campaign to eat up a local campaign's remaining spending limit.


I don't care that this is a win for the Conservatives. I care that this is a lose for local democracy.

Many local campaigns are going to be subject to pressure from central campaigns to hand over a (large) portion of their spending limits, an coercive event which can significantly limit grassroots initiatives. People will point out that the local campaign does not have to agree, but, give me a break. Defy the central party, and bad things happen. I've seen whole riding executives wiped out by central party trickery.

I know that political parties will strive to not shoot their own feet by further limiting the spending of ridings they believe they can win, but local riding associations often have a very different idea of what can be won and what is worth spending money on.

For those of us who believe that riding associations should be the political organs which legitimize political parties, this is just an other yoke around the neck of democracy.


The last thing Canada needs is even more centralized campaigning. People need to hear local voices more, and the sound of self-interested proroguing PMs less.

===
Update:

Kady is tweeting:

"have you read the full decision? it's a little less sweeping than i thought."

"it's basically 'unless and until someone is charged and convicted under the elections act, here's what has to happen'"

I''ll try to read it later. Let's hope.

===
More update:

And... it still isn't good for local democracy. The Conservatives may still be in trouble with some of their case, but local democracy is still more inder the thumb of central control as a result of this ruling. Accidental Deliberations has the take.

Tom Flanagan says he looks up to Iggy

A must read. Lots of nuggets in this interview: Ignatieff 'quality guy,' Flanagan says

Read this first, then move on

I love watching theory be put into practice.

"It doesn't have to be true, it just has to be plausible." -- Prof. Tom Flanagan

Now go read Impolitical.

Often what they don't want is what we need

So the outspoken Garth Turner has resigned his quest for candidancy will not be running for the Liberals.

He cites the country's fiscal mess, and the reluctance of both Harper and Iggy to have a real discussion about it. Both leaders claim they won't raise taxes, and both won't name any program cuts.

This doesn't seem credible. as Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page pointed out last February (pdf):

The current economic slowdown is global. As such, there are many external influences
beyond the control of Canadian policymakers that will impact Canadian economic growth
and fiscal finances. Further, PBO analysis suggests that for the Government to return to a
surplus position over the next five years is predicated in part on the Government
undertaking contractionary measures (i.e., additional spending restraint and/or increased
taxes) which would dampen the effectiveness of automatic fiscal stabilizers while the
economy remains well below its potential capacity.

We are shortly going to hear officially just how huge our deficit is. A portion of it may very well be structural.

And the big plan from our leaders? Steady as she goes, there's nothing to look at here...

Turner wants a frank discussion about this. He doubts -- correctly I say -- that economic growth will cure our deficit.

Look, the Liberals can't have someone like Turner around insisting we have a real discussion. Every word Turner would speak concerning our real choices here will have Harper's people demanding Iggy decide upon more taxes or spending cuts. Meanwhile, Harper would continue running around claiming neither are necessary. The liar.


So, outspoken Mr. Turner is not welcome.

Our last election featured Harper claiming everything was rosy, even as his government was madly borrowing and trading T-Bills to banks in exchange for mortgages. He gave interviews claiming all was well, and that there would be no deficits.

Our next election will feature more of the same. "Don't worry, everything is getting better. Now, please, dear electorate, go back to sleep."

We need MPs telling it like it is, Sadly, these days, MPs are more and more under the whip to be quiet and tow the line.

We need more MPs like Turner. Oh, Yes, I know of his weaknesses, but he's no sycophant.

Muslim Canadian Congress wants government to legislate religious practice?

The Muslim Canadian Congress is calling on government to ban the burka and the niqab.

This really can be parsed as a group insisting that the government make other Muslims follow an aspect of their interpretation of Islam. Though the Congress insists Islam does not call for the practice, obviously others think differently.

The state has no place is doing this. Also, the Charter doesn't allow it from several angles (s2, s15).What a minefield if it did. Are we to decide what is and what isn't a legitimate part of a religion? If government starts telling people what they can't wear in private belief, will they not also start telling us what we must?


Unfortunately, the Congress asking for this this is going to be used by racists in a number of ways: They will charge that Muslim support the state repressing natural rights, such as the right to belief and act according to that belief. Muslims who speak out in favour of covering women's faces will be derided as un-Canadian, subject to the negative framing argument "Do we really want these extremists here?"

Finally, the Congress using public safety and security as a justification for banning them only fuels the racist fires that people following those customs are extremists who are a threat to this country. The Congress' intent here does not matter.

It is not illegal to wear a disguise, it is illegal to wear one while committing or planning a criminal offense. This distinction is most fortunate, given that Halloween is approaching.


As an atheist and as a supporter of equality rights, I have always found offense with the intent behind the burka and the niqab; however the state has no place legislating them out of existence.

I support the Muslim Canadian Congress' want to end this practice.

I would hope that the Congress instead would expend these efforts on getting government to better support social services designed to help women living in repressive circumstances to extricate themselves.

The Congress supported and extensively campaigned against Sharia law not being applied in family law tribunals in Ontario. They were right to do so. Racists made much of those tribunals, negatively framing them as "Muslims taking over." They will make much of this request as well.

I am interested in hearing from supporters of this demand.

Would-be Conservative MP steps down

No surprise here: The Markham-Unionville Conservative candidate, Gordon Landon, has resigned.

Landon was dumped Monday as the Conservative candidate for Markham-Unionville after publicly musing the GTA riding was being shut out of federal infrastructure funding because it is held by a Liberal.The York regional councillor says he complied with a request from the Conservative party to step aside, adding he is not used to people telling him what to say and think.

..."I didn't follow Conservative policy in terms of getting permission to go on that TV show and I made a comment on that show that was an embarrassment to some members of the Conservative party."

Of course, even Conservative MPs have to get such permission. They owe more fealty to their party than to their constituents.

He wants to speak his own mind? Wow. Did he ever pick the wrong party to run for.

Conservatives promoting Trudeau

The Conservatives are running ads (see sidebar in the link) in Quebec featuring historical outtakes of Justin Trudeau criticizing Ignatieff during the Liberal leadership debate several years ago (has it been that long?).

What I find interesting is that the Conservatives are implicitly boosting Trudeau's image, promoting him as a person whose opinions are worth listening to. It's not what they intend, but it is a by-product of the ad.

“Ignatieff, he’s a little all over the place sometimes,” Trudeau says in the spot, in a clip drawn from a 2006 TV interview.

“He says this, he says that — he contradicts himself.”

Trudeau then delivers this little parting shot: “For me, he’s not someone with... maybe he has the intelligence, but maybe not the wisdom required.”

At the time, the young Trudeau and candidate Ignatieff had crossed swords over whether Quebec should be recognized as a nation — something Ignatieff supported.

The ad’s narrator ends the spot by asking viewers: “Liberals themselves doubt (Ignatieff’s) judgment. How can we trust him?”

Ignatieff :“As compared to Mr. Harper, I can work very well with people who have opinions that differ from mine... Justin Trudeau is a man with a remarkable future in the party and I’m proud that he’s part of my team and that’s all I have to say.”

Trudeau's response: "If I accused him of lacking wisdom, when I look at those words today and all the trouble they could cause even three years later, taken out of context . . . I am prepared to admit that maybe I'm the one who lacked wisdom."

Not that these quotes will counter the ad, as they get far less exposure. But I suggest this ad will have little effect in of itself. People expect politicans to bicker amongst themselves. As there is nothing inherently scandalous about the content, there will be little to no effect.

Will this build into some sort of sucessful theme? We'll see.

Report calls for complete reform of political debates

A proposal for an independent body to oversee political debates instead of an unaccountable consortium? Heavens!

I agree with this, except for the part excluding the Bloc from English debates. Anglophones in Quebec are more comfortable in English, and the rest of Canada is not sufficiently bilingual. We need to know what the Bloc has to say.

Why Democracy Watch should have averted its gaze

“What we have is a situation where the prime minister is able to choose the date of the election, not based necessarily on the best interests of the country but on the best interests of his or her political party.  I believe Bill C-16 would address those concerns. . . . "Instead of the Prime Minister and a small group of advisers being the only ones who know when the country will move into the next general election, when this bill is passed, all Canadians will have that knowledge, which makes it fair. . . . This Prime Minister will live by the law and spirit of this particular piece of legislation.  He and this government are driving this democratic reform. ”

(Hon. Rob Nicholson (then-Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform), speaking in the House of Commons on September 18, 2006 about the fixed election date measures in Bill C-16, which became law on May 3, 2007)

Last year, Harper walked up to the Governor General, and asked for Parliament to be dissolved. Parliament wasn't even in session. No non-confidence vote had been held.

Harper got his wish, and we found ourselves in a general election. $300 million later, it ended with much the same result it started with.

Was the election legal? Strange as it may seem, it is convention that the Governor General agree to any such request by the Prime Minister, even without a non-confidence vote. Conventions are considered constitutional, though they are not codified; however, Harper, with much fanfare, had previously passed though Parliament a fixed-term election statute forbidding the calling of an election prior to the end of a term unless a non-confidence vote occurred.

The problem is, 'convention' is a constitutional issue, and if Harper followed convention, than an Act of Parliament cannot override it. The problem likely isn't that the law was broken, the problem likely is that Parliament passed an unconstitutional law. An Act of Parliament cannot amend the powers of the Head of State. It is likewise unlikely that the convention Harper used to approach the Governor General can be amended either.

Yes, of course Harper knew this when he crafted the fixed term election law.

Democracy Watch has taken the matter to Federal court and has argued for Harper's election call to be found illegal. Win or lose, Democracy Watch has an interesting angle to play:

"If Democracy Watch wins, the Federal Court will rule that Prime Minister Harper is a dishonest lawbreaker because he gave false reasons for calling the snap federal election last September in violation of his own fixed-election-date law.  If Democracy Watch loses, the court will rule that Prime Minister Harper is a dishonest promise-breaker because he failed to keep his 2006 election promise to pass a law fixing election dates," said  Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch

Impressive as this is, I expect failure. I suspect the judge will rule in the government's favour for reasons stated above, and for all the posturing of Democracy Watch, Harper's rebuttal -- if he even bothers -- will be to say "The court agreed with me, of course." Harper will not bother to explain why the law he pushed was ineffective. He'll ignore that, and will simply press that the courts sided with him (those damn liberal judges...). Forevermore, those will be Harper's words, long after Democracy Watch's PR on this issue quickly fades.

I think it likely that Democracy Watch will fail, and we'll lose another piece in our arsenal: the plausible, though not that defensible, claim that Harper violated the law when he called the 2008 election.

Hopefully, the Judge rules against Harper. But I think it would have been better if this had stayed out of the courts.

h/t to Five of Five