>*Two different forums of accountability, two very different outcomes.*
>*Over at the Foreign Interference Commission, chaired by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, a parade of witnesses and government documents have cast new light on the Trudeau government’s failure to respond to intelligence reports of attempts by China, in particular, to interfere in Canadian elections and intimidate Canadian citizens.*
>*We’ve heard of intelligence memos being kept from the Prime Minister by his advisers, of an application for a surveillance warrant being held up for weeks, allegedly because it involved a prominent Liberal organizer, of high-level officials shrugging off intimidation campaigns as somebody else’s problem.*
>*And of course there was the later matter of the two Chinese spies working in the Winnipeg infectious disease laboratory. Once again a Speaker ruled that a government’s failure to hand over the documents was in breach of Parliamentary privilege. Once again a government was found in contempt of Parliament. And the government’s response? First it sued the Speaker. Then it dissolved the House.*
Expect that a similar ploy is **imminent.**
semucallday on
This is such a great point:
> …If nothing else, the mayhem in the House adds fuel to Conservative arguments that this government has reached the end of its useful life, and ought to be dismissed.
> But just because the Conservatives are saying it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, it’s theatre, yes it’s partisan – and yes, the Conservatives, given their own assaults on the same ancient and undoubted right, are flaming hypocrites, every bit as much as the Liberals – but there is still a deadly serious issue at stake. It may be a show, but it is in the service of saving Parliament from becoming nothing but a show.
> **For if Parliament, in the course of its investigations, cannot compel the government to produce the documents it requires, then it has no real oversight role**. The paper trail is always the key. That’s why we make governments keep records in the first place.
Baulderdash77 on
This is the central point- the Executive Government – serves at the privilege and oversight of the Legislative branch of government.
Sometimes the Executive seems to forget this and the Legislative has to put it in check.
While holding the House of Commons paused might be inconvenient to the Executive; the House has every right to hold it up until it gets its way.
The calculus for the Conservatives is fairly straightforward- they can actually run the entire clock out until next October if they want to.
However what I think is more likely is that the few bills that are important to the NDP will pass the senate and we will see them give up and consent to a non-confidence motion.
Either way, this Government is effectively over until the next election. That could be 90 days from now or it could be 12 months from now but it’s over.
moirende on
Oh yeah, I forgot that the most transparent government ever, who swore they would never ever ever prorogue parliament to avoid accountability like the evil Stephen Harper has already done it twice — both over being forced to otherwise release documents into major Liberal scandals — and are now probably going to do it a third time.
5 Comments
Archive link:
https://archive.ph/LBerm
>*Two different forums of accountability, two very different outcomes.*
>*Over at the Foreign Interference Commission, chaired by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, a parade of witnesses and government documents have cast new light on the Trudeau government’s failure to respond to intelligence reports of attempts by China, in particular, to interfere in Canadian elections and intimidate Canadian citizens.*
>*We’ve heard of intelligence memos being kept from the Prime Minister by his advisers, of an application for a surveillance warrant being held up for weeks, allegedly because it involved a prominent Liberal organizer, of high-level officials shrugging off intimidation campaigns as somebody else’s problem.*
>*We have heard all this for one reason only: because of the commission’s broad powers under the Inquiries Act, and under* [*its own rules*](https://archive.vn/o/LBerm/https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/fileadmin/foreign_interference_commission/Documents/Procedural_Documents/Rules_Procedures_and_Forms/Rules_of_Practice_and_Procedure.pdf)*, to compel the production of these witnesses and documents – powers enforceable in a court of law. One suspects this is why the Prime Minister was so reluctant to call it.*
>*…*
>*And yet the Trudeau government, which came to power promising to reverse the Harper government’s abuses (among them: “Stephen Harper has used prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances.* [*We will not*](https://archive.vn/o/LBerm/https://liberal.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/292/2020/09/New-plan-for-a-strong-middle-class.pdf)*.”) soon followed in its anti-democratic footsteps. There was the WE Charity affair, where it not only*[ *refused for months*](https://archive.vn/o/LBerm/https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ethics-commissioner-says-hes-received-thousands-of-pages-of-unredacted-we-charity-documents-while-mps-push-for-access) *to release the unredacted documents a parliamentary committee had demanded, but cut short its inquiries altogether by, you guessed it, proroguing.*
>*And of course there was the later matter of the two Chinese spies working in the Winnipeg infectious disease laboratory. Once again a Speaker ruled that a government’s failure to hand over the documents was in breach of Parliamentary privilege. Once again a government was found in contempt of Parliament. And the government’s response? First it sued the Speaker. Then it dissolved the House.*
Expect that a similar ploy is **imminent.**
This is such a great point:
> …If nothing else, the mayhem in the House adds fuel to Conservative arguments that this government has reached the end of its useful life, and ought to be dismissed.
> But just because the Conservatives are saying it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, it’s theatre, yes it’s partisan – and yes, the Conservatives, given their own assaults on the same ancient and undoubted right, are flaming hypocrites, every bit as much as the Liberals – but there is still a deadly serious issue at stake. It may be a show, but it is in the service of saving Parliament from becoming nothing but a show.
> **For if Parliament, in the course of its investigations, cannot compel the government to produce the documents it requires, then it has no real oversight role**. The paper trail is always the key. That’s why we make governments keep records in the first place.
This is the central point- the Executive Government – serves at the privilege and oversight of the Legislative branch of government.
Sometimes the Executive seems to forget this and the Legislative has to put it in check.
While holding the House of Commons paused might be inconvenient to the Executive; the House has every right to hold it up until it gets its way.
The calculus for the Conservatives is fairly straightforward- they can actually run the entire clock out until next October if they want to.
However what I think is more likely is that the few bills that are important to the NDP will pass the senate and we will see them give up and consent to a non-confidence motion.
Either way, this Government is effectively over until the next election. That could be 90 days from now or it could be 12 months from now but it’s over.
Oh yeah, I forgot that the most transparent government ever, who swore they would never ever ever prorogue parliament to avoid accountability like the evil Stephen Harper has already done it twice — both over being forced to otherwise release documents into major Liberal scandals — and are now probably going to do it a third time.
Quality governance on display, here.