I've heard time and time again how our Conservative government is interested in policy and democracy. This government is beyond the destructive political games that ran wild under the previous Liberal governments. Harper wants meaningful, substantive debate in the House of Commons and its committees. I always suspected this was hollow politiking, and it turns out I was correct. The Globe and Mail (among countless other news sources) has published an article about the Conservative manual that tells committee chairs how best to disrupt committee proceedings when the debate turns against the government.
According to opposition members, "A manual telling Conservative chairs of Commons committees how to stick to the party agenda — and to obstruct or end meetings when the debate turns hostile to the government — is proof that parliamentary dysfunction is being orchestrated by the Conservatives." And it gets worse. "The manual tells the chairs how to select and coach party-friendly witnesses, obstruct unwanted debates, pick witnesses from Conservative ridings and call a halt to meetings that have gone off track."
If you're wondering if the Harper government has actually been adhering to the manual, the answer is unequivocally YES. This week alone, the Tory government has filibustered the ethics committee, the agricultural committee, and cancelled hearings supposed to be held by the official languages committee (why didn't they cancel the Shane Doan bullshit? Because it basically did the job of filibustering for them).
The Conservatives' defence? According to Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, "we...made promises to Canadians at the time of the last election, and we have the duty to deliver on them." Even at the expense of the democratic process it seems.
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale opined, "Right from the very beginning, Canadians observed and members of the media observed, that [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper had a kind of control fetish, that he just had to run everything all the time and there couldn't be one comma or one sentence or one word uttered without his personal approval and I think in part, it is a manifestation of that kind of absolute obsession with control."
This manual basically tells Conservative committee chairs how to get in the way of democracy. As far as I can see, it represents the worst sort of abuse of our system.
In other news, recent polls are showing the Tories and the Grits in a dead heat* in terms of popularity. This before the Liberals have even managed to get their act together. Is this the death knell tolling for the Conservative government?
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*If you've clicked this link, you'll notice the poll has the Tories ahead of the Grits by 3%. If you read the entire article, you'll notice that the poll is considered accurate within 3.1%. Therefore, this poll tells us the Tories and Grits are basically tied.
At the risk of sounding a little too partisan, I think it's a bit rich to be taking criticism from the Liberals on this subject. It was your party, after all, on directions from PMJC's PMO, that was adamently against the idea of a free-election of the committee chairs by the committee members (prior to the recent practice, the chairs were hand-picked by the PMO)... So, to say that somehow the Tories are guilty of obstructing democracy and an abuse of the system is rich (Don't bother saying that I'm using the "Liberals did it first" line --the best defense to the argument is to highlight what was done before), and only goes to discredit the new argument you are trying to make (the Tories are bad, but then again, we did it too)
ReplyDeleteOn that note, do I think the Tories were stupid for putting the tactics down in writing? For sure. It was well-known that in the PMJC administration, "why write it when you speak it; why speak it when you get nod it; why nod it when you can wink it" and so on. Our fault was actually writing it, but perhaps we'll look back into the anals of the Chretien era to learn the proper way of doing it (the Sponsorship highlighted these methods perfectly, and to this day, we don't know exactly how much federal money the Liberal Party in Quebec pocketed. Priceless.)
It should also be known, and heard, that the manual was written after the Shane Doan controversy, indicating that the government had to get some handle on what the committees were up to (perhaps drunk on their new power, or unsure of how to handle it, the government had to step in and provide "guidance" to the committees, since they were clearly out of control)...
To that end, it was stupid of the Tories for doing it. But, as you've acknowledged, these political games "ran wild under the previous Liberal governments" and as such, that's the best answer yet to highlight the hyprocracy that lies in the Grits' new position.
You told me not to say you're using the "Liberals did it first" line, so I won't...but I'll think it anyway. I'm also amused to find you've used the "Liberals are hypocrites" line again. Something we did under a different regime (the Chretien/Martin regime versus the Dion regime), even though it's still under the Liberal banner, doesn't make us hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteAs for elected versus appointed committee chairs, I fail to see the relevance here. This is about getting in the way of real debate, and as I believe you (and others) have opined previously, these committees are really the only place (aside from the Senate) that our government has any useful debates...at least until Harper had his way.
Then you have the standard Tory answer to any challenge they face: Yell "sponsorship scandal" then watch as the focus shifts. Brilliant. Not noble, but brilliant.
Here's what I'll focus on in your comment:
"It was stupid of the Tories for doing it."
Finally some of the much sought-after "truth in politics."
"Truth in politics"
ReplyDeleteThat's what I preach!