Opposition MPs and many Canadians are outraged that the Conservative minority is afraid – AFRAID – to face Parliament and answer uncomfortable questions about treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, joblessness and partisan appointments to the Senate due within days.
It is an outrage! Democracy denied! There hasn’t been such an undemocratic prime minister since …
This month and next, the lights in Parliament are dimmed thanks to a decision by prime minister Stephen Harper to prorogue the last session of Parliament and to start the next session March 3.
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Legislation gets killed. Committees are closed. Parliament was supposed to reconvene Jan. 25. It will not.
What does the Harper government have to hide, ask political opponents and professional anti-Conservative “civil society” groups.
A bit of perspective is in order here.
MPs of all parties agreed to a parliamentary recess of 27 working days until late January. The prorogation adds little more than 20 days to the lights-out period.
It was, of course, a partisan Conservative decision, ending temporarily a Commons’ committee that was asking embarrassing questions about Afghanistan and giving the government a month to bask in Olympic glory.
It is true that Harper is no fan of democratic debate, media or opposition power to thwart his power dreams. But the critics should read more history.
Harper and his cohorts didn’t invent the technique of closing down embarrassing investigations or leaving the lights off in Parliament.
Having won a slim second majority in 1997, Liberal Jean Chrétien turned out the parliamentary lights in 2000 to call an election he knew he could win. Earlier, he closed a judicial inquiry into Canadian soldier misconduct in Somalia when the evidence of culpability got close to the government.
Perhaps the longest parliamentary lights-out happened in 1979 when newly elected Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark, now the Liberals’ favourite house Conservative, kept Parliament in the dark for five months after winning office.
Then there was Pierre Trudeau in 1968, closing Parliament after less than three years because he thought he could win the next election.
In the early 2000s, Alberta-based conservatives supporting a provincial Conservative regime into its fourth decade laughingly complained about a “one party state” in Ottawa because the Liberals had been there for a decade.
The greatest Canadian dictatorial parliamentary transgression was the manoeuvre by Conservative Robert Borden in 1916 to become the first to extend a government to six years rather than the constitutional five. He also changed the voter rules to ensure he won in 1917.
So what should we make of the current prorogation that has driven anti-Harperites into a lather? It surely is a cynical political manoevre. It was unnecessary.
But it is hardly the end of democracy as we know it. When Parliament reconvenes, the opposition still will have a majority and can reconstitute Afghan hearings if it wants.
Canadian political debate lacks historical perspective.
