Harper Government Seems To Be Schizophrenic
Stephen Harper and the Conservative government has once again challenged the rights of Parliament, this time by announcing this morning that the government would no longer allow elected members' staff to testify in front of committees even when asked to appear.
The first challenge that the government eventually lost by ruling of the Speaker, was when it refused to make available unredacted documents detailing government involvement in the Afghan detainee scandal. Peter Milliken ruled that the will of Parliament takes precedence over the objections of the government just a few weeks ago. Now, it seems that the government is actually pushing for another confrontation with the opposition, as well as another possible constitutional test.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister's director of communications, Dimitri Soudas appeared on CTV's Question Period and said that he didn't think he would attend a scheduled committee hearing this week. This followed an incident last week whereby a government staffer was accompanied by their Member of Parliament even though the MP was not asked to be there, and proceeded to answer questions directed at their staffer disrupting the proceedings.
The big problem I find with all of this is that the Harper government ran on a platform of transparency, which it has abandoned twice now for what seem to be political reasons. They argue that the staffers of MPs shouldn't be treated so poorly, or take responsibility for elected officials by being subjected to questions. That is absurd. Staffers get paid really good money to do most of the actual policy making and work on behalf of elected officials, and as a consequence know a lot more than some MPs as to the inner workings of things. Do we really want to tie the hands of the committee process so that Parliament can't effectively police what the government is doing? That doesn't seem like something a champion for transparency would be interested in.
Personally, I don't understand this move from a political standpoint unless the goal is to goad their way into an election while the Conservatives retain favourable polling numbers. We'll have to wait and see what happens when this new government rule gets challenged before we know who reigns supreme in this instance.
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The first challenge that the government eventually lost by ruling of the Speaker, was when it refused to make available unredacted documents detailing government involvement in the Afghan detainee scandal. Peter Milliken ruled that the will of Parliament takes precedence over the objections of the government just a few weeks ago. Now, it seems that the government is actually pushing for another confrontation with the opposition, as well as another possible constitutional test.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister's director of communications, Dimitri Soudas appeared on CTV's Question Period and said that he didn't think he would attend a scheduled committee hearing this week. This followed an incident last week whereby a government staffer was accompanied by their Member of Parliament even though the MP was not asked to be there, and proceeded to answer questions directed at their staffer disrupting the proceedings.
The big problem I find with all of this is that the Harper government ran on a platform of transparency, which it has abandoned twice now for what seem to be political reasons. They argue that the staffers of MPs shouldn't be treated so poorly, or take responsibility for elected officials by being subjected to questions. That is absurd. Staffers get paid really good money to do most of the actual policy making and work on behalf of elected officials, and as a consequence know a lot more than some MPs as to the inner workings of things. Do we really want to tie the hands of the committee process so that Parliament can't effectively police what the government is doing? That doesn't seem like something a champion for transparency would be interested in.
Personally, I don't understand this move from a political standpoint unless the goal is to goad their way into an election while the Conservatives retain favourable polling numbers. We'll have to wait and see what happens when this new government rule gets challenged before we know who reigns supreme in this instance.
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