The Beat Goes On

So it should be clear at this point that my focus for the next little bit is going to be trained fairly exclusively on the Canadian Afghan detainee transfer debate ongoing north of the border. The latest twist(s) to the story is that today some heavy hitting witnesses are set to testify in front of the House of Commons committee, including former Chief of Defence Rick Hillier, who has claimed from the get go that “no smoking gun” around Colvin’s allegations ever caught his attention, and current Canadian Ambassador to China and former   Director of the Canadian Afghanitan Task Force David Mulroney, who was specifically named by Colvin as someone who told him to tamp down on his memos.

Both testimonies will be valuable in the process regardless of whether one believes that a public inquiry is necessary or not. At the end of the day what is needed in this situation is more information and as much of it as possible. So while I understand the Opposition parties’ reluctance to cross-examine Mulroney without any of the documentation they’ve requested, I think they are making a strategic mistake by trying to delay his testimony. As a panelist on my new favourite Canadian politics show, Power and Politics with Evan Solomon, noted (sorry, can’t remember which one) if Mulroney is allowed to testify, so much the better for the information received. If, upon reviewing documents released by the government, the Committee is forced to call him back based on a discrepancy, well the Opposition wins there too.

The whole issue around the release of documents pertaining to the issue in question is another area on it’s own, though, that I find the Harper government’s tactics troubling. As reported by Aaron Wherry at MacLeans, Harper and Defence Minister Peter McKay keep saying that they will provide the Committee with all documents they are legally required to submit. That word, legally, has been sticking in a lot of craws and mine is no different.

Technically speaking, that is the correct answer. But what would have been a better answer would have been to say we will provide whatever information it is within our power to provide to clear up any allegations or misunderstandings of wrong doing. The way I read Harper and McKay’s (and by extension, the government’s) response is to say basically: we will do the bare minimum that is required of us to deal with this issue and only because we are legally required to do so. If anyone is wondering why I’ve personally been moved to the belief that a public inquiry is necessary, well, there it is.

I mean, at some point, government has to acknowledge that they are perceived by many who are invested in this issue as being less than cooperative to obstructionist and that that is a problem when it comes to allegations that government either did know or should have known that it was complicit in the torture of prisoners, some of whom may well have been innocent of any wrongdoing. That is certainly the conclusion that a majority of Canadians have come to according to a breaking poll by Harris Decima,

Of course, Laurie Hawn is right that the public hasn’t heard any other testimony and so it will be interesting to see how the numbers shift in the coming weeks. But, to be honest, Hawn also kind of misses the point here because the public has heard the Harper government’s response to Colvin’s testimony and the point of the poll is that they’ve found it lacking. That the government is intent on erecting some kind of Kafkaesque, “we’ll determine what documents you can have for the purposes of your inquiry into our actions” wall of secrecy with only legally required pin-prick holes, especially in light of the new information that Colvin’s memos did reach the office of the Foreign Affairs Minister doesn’t help its cause in this issue.

And this is where I get a bit vexed on a more general level. Government skeptics often rave on and on about the size of government and government spending, citing these facts and figures as evidence of government intrusion into their lives. And yet, when you have what seems like a mounting case of government abusing power, potentially acting in ways that are anathema to the values and beliefs of the vast majority of its citizens, and then acting in a belligerent fashion when called to account on those potential actions, those self-same people often have little-to-nothing to say. Especially when the government in question lies in the hands of  “their guys”.

If I have a libertarian streak in me, it is in this regard: that size and spending of government, while important, aren’t nearly as important as the ways in which government actively utilizes power and deception to remain floating above the horizon of accountability it is so happy to impose upon its own citizens and other countries/governments. And if you’re going to remain silent on the latter while frothing at the mouth on the former, regardless of who happens to be in power at any particular time, then your arguments lose a great deal of rhetorical and moral persuasion in my books.

And, of course, here is the obligatory reminder about the online peition I’ve started to try to raise awareness about the issue and the need for a public inquiry amongst Canadians.

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Tags | Canadian politics, David Mulroney, Harper government, Harris Decima, Peter McKay, power, public opinion, Richard Colvin, Rick Hillier, size of government