“I think polls have been pretty clear that that’s not on the top of the radar of most Canadians.” – Stephen Harper on allegations that the government engaged in a cover-up over the abuse of Afghan detainees. [Read more →]

I’d be remiss if I signed off until the New Year without touching one more time on the Canadian Afghan detainee scandal. I’ve been silent  over the past little while not for want of caring or lack of information, but only to sit back and watch how things shape up a bit before commenting again. As readers will know, I’ve been following and writing about the developing state of affairs pretty closely over the past month and a bit.

Where we’re at now is that after the generally expressed dissatisfaction over what the BC Civil Liberties Association has described as “heavily, heavily redacted” documents released by the government, Tories like the inimitable Stockwell Day have called asking for more transparency “naive” and fallen back on a ” you want more? take us to court” line of response, claiming that failure to maintain requisite secrecy could, “put Canadian troops lives at risk. Incidentally, in a public letter law clerk and parliamentary counsel Robert Walsh, a legal expert in the laws affecting Parliament, dismissed that reason saying (emphasis mine),

It would appear that providing the documents sought by the Committee without redaction presents concerns for the Government in relation to nation security matters. While the Committee might try in some manner to address these concerns, at the end of the day the Government is obliged to supply the Committee whatever information it requests in the performance of its mandate from the House.

The Special Committee and all House committees act in support of the constitutional function of the House of Commons of holding the Government to account. In keeping with the principles of responsible government, no part of the Government’s responsibilities can by law be categorically excluded or removed from its constitutional accountability to the House and its committees, otherwise it would soon become only partial accountability and perhaps after some years no accountability at all.

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The news that Canadian National Defence Minister Peter McKay does not intend to resign over mounting allegations that he either did know or should have known that Afghan detainees transferred by Canadian forces were likely being subject to torture, in spite of top Canadian commander Walter Natynczyk’s blockbuster confirmation that a detainee who was transferred by Canadian forces was tortured, should surprise no one. [Read more →]

Previously, polling company Harris Decima had released poll results demonstrating that a majority of Canadians believed Richard Colvin’s testimony about the likelihood of Canadian detainees in Afghanistan being handed over for torture, despite the government’s rebuttal. Some people dismissed that poll, saying that it had come out prior to testimony by key witnesses like Rick Hillier and David Mulroney (which, to some degree, missed the point as the respondents were expressing their agreement with Colvin, not the government, which had had ample time to respond).

Well, polling company Ekos has a fresh poll out that was conducted between December 2-8, after Hillier, Mulroney, and various other high level officials testified in front of the House of Commons committee (save Peter McKay himself, who spoke yesterday), showing that,

A clear majority of Canadians believe that Canadian Forces handed off prisoners with the knowledge that they might be subject to torture (61% nationally and over 70% outside of CPC supporters). Of that, the vast majority (83%) believe that transferred prisoners were undoubtedly subjected to torture.

Graphs below the jump… [Read more →]

In response to my latest post on the Canadian Afghan detainee transfer scandal, Jonathan McLeod of The Politic and Canned Goods and Ammunition offered the following thought,

By the way, if, when this all started to come out, the government had just admitted that something wrong might have happened and started an inquiry right away, I think they could have come out pretty unscathed (well, maybe not MacKay). Thoughts?

I think that is exactly right. While I am pretty incensed over the idea that my government was in any way complicit in delivering Afghans into torture scenarios, what has really angered me and undermined any semblance of trust and confidence in the Harper government is the way in which it has chosen to respond to the issue: with evasion, obstructionism, dismissiveness, and contempt.

At the end of the day, we don’t know whether anyone has been tortured as a result of the decisions of our government, and that is precisely the problem: by all accounts the Harper Government doesn’t want to find out. And finding out is of primary importance here; more than a government cover-up, more than the resignation of those involved, more than the impact of disclosure on the next election. In short, getting to the bottom of the moral situation far outweighs the importance of getting to the bottom of the political situation.

Let me be clear: If, as Jonathan suggests, the government acknowledged that there may have been something amiss and began coordinating an independent inquiry into the matter that concluded that decisions which Harper et al. made delivered Afghans into torture scenarios and that government should have known better, I would be angry. But after openly and honestly looking into the matter, my response would have been to acknowledge that they did the right thing. Had such an inquiry found that there was no wrongdoing whatsoever, Harper et al. would have scored even more points in my books for getting to the bottom of things when they had, in fact, done nothing wrong.

In short, responding as Jonathan suggests would have been a win-win situation by my lights and, honestly, I think most Canadians would have landed on this issue in a similar fashion, despite the Opposition parties’ efforts to make as much political hay as possible. What the Conservative’s actual response tells me is that they don’t trust Canadians to have reacted in that fashion — or, to put it bluntly, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives don’t trust Canadians, full stop.

That is, frankly, a sad statement about the governing party of this country.

I must say, I’ve been really quite impressed with the work that Liberal National Defence Critic Ujjal Dosanjh has been churning out on the Canadian Afghan detainee transfer scandal. All too often, National Defence flies under the radar in Canadian politics, as we just don’t exert enough influence on the world stage to make Canada’s military posturing/decision-making particularly riveting both inside and outside the country. But this whole transfer scandal has really been cut from the juiciest cloth of political intrigue.

It seems pretty important both for Canada as a country and important in the issue’s own right that we pay attention and hold the Harper government to account for both its potential involvement in handing detainees over for torture  (or least knowing that this was a possibility and failing to do anything satisfactory to  address the situation) and for, frankly, an egregiously secretive and obstructionist response to the allegations once they surfaced. My own relatively moderate perspective on Harper et al. has been utterly blown out of the water on this issue and so I appreciate the consistent jabbing that the Opposition parties in general and Dosanjh in particular have been throwing on this issue (the Liberal Party’s responsibility for getting us into the mess of Afghanistan — for which, to be fair, Dosanjh was not present in any elected capacity — notwithstanding).

Dosanjh’s latest “ethical leaking” move via Twitter has garnered some attention, but it is at the end of the day a media stunt that won’t likely come to much. But for all its seeming recklessness, the gutsy-ness of the move speaks well of Dosanjh’s character and a chutzpah that is sorely needed in Canadian politics. One of the primary things you hear about Canadians is how polite we are, be it in matters of social grace or parliamentary inquiry. And yet I think deep down, Canadians yearn for a political figure who isn’t afraid to bloody noses when the situation calls for it. Such a willingness speaks to the mettle of some of Canada’s favourite political personages: Tommy Douglas, Pierre Trudeau, and, reaching back a ways, the original Canadian bad-ass, William Lyon MacKenzie.

I’m not comparing Ujjal Dosanjh to the likes of Douglas or Trudeau per se, but his demonstrated willingness to keep firing at the Harper Government by any means necessary (even the NDP, Canada’s so-called political black sheep, is backing away from Dosanjh’s proposal in its bid to tack towards the centre and be seen as “respectable”)  is from that same vein of political courage and ferocity. So more than anything, I’m all for that kind of pugilism and urge Dosanjh to keep at it.

Not the least of which because it has become increasingly evident that just these types of tactics have become necessary. [Read more →]

The newest troubling twist in the Canadian Afghan detainee torture scandal is that the chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission that was investigating Colvin’s allegation and who blasted government for, “stonewalling the inquiry by withholding the requested documents, ” (sound familiar? yeah…) will not have his contract renewed  next month despite wanting to stay on to finish his work on inquiring into the issue. [Read more →]