In the comments last week, new League contributor Rufus (yay!) asked me whether the “Facebookization of political discourse” comment in my post reacting the President’s State of the Union speech was related to the turn out that the Canadian anti-prorogation rallies on January 23 as compared to the membership counts on various Facebook groups related to the topic. The short answer is yes… and no.

I’ve struggled to write about the whole anti-prorogation (nascent) movement in Canada beyond just presenting and evaluating the what I see as the facts partially because things are still unfolding, but also because I’m so close to it. It’s hard to take a step back and evaluate something you’ve given up whole days to and lost sleep for in anything approaching a cool and comprehensive manner. My view of the whole thing is, by definition, wholly subjective and I am, admittedly, pretty attached to the whole thing having organized the Calgary rally and now becoming involved in national discussions about moving forward.

But let me say that as far as turn out goes, I was pretty happy. The rallies only really had about three to four weeks to get started, organized, and announced. So to pull tens of thousands of people out in what was generally pretty cold weather over what was essentially a Parliamentary procedural issue in approximately sixty different communities across the country ain’t bad results, all told.

[Read more →]

Following Will’s link, I went over to the Daily Caller and took a quick skim of the “Ask Matt Labash” page, only to find my very own home country being discussed. In response to the question, “Which foreign country most deserves to have its leaders removed?”, Labash offers (emphasis mine), [Read more →]

“Now is it true that the government will prorogue the House so that it will not be held accountable for its shameful record?” – Stephen Harper, 2003

Before I went on break for the holidays, I wrote an update post about the escalating situation in Canadian politics around the Afghan detainee scandal and the potential impacts of a prorogued Parliament on that situation. Well, it seems that my speculation will be put to test with the December 30 decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General Michelle Jean to do just that.

Firstly, it seems utterly clear to me that Harper had no good reason to prorogue Parliament, as he has felt little in the way of obligation to offer any such justifications to the public. Instead, it seems that Harper has made this decision to halt the momentum behind the work of the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan and its inquiry into allegations around the improper transfer of detainees into torture scenarios. That is to say that while it is the Prime Minister’s constitutional right to ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament, it doesn’t mean that doing so to avoid potentially harmful political fallout (as has been done both in 2008 and in this instance) isn’t, as a pretty broad cross-section of experts and commentators have noted, an abuse of procedural power and in many respects anti-democratic.

The Conservative talking point on the issue is simply to repeat over and over again that the decision is “routine”, that it has been done in the past, and that there is nothing to get excited about. Which is, again, to say that they don’t have a valid reason for the decision, but they can do it so they did. Properly understood, proroguing occurs when Parliament has come to the end of its legislative agenda, but the Conservatives have a raft of pending Bills that will now be wiped clean. Killing legislation that your party has worked on extensively suddenly and without explanation is anything but routine, no matter what the Conservatives might say. [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.

[Read more →]

Doing something, for a change! And thank god because despite rubber stamping from the House, there seems to be plenty not to like about Bill C-6. [Read more →]

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 →]

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. [Read more →]

You may well have noticed that my Canadian content has been on the rise of late. I find myself in the grips of a sort of strange bout of nationalism at the moment, which I denote as strange for reasons that will be at least partially outlined in this post. I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for writing about US politics and feel drawn to contributing to the degree of critical dialogue in this frozen tundra I call home.

You’ll have to bear with me, but I’m trying to find ways to satisfy my own Canuck impulses while still making what I write accessible and, perhaps more importantly, engaging to our primarily American audience.

To wit, the revived discussion around same-sex marriage via the squeakers in either direction that have recently occurred in both Maine and Washington prompted me to do some thinking about the same issue north of the border.  Riffing off of Jamelle’s post, I decided to check my intuition around  the degree to which the issue of marriage equality is, in fact, a non-issue in Canada, contra the state of affairs in the US.  It would seem that my intuition is born out by the data of a recent Angus Reid poll on public opinion around same-sex marriage in Canada, Britain, and the US,

Canadians are generally more tolerant to the idea of same-sex marriages than Americans and Britons, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 61 per cent of Canadians say couples of the same gender should continue to be allowed to legally marry in their country.

In contrast, only 33 per cent of Americans and 41 per cent of Britons say that same-sex marriage should be made legal in their respective countries. 36 per cent of respondents in the United States say that such couples should not be granted any type of legal recognition, and 18 per cent of Britons agree.

The poll itself doesn’t go on to the explore the reasons behind the differences of opinion, but I have a working theory that first occurred to me when Reihan Salam made an offhanded comment about the number of South East Asian politicians represented in the Canadian political system at the end of the podcast on race and politics that he, Jamelle, and I recorded a ways back. Pivoting off of E.D’s post on the matter, for a lot of people, the obvious go to answer is religion — i.e. Canada is a lot less religious and, religion being a key factor in determining an individual’s stance on homosexuality, the degree of religiosity exhibited in a country will directly correlate to the attitudes of its citizens towards homosexuality and marriage equality. [Read more →]

Anyone following the ever changing landscape of the Canadian political scene should take a few moments out of their day to go check out Jonathan McLeod’s interview with Green Party leader Elizabeth May over at The Politic.

The below audio wherein Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, praises the US role in championing human rights globally and specifically George W. Bush’s role in explicitly committing to human rights in the “Arab world” has been circulating my Canadian Facebook network far and wide,

The full audio can be found here.

Needless to say, this is a bit of a doh! moment for Ignatieff given the swirling charges around the use of torture techniques by the Bush Administration, the generally perceived failure of the Iraq invasion, and the fall of neocon/neoliberal national-building sentiments from grace. The audio was recorded back in January 2005, just shy of a year before Ignatieff returned to Canada with the express purpose of running for office. And, of course, Ignatieff’s stance on human rights, American exceptionalism  and assuming the “lesser evil” approach to national and global security isn’t exactly breaking news, which shows as much about how little attention many Canadians often pay to their political leaders as it does anything else.

That said, it doesn’t strike me as helpful that this audio is circulating now and may goes to undermine some of the arguments that the Liberals are trying to make vis-a-vis the handoff of Afghanistan detainees into torture environments — though, absent the comments about Bush, I think Ignatieff could make at least a substantive case for his positions. No large media outlets are picking it up (because, you know, it isn’t really news) and I wouldn’t expect that to change. If the audio does surface, it seems sadly likely that it will be in terms of muddying the attack of Liberals against Conservative torture trespasses in Afghanistan.

While I know there were a a handful of folks on the eleft screaming about Ignatieff’s views on human rights when he came back to Canada in the first place and during both his successful and unsuccessful leadership bids, it is pretty sad how little play the expressed views of one of the most currently prominent Canadian politicans have seen nation-wide. It is really an indictment of how little truly critical analysis is involved in mainstream political discourse in Canada and should function as a spur to those of us who would like to see the situation otherwise.