Posted by Scott Tribe on March 10, 2010, at 5:17 pm |
Everyone by now across the land knows about the Rahim Jaffer case. I’m not going to get into outrage mode over the seemingly light sentence; there’s plenty of others doing that. What amuses me is the Conservative outrage at the opposition parties for sticking them about that decision in the House during Members Statements and Question Period. Quite frankly, their anger is all sound and fury; they’re the ones who’ve been trying to portray themselves as the “law and order party”; yet when a former fellow MP of theirs gets off with a light sentence, they act all insulted that they’re getting taken to task for their muted reaction.
If Jaffer is an ex-Liberal MP, you can almost be assured this bunch in power would be jumping up and down – not only at the perception of a “deal”, but trying to use it as an example of our “wimpy liberal justice system”.
The other thing that shows Conservative hypocrisy? The fact they’ve been complaining for months and months about how the Liberal Senate was gutting or delaying their crime bills that were “urgently needed”. Prorogation was the first example of the dishonesty in that claim, and now this little tidbit of news about the Conservatives declining to take control of the Senate Committee that looks at crime bills. It appears they’d rather have the Senate Liberals to flog on this issue.
So, please forgive me if I dont have much sympathy for the Conservatives bawling about the negative publicity the Jaffer case is giving them (others aren’t very sympathetic either). What goes around comes around.
UPDATE: A good article detailing specific instances where Conservative publicly question the justice system as opposed to Jaffer’s case (also a good quote by the John Howard society saying how Jaffer shows that mandatory minimums as advocated by the Conservatives is wrong).
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 9, 2010, at 11:37 am |
CBC has been doing a bang-up job the last few days on the Afghan detainee documents; the latest revelations was on the 5 pm Power and Politics show yesterday detailing the Conservative government’s plan for PR if torture allegations came to light or even were confirmed:
On another note, it looks like the whisperings about Harper not wanting to be accountable to Parliament and instead trying to get a majority to avoid it by yet again dissolving Parliament and holding an election has been picked up by some in the media – James Travers for one seems pretty certain of it:
Despite Conservative efforts to wrap muck in the flag – the issue is about ministerial accountability, not support for the troops – evidence is mounting that Ottawa had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on detainees who disappeared into notorious Afghan or U.S. “black site” prisons. More delays – expect endless legal wrangling – are built into last week’s decision to appoint former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci to review documents Conservatives are keeping secret in defiance of a Commons vote.
But after promising a new era of accountability, Harper wants the next election out of the way before Canadians reach the conclusion that ministers and generals hid here what was known to Canadian diplomats and the Red Cross in Afghanistan.
And I reiterate that this is why the opposition parties should reject having their hands tied on this and stop giving the impression that this is a legitimate way to resolve this issue. This is a stall tactic, and worse, it’s yet again an attempt by the Conservative government to imply that Parliament is not entitled via Parliamentary supremacy to see all docs, only ones of it’s choosing. As Michael Ignatieff pointed out yesterday, and the Star editorial board agreed was a good question, we don’t even know yet whether Iacobucci will be able to see all documents, or just the ones civil servants and government officials allow him to see. The fact the government hasn’t told anyone what his mandate is makes it even more suspicious the government will attempt to whitewash this issue.
That is why the contempt of Parliament point of order must proceed, and the urging of the Speaker to issue a Warrant ordering all documents to be turned over. Do not allow the Conservative government to stall this issue or to try and subvert the Parliamentary vote/order to turn over all documents.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 8, 2010, at 12:11 pm |
There are rumours and quotations from unnamed PMO staffers that if push came to shove, Harper and the Conservatives would rather dissolve Parliament and call an election over the issue of turning over the unredacted Afghanistan detainee documents if they were found in contempt of Parliament and/or the Speaker issued a Warrant ordering the documents to be turned over to Parliament.
Seems a bit drastic and like a lot of brinkmanship on the part of the Conservatives, you might think. Then again, if the reports from Friday on CBC and via Professor Attaran is true – that Canadian officials wanted certain high-value prisoners tortured to get extra intelligence out of them – and the weekend CP report that our CSIS spies were also involved in interrogations/transfers, then one could understand why the Conservative government would be desperate not to release these documents. It would have nothing to do with “national security”, but everything to with issues of political damage/embarrassment to the Conservative government at the very least, and possibly evidence of Canadian officials being knowingly complicit in international law violations/war crimes at the worst.
My opinion is IF Harper goes or tries to go the polls over this, he will be crucified in the media and by the opposition political parties (and ultimately by the public) as once again cutting and running to the Governor-General when the going gets tough. Worse, his motivation to go to an election is nothing more then trying to get a majority so he can completely shut down investigations of this issue and to ensure those documents do not get released.
If the PMO and/or the Conservative government think the Canadian people are going to stand for that or give him a majority so he can muzzle Canadian independent or Parliamentary investigations on this issue, I think they’re being very foolish (and we haven’t even brought in the angle that the International Criminal Court will investigate these allegations if Canada won’t).
I believe the opposition parties should call the Conservative government’s bluff on this, and if they really are desperate enough to want to go to an election, I think I’d be screaming from the rafters about how once again, Harper is trying to avoid accountability on this issue, and what exactly is so terrible in these detainee documents that he’d risk election defeat over them?
In fact, I’d be screaming about this attempted rumoured election scenario now, just to get it out there to the media and to make it as politically toxic to the government as possible.
The point for me remains – press the point of order that the government is officially in contempt of Parliament. Interrogate the ministers in question at the H of C bar (heck, get the Speaker to arrest one or 2 of them, I hear the Parliamentary dungeon hasn’t been used in a few years).. and finally, ask the Speaker to issue his Speaker’s warrant and have the documents turned over. Alternatively, the government can call for a full Parliamentary inquiry into this issue… not the half-baked thing it tried on Friday.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 7, 2010, at 5:38 pm |
In the wake of Friday’s allegations from Professor Attaran that Canada turned over prisoners to Afghanistan knowing they’d be tortured in order to get intelligence out of them, this report from the Canadian Press today adds even more fuel to the demands for a full fledged public inquiry and/or the Conservative government turning over all unredacted documents to Parliament:
Security experts stunned by CSIS’s role in questioning Taliban fighters who may have been tortured:
Officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have played a crucial and long-standing role as interrogators of a vast swath of captured Taliban fighters, The Canadian Press has learned..The spy agency’s previously unknown role in questioning detainees adds a new dimension to the controversy about the handling and possible torture of prisoners by Afghan security forces. It also raises more questions about the critical early years in Kandahar when the Canadian military found itself mired in a guerrilla war it had not expected to fight.
..Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit information from Afghan prisoners.“I find that stunning,” said Mr. Wark, a historian at the University of Toronto.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 6, 2010, at 11:13 am |
This rather explosive allegation was on CBC news last night – that Canadian officials not only knew some Afghan prisoners were being tortured, but they WANTED some of them to be tortured to glean “intelligence” and information out of them:
Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert. If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.
“If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees,” he said. “There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That’s what’s in these documents, and that’s why the government is covering up as hard as it can.”
Further video of that story covered by veteran CBC journalist Terry Milewski can be viewed here.
If this is what is in those documents, it’s little wonder the Harper government has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent these from seeing the light of day. Let’s put this into perspective and review what has been said before; if one studies international law where it pertains to the Geneva Conventions and the handling of prisoners/detainees, you’ll find that it’s against international law for the Conservative government or its civilian/military officials to have turned over prisoners to Afghan authorities if we even SUSPECTED they were going to get tortured (which completely shreds and makes a moot point “the no credible evidence” claim that Defence Minister Peter MacKay and others in the Harper cabinet were spouting off about before Christmas, which was shredded as it was when it turned out Canadian military officials did indeed have credible evidence of torture of at least 1 prisoner). For that matter, it’s against Canadian law to do this.
If it’s now shown Canadian officials not only knew or suspected that Afghan detainees were going to be tortured, but officials hoped they would be tortured to get more “intelligence” out of them, that is an even worse violation of international law/a war crime, and ALSO against Canadian law.
Also, as many have said prior, if the Canadian government refuses to pursue investigations into whether war crimes/violations of international law was committed, then the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor based in the Hague is going to get a lot more involved then he already might be, since the ICC will investigate this if a signatory to the ICC treaty refuses to do so - since they are bound to investigate by the treaty and subject to its terms (and Canada is a signatory to the ICC).
In light of this report, it is incumbent upon the the opposition parties to reject this retired SC judge gambit by the Conservative government as of right now. Demand full disclosure of the unredacted documents as Parliament has ordered, and file the contempt of Parliament point of order/ask for a Speakers Warrant demanding the government produce those documents to Parliament now if it refuses.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 5, 2010, at 4:59 pm |
If you read this blogpost by Steve, it appears he was picked by the government and Nicholson because they felt he might hold some sympathy towards their views that certain documents can’t be unredacted, as based on his prior work:
..In other words, there is NO way Iacobucci is chosen, unless his past opinion and record doesn’t denote some sympathy towards the government’s current stance.
This is again why the opposition parties need to insist this does nothing to show the government is in compliance with the Parliamentary order to the government to turn over all documents to Parliament. Furthermore, if Iacobucci comes back with a report saying some stuff needs to be withheld, the opposition parties should deem it irrelevant what he thinks: parliamentary supremacy dictates everything be turned over, or the government will be found in contempt of Parliament.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 5, 2010, at 11:27 am |
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson stood up today on a point of order to announce what in my opinion is more or less a stalling tactic on the Afghan detainee documents issue/an apparent attempt to stall any contempt of Parliament motion from Derek Lee of the Liberals:
The Justice Minister has asked Frank Iacobucci, the former Supreme Court justice, to review documents relevant to the Afghan detainee issue and decide which can be turned over to the opposition.
Note that the government is still not willing to concede to the convention of the “Supremacy of Parliament”; that is, that Parliament has the authority to order the government to turn over all documents (which it has done in a vote) whether the government wants to or not.
In my view, this maneuver by Nicholson and the Conservative government does nothing to address Parliament’s vote ordering all unredacted documents to be turned over. Nicholson and his government is still trying to claim his government has the right to hide certain documents. This is also not a public inquiry – which is the out the Liberals offered to the government to get out of the contempt motion. This is a pesudo-consultation which the government is using to imply that it can decide what documents it can turn over to Parliament.
In my opinion, Derek Lee and the Liberals (and if not them, another opposition party or MP) should proceed with their Contempt of Parliament Point of order, and furthermore ask the Speaker for a Warrant ordering those documents be produced. Nicholson’s actions and his Conservative governments actions today show that same contempt for Parliament that they did before prorogation.
UPDATE: Interesting series of Twitter tweets from Kady O’Malley, who has a mini-rundown of the events. She says that Derek Lee could still proceed with his motion, if he wanted to:
…there’s no reason why lee can’t proceed on contempt, and defer the motion related to seizure…to mollify lee, the minister – ministers, actually -will have to explicitly acknowledge power to compel..as i interpret his position, this is not just about *these* docs, but persons, papers and records in general.
Her CBC colleague Neil Morrison also notes with some amusement that this particular retired SC justice made a very interesting decision as it relates to an assembly’s privilege. I’m betting though that the government won’t be asking him the question Neil wonders if they will ask him – they probably would get an answer they might not like.
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 4, 2010, at 11:22 am |
The small lead for the Conservatives over the Liberals remains the same as in last week’s Ekos poll. In fact, both of the 2 major parties numbers marginally dropped.
With that, and with the fact 2 other polls have shown the same small lead/deadlock, I believe it’s not unfair in presuming/asserting that one can now say with some confidence that Ipsos-Reid was an outlier poll on the so-called “Conservative Olympic Bounce”, and/or that it was just showing its trend of polling Conservative support higher then the other major Canadian polling outfits (I believe Nanos is the last regular polling outfit that has yet to report out a poll post-Olympics).
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 3, 2010, at 9:18 pm |
If you told me a couple of months ago that someone in the Conservative braintrust would sit around during prorogation and come up with an idea to suggest making our national anthem “gender-neutral”, I’d call you nuts.
Apparently though, they had far too much time on their hands in the PMO. I can’t believe that someone decided over there that this would be a bang-on idea to regain support of women in general, whose support of Harper and the Conservatives has never been great, or of feminists in particular, who the Conservatives couldn’t give a hoot about.
That leaves me wondering if it isn’t two other reasons: 1) Perhaps it’s a red herring statement that was put in there to distract people (from what, I can’t say), or 2) It’s an “agent provocateur” manoeuvrer deliberately done to try and goad people into anger at women’s groups/feminists. As my 1 friend on Twitter suggested:
Task=make Canadians hate gender equity. Step 1=change the national anthem “to appease anthem-hating feminists” who don’t exist
Speaking of Twitter, another blogging friend of mine summed up the 58 minute Throne Speech (mercifully not as long as the 90 minute rumours) as this in less then 140 characters:
Bring back the bills PMSH killed, change anthem, freeze MP Pay, change the definition of criminal, arrest more ppl.
He didn’t need 58 minutes to describe that – and the Conservative government didn’t need to drone on for that long either.
Perhaps Harper and the Conservatives are trying to convince people after prorogation that they’re working extra hard if they make the Budget Throne Speech and it’s title extra long. Perhaps they’re just trying to slip stuff in there in the middle of this marathon speech in the hopes that everyone in the opposition parties or media will be too bored or inattentive to notice.
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