CanPOW - Torture Edition

[Wezil]

See above Asher. Despite the onus being on you, I have provided examples.

The crime Bills were passed or on their way through. Prorogation will kill them, not the Senate.

The only issues are the Constitutional ones (again mentioned above). No, the Senate is not agreeing to Constitutional reform through the back door and Harper is having difficulty on this front.

What is the Senate holding up?

[Asher]

See above Asher. Despite the onus being on you, I have provided examples.

The crime Bills were passed or on their way through. Prorogation will kill them, not the Senate.

Suggest you read your own article. Only two were passed. 17 others were not, for better of for worse. It was a glorious co-operation between the Liberals in the House fixating on the detainee issue to stall, and the Liberals in the senate fixating on navel-gazing to " not have time" to look at the majority of bills sent their way.

What is the Senate holding up?

In the article, they used the euphemism of "not having time" to look at certain bills. Could it be any more clear?

[Wezil]

So you have no examples then?

Your complaint is that the Bills weren't rubber stamped when they arrived in the Senate and sent back to the House right away? How much time does Asher feel the good Senators should have to do their job? Keep in mind these Bills would have been started from scratch the last time Harper ran away from the House and prorogued just a year ago. They haven't been at the Senate for long.

For the second consecutive December, Stephen Harper is putting Parliament on ice. In the act, the Prime Minister is turning prorogation, a sometimes sensible parliamentary procedure, into an underhanded manoeuvre to avoid being accountable to Parliament. In the interests of political expediency, the government will diminish the democratic rights of Canadians.

Proroguing stops committee work and makes all legislation pending before Parliament vanish. Historically, it has been used when a government has implemented most of its agenda. Until Mr. Harper's innovation, it was not an annual occurrence; the last minority government to use it more than once was Lester B. Pearson's Liberal administration in the 1960s.

Today, the Conservative agenda remains unfulfilled. More than half of all government bills – 37 of 64 – introduced since January, 2009, have yet to be passed into law. Eleven of these are justice bills, dealing with such weighty matters as elimination of the faint-hope clause (which still needs to be taken up by the Senate) and tougher sentencing for white-collar criminals and drug traffickers. These can be re-introduced when the new Parliament resumes in March, but they will need to go through the legislative process anew. In any case, Mr. Harper's decision means Parliament will lose more than 20 days: time that could have been used debating, amending and passing these bills.

There is a tactical political advantage to prorogation. The government temporarily eludes an issue of national importance that is particularly inconvenient: its knowledge of torture of Afghan detainees. Government members have already acted as truants when Afghanistan committee hearings are called. The government failed to provide documents to committee members, and implied it will disregard a parliamentary order to produce those documents. Prorogation is the logical extension of such thinking: shut down parliamentary debate entirely.

Prorogation would also allow the government a freer hand in the Senate: five vacancies need to be filled, and committees can be reconstituted after prorogation, giving Conservatives a “governing majority.”

Political calculation is clearly behind the decision to prorogue. The Conservatives are hoping to bask in the glow of Olympic glory while dodging the mess and scrutiny of lawmaking, Question Period and an outstanding, unprecedented order from Parliament to provide transparency and truth on the detainee file. Then, they hope to return in March, stronger in the Senate and ready to reclaim, they hope, the public agenda.

Canada's democracy should not be conducted solely on the basis of convenience for the governing party. If the debate over detainees cannot be carried out in Parliament, then it should continue among Canadians at large. On this and other important issues, the government cannot delay accountability forever.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/democracy-diminished-accountability-avoided/article1415461/

[Asher]

If you keep spamming op-ed pieces that add nothing new, do you think it changes the debate?

[Wezil]

It was the Globe Editorial.

I'm still waiting for your example.

In the meantime I'll continue to show the consensus opinion as it seems to be forming.

[Asher]

Wezil, in the past two months, can you name which pieces of legislation the Senate has approved or even sent back for amendment? It's a simple question.

I ask you because you are clearly the expert. I don't care enough to look it up.

Even your previous example, the long gun registry, has not been approved by the senate even though you tried to imply it was then dropped the issue when I contested it.

[Asher]

It was the Globe Editorial.

I'm still waiting for your example.

In the meantime I'll continue to show the consensus opinion as it seems to be forming.

Yes, you've clearly demonstrated a consensus opinion from two different columnists from the exact same Toronto-based newspaper. Job well done.

[Wezil]

Wezil, in the past two months, can you name which pieces of legislation the Senate has approved or even sent back for amendment? It's a simple question.

I ask you because you are clearly the expert. I don't care enough to look it up.

Asher, you are the one claiming "all" the Senate is doing is holding stuff up. I ask for one specific example of legislation the Senate is refusing to pass. You have accepted Harper's sound bite but are finding it impossible to defend. This is your problem, not mine.

Even your previous example, the long gun registry, has not been approved by the senate even though you tried to imply it was then dropped the issue when I contested it.

The long gun registry issue is actually in a rather unusual position as it arose as a private member's Bill. It is my understanding that under a provision that passed a few years back, Private members bills are not killed by prorogation anymore. As far as I know the gun registry Bill will still be at 3rd reading (Post Senate) when the House resumes. I wasn't "dropping" the issue. It really is a special case. I'll look for a cite.

[Wezil]

Yes, you've clearly demonstrated a consensus opinion from two different columnists from the exact same Toronto-based newspaper. Job well done.

Do you really want me to go down that road? We could have a battle of sources. Ben could help with your list.

[Asher]

Asher, you are the one claiming "all" the Senate is doing is holding stuff up. I ask for one specific example of legislation the Senate is refusing to pass. You have accepted Harper's sound bite but are finding it impossible to defend. This is your problem, not mine.

Wezil, I don't keep an official tally of the bills working their way through the system. I also am at work and don't care to spend time trying to navigate the cluster**** that is the Canadian government's website to find specific details.

Since you're claiming the Prime Minister is lying, I'd agree the onus is on you to show the significant legislation the Senate has made any progress on in recent months. I'm aware of precisely none. The fact that you can't be bothered to find any, or haven't found any, is precisely the point. The fact that you can't even name any off-hand is just further proof.

No one knows what the Senate is doing because the Senate is doing nothing.

Your claim that his prorogation is merely to avoid detainee questions is ridiculous because, as polls will show, it's not making a lick of difference. The issue is so ****ing boring, so dry, so technical, so convoluted, so international that it doesn't hold the public's interest. The Globe & Mail has desperately tried to make it a sensational scandal to middling results -- they did get you, at least -- which is also why their editorial board is huffing and puffing because Harper just torpedoed their never-ending fountain of pointless news stories.

[Wezil]

An excellent article that solves two problems. 1) It answers the long gun question and b) It provides you with an example that I have been asking for (two actually).

OTTAWA — Gun control advocates briefly hoped Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament would kill a controversial private member's bill to scrap the long gun registry.

But their hopes have been shot down, thanks to procedural reforms introduced 15 years ago.

The bill -- which was under examination by a parliamentary committee after winning first and second reading votes in the House of Commons -- will simply return at that stage once the new session of Parliament opens March 3.

Until the mid-1990s, proroguing or suspending Parliament wiped the legislative slate. All bills, no matter how many months they'd been debated or how close they'd been to passing, died on the order paper.

If the government wanted to bring back a bill in the new session of Parliament, it had to start all over again from square one. But that's no longer the case.

Private members' bills, such as Manitoba Tory MP Candice Hoeppner's gun registry bill, are all automatically reinstated at the same point in the legislative process where they left off.

Government-sponsored bills require the majority consent of the Commons to be reinstated but that's typically been accomplished with little trouble.

"For a fleeting moment, I was hopeful (the gun registry bill was dead) but it was clarified pretty quickly," said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control.

"We got lots of joyful email and then we looked into it further and realized that we were no further ahead than we were before."

Indeed, Cukier said prorogation actually leaves gun control advocates further behind, in the sense that they'll have no parliamentary forum for two months in which to counter the "misinformation" campaign mounted by the Tories against the registry.

While prorogation won't have much impact on bills wending their way through the Commons, it will cause some delays on the Senate side.

Bills that had not made it entirely through Senate debates, committee hearings and votes at the time of prorogation will have to go back to the starting line in the upper chamber.

From Harper's perspective, that's not entirely a bad thing.

He's railed incessantly against the Liberal-dominated Senate holding up or meddling with government legislation. But with the prime minister poised to fill five vacancies as early as this week, the Tories will outnumber Liberals in the Senate by the time Parliament resumes.

In the long run, that will presumably help speed the passage of the Conservative government's legislation.

Moreover, prorogation breaks the impasse that had developed last month between the government and the Senate over two bills.

Liberal senators had insisted on amending a Tory tough-on-crime bill to remove mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted of growing fewer than 200 marijuana plants. And they insisted on amending a consumer protection bill to shield home-business operators from sweeping search and seizure provisions.

The government was unlikely to accept the Senate amendments. And that set the stage for a potentially prolonged and fruitless game of parliamentary ping-pong, with the two bills bouncing repeatedly back and forth between the two chambers.

But prorogation means those amendments cease to exist and both bills will head back to the legislative starting line in the Senate.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100104/gun_control_100104/20100104?hub=QPeriod

So we have two Bills that the Senate is seeking amendments on? The bastards!

[Asher]

So we have two Bills that the Senate is seeking amendments on? The bastards!

Yes, and all of the others they sit on as long as possible to ensure nothing goes on. Again, the Liberal tactic is VERY clear -- distract and delay.

They're in a deep hole and they're directionless. They're stalling anything and everything until they have something to grasp on to which can raise their polling numbers so they can finally trigger the election. It really should be obvious to anyone.

[Wezil]

Wezil, I don't keep an official tally of the bills working their way through the system. I also am at work and don't care to spend time trying to navigate the cluster**** that is the Canadian government's website to find specific details.

A concession that you are talking out your ass. Okay.

Since you're claiming the Prime Minister is lying, I'd agree the onus is on you to show the significant legislation the Senate has made any progress on in recent months. I'm aware of precisely none. The fact that you can't be bothered to find any, or haven't found any, is precisely the point. The fact that you can't even name any off-hand is just further proof.

I already named two. The gun registry and the budget. The articles I've posted have named others (crime bills).

No one knows what the Senate is doing because the Senate is doing nothing.

There are your absolutes again. Why shouldn't you be called on this ****?

Your claim that his prorogation is merely to avoid detainee questions is ridiculous because, as polls will show, it's not making a lick of difference. The issue is so ****ing boring, so dry, so technical, so convoluted, so international that it doesn't hold the public's interest. The Globe & Mail has desperately tried to make it a sensational scandal to middling results -- they did get you, at least -- which is also why their editorial board is huffing and puffing because Harper just torpedoed their never-ending fountain of pointless news stories.

This issue won't go away by spring despite Harper's best efforts and hopes.

[Asher]

I already named two. The gun registry and the budget. The articles I've posted have named others (crime bills).

Did we not just go over this?

The Senate has done nothing with the gun registry! This is just a couple posts ago.

And the budget was passed because if it wasn't, the Liberals would lose even more seats in another election.

There are your absolutes again. Why shouldn't you be called on this ****?

It's an obvious generalization. They are clearly breathing, stalling, and probably fornicating so please stop treating it like an absolute.

This issue won't go away by spring despite Harper's best efforts and hopes.

The issue already has gone away.

Again, Wezil, look at this thread. CanPol threads are always lively but NO ONE could be bothered to argue about this. The polling numbers also speak for themselves.

It's a dead issue. It was DOA. There are far more important fish to fry, the opposition is only screwing themselves by focusing on this issue. They need to find something the public cares about.

[Wezil]

Alright, I haven't time to go back over old ground. I'll let the argument stand on the Senate stalling issue.

As to the detainees -

The issue already has gone away.

Again, Wezil, look at this thread. CanPol threads are always lively but NO ONE could be bothered to argue about this. The polling numbers also speak for themselves.

It's a dead issue. It was DOA. There are far more important fish to fry, the opposition is only screwing themselves by focusing on this issue. They need to find something the public cares about.

I think there is some very nasty dirt to be uncovered. I can see no other reason why a government would try so hard to keep the facts a secret. The extent of the coverup tells me there is something pretty serious to cover.

I think this may have been a dead issue but it grew "legs" the day McKay smeared Colvin.