CanPOW - Torture Edition

[Asher]

Nope...still dead.

[Wezil]

Maybe, time will tell on that score.

I'm reminded of the old adage that "the cover-up is always worse".

[Asher]

Only when people pay attention.

I consider myself far more attuned to news and CanPol than the average Canadian, but even I can't give a **** about this nonsense.

[notyoueither]

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?

According to the Constitution, matters pertaining directly to Parliament can be ammended solely by Act of Parliament, with the exception of items spelled out such as the number of seats for regions.

The proper place to challenge Harper's bills for electing senators is in the courts, not to have the zombies ruling the graveyard.

[Flubber]

Maybe, time will tell on that score.

I'm reminded of the old adage that "the cover-up is always worse".

Yup

On the Afghan detainees thing if the government admitted they passed on detainees even knowing they might face harsh treatment, I don't think too many Canadians would get too exercised about it. Its the trying to hide things that gets the media and public all juiced up about a scandal

[Flubber]

Oh and overall . . .

This threadis an example of how people who are fundamentally ideologically opposed will find no common ground.

personally I find little objectionable in the prorogue tactic. As Wezil's article stated, the House loses no time since Bills get reinstated exactly where they were. If the Senate is concerned about delays, they should implement a similar procedure.

I also see no issue with Harper moving the Senate to a Conservative majority. Those are the rules of the game. While Harper might wish to change the game by creating an elected Senate, that is a difficult proposition and he would be derelict in his duties as PM if he did not try to pass legislation he believes in, using the current governmental set-up.

Overall I have never managed to embrace Harper, but for me, he is just simply better than the available alternatives.

[notyoueither]

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.

Um, wasn't Pearson the last PM to rule for significant periods of time as a minority? There have been others, but they didn't last very long.

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.

... and the Tories say those twenty days would only be used by the opposition to make noise.

I'm ambivalent about it. I would prefer Parliament continue, but Harper does have a point that it is the custom that sessions end when the government feels that their business is done. In a majority, the motion to end can be brought in the House. This is a minority, see above re Pearson.

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/...rticle1415461/

[Wezil]

personally I find little objectionable in the prorogue tactic. As Wezil's article stated, the House loses no time since Bills get reinstated exactly where they were. If the Senate is concerned about delays, they should implement a similar procedure.

My article didn't say that. It pointed out that private members bills keep moving - government bills die.

Overall I have never managed to embrace Harper, but for me, he is just simply better than the available alternatives.

A new poll out by Ekos today. Bad news for the CPC.

[Ottawa – January 7, 2010] - Canada’s ruling Conservatives, who surged into a commanding lead and comfortable majority territory in the wake of Liberal threats to trigger an election in the fall, have sunk back hard.
The Conservative lead over the Liberals, which was as high as 15 percentage points in mid-October, is now about five. Two-thirds of Canadians who express a preference are now choosing one of the opposition parties to support.
At 33 points – a low not seen since the summer – a majority is a fantasy for the Conservatives for the time being. Indeed, they are now closer to sitting in opposition than they are to presiding over a majority.
“There is no single issue that has dragged down Harper’s Conservatives,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “Certainly the Afghan detainee story got huge play in the media in the weeks before the holidays, and that appeared to put downward pressure on the Tories. However, the decline seemed to have stopped as Parliament headed into recess. The government’s decision to prorogue Parliament seems to have restarted the pattern of declining Conservative fortunes. Certainly, the prorogation manoeuvre is drawing near universal raspberries outside of the shrinking CPC base.”
It is notable that this decline over the past couple of months has occurred despite the continued strengthening of the economy.
The Conservatives soared into majority territory in sharp reaction to the Liberals’ push for an election in the late summer and early fall. At that time, the Liberals also dropped precipitously. Although the Liberals have recovered somewhat, the reason the gap between the two major parties is closing now is more due to a fall in support for the Conservatives than a rise in support for the Liberals, who remain below the 30% threshold.
“It may be that voters are still punishing the Liberals for their election threat – and their failure to explain why an election was necessary,” said Graves. “The NDP and the Greens, meanwhile, are
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both up since October, so they may be capturing some of the Tory defections.”
The CPC is once again spiralling downward in Quebec. They are just under 15 points and while they have recovered a couple of times in Quebec in the past, they may be in danger of exhausting their shrinking political capital there. It seems from our past polling that three factors may be hurting them in Quebec: the detainee issue (as well as broader opposition to the Afghanistan mission), disappointment with the perceived tepid federal performance on the climate change file, and lingering fallout from the gun registry, which was given impetus following the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. Furthermore, the Tories have lost their double digit lead in Ontario and the LPC is now (insignificantly) ahead in Ontario for the first time in several months.
The Conservatives have also lost ground with women where they now trail for the first time in many months, and they now clearly trail with the university educated. Harper’s remaining fortress is increasingly occupied by males and seniors – even the stalwart boomer support they have enjoyed is now less firmly siding with the CPC.
About a quarter of respondents to the EKOS poll supported the NDP in British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and the Atlantic provinces.
Meanwhile, the Greens may be at a high water mark at 13.4. It may have been boosted by Copenhagen, but if they can grow another point or two, they really will bear watching.
While this poll on its own is not a disaster for Harper, the overall trajectory, the forces at work, and the demographic shifts are all quite negative for the CPC.

http://www.ekos.com/admin/articles/cbc-2010-01-07.pdf

[Asher]

My article didn't say that. It pointed out that private members bills keep moving - government bills die.

Do you not read your own articles?

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.

[Wezil]

And do you really think the Opposition is going to be cooperative after this? Really?

[notyoueither]

If the bill had a majority on first or second reading, why would it not get a majority to be revived?

[Wezil]

If the bill had a majority on first or second reading, why would it not get a majority to be revived?

Under normal prorogation that would probably be the case.

Here the public sees a government hiding from the House (Ekos above). I see no advantage to the Opposition in helping the CPC paper over that fact. They will agree to reinstate the Bills they like but dollars to donuts a good chunk of them are starting over.

[Wezil]

btw, re - the Ekos thing.

While it shows CPC support dropping it also shows little gain for the Libs. How long until the knives come out for Iggy? And who's next?

[Asher]

Fact is, you said the government bills get killed.

Reality is, they require a simple re-vote to keep alive which historically almost always happens.

Let's move on now.

[Wezil]

And if they don't get that re-vote?

The Bill dies without it (unless it is a private bill). I am correct.

Now you can move on.