CanPOW - Torture Edition

[notyoueither]

I wonder if the writer of the Economist bit is in Britain or the US. I've read a lot of their people are in the US.

For what it's worth, the editorial under discussion contains some of the same factual errors as early reporting here did.

[Flubber]

A few things

1. I sort of agree with Asher in that posting multiple opinion pieces (or editorials which are really just opinions of an editor) which say the same thing doesn't really expand on the debate although it does show a number of people agree with a point of view. I actually don't mind or even like some opinion pieces because SOMETIMES something is argued in a pesuasive way

2. I totally disagree with asher in his seeming opposition to reading opinion pieces. I like to understand what prople think on issues and part of being better informed is that you sometimes read the best arguments for the "other' side of an issue. If you are NEVER convinced/ alter or amend ANY opinions based on opinion pieces you read, you are either totally closeminded or so arrogantly self absorbed that you cannot acknowledge that someone might come up with an argument or point of view which you had not considered before.

3. I still don't care that much about the detainee issue.

4. If the only argument against prorogation is the lost work, the newer rules deal with that . The key point is that bills are or can be reinstated without loss of progress through the system. Whether automatically or by vote hardly matters. If the opposition wish to kill a bill they can always vote against at third reading just as they could at the reinstatement vote. Either way, nothing they hate passes anyway. Personally I would find it petty for a party to ever vote against reinstatement of a bill which it had voted in favor of at first and second reading.

[Asher]

Christ almighty **** on a stick!

An editorial, also called a leading article, is a piece of writing intended to promote an opinion or perspective. Editorials are featured in many newspapers and magazines, usually written by the senior editorial staff or publisher of the publication. Additionally, most print publications feature an editorial, or letter from the editor, sometimes followed by a Letters to the Editor section. The American Society of Magazine Editors has developed a list of editorial guidelines, to which a majority of American magazine editors commonly adhere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial

An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page (though often believed to be abbreviated from opinion-editorial), is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board. These are different from editorials, which are usually unsigned and written by editorial board members.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed

There's a ****ing difference, particularly when talking about a national publication. I understand your need to understate the source but quite frankly you're worse than Ben.

There's no practical difference. It's an opinion piece, not a news story. Please stop fixating on it and move on. Who the **** cares who wrote these? They're all nobodies. Except for Rick Mercer, who is a gay comedian.

[notyoueither]

4. If the only argument against prorogation is the lost work, the newer rules deal with that . The key point is that bills are or can be reinstated without loss of progress through the system. Whether automatically or by vote hardly matters. If the opposition wish to kill a bill they can always vote against at third reading just as they could at the reinstatement vote. Either way, nothing they hate passes anyway. Personally I would find it petty for a party to ever vote against reinstatement of a bill which it had voted in favor of at first and second reading.

I think the larger issue is avoiding the opposition. A lesser one I've seen raised is related to the senate appointments.

I see the point re avoiding the opposition and the committees. I would even be fussed about it if either the issue were a more serious one or there were no precedent set by previous minority governments doing the same thing.

There is precedent, and honestly I can see why. A minority lacks a lot of the control of the agenda that a majority enjoys. When the opposition can both derail the government agenda (as has been claimed of the Liberal plurality in the Senate) and turn the business of the house(es) into a non-stop partisan **** fest, the government needs some tool or other to have an influence on what is happening.

Still, the detainee affair is a somewhat serious issue. It is possible that Canadian Forces personnel and or government officials violated Geneva Conventions of some flavour or other. I think there should be a full and open examination of this. I don't however think that Harper should be expected to forgo the powers that our system allows him and past PMs for the sake of keeping the flaying front and centre.

[Flubber]

I think the larger issue is avoiding the opposition. .

I agree but the wezil-asher debate was going deeply into the "lost work" elements and I felt that should be addressed. I see it as a non-issue given the newer rules. There could, however, be an issue about work that "needs to be done" and on that point we come back to a question about how functional parliament is at the moment


I also agree that there is ample precedent to prorogue and Harper is not obliged to stand up to be flailed daily. Whether he SHOULD have disbanded Parliament is another question-- I actually like that it appears the move has cost him some popularity. Everything has a consequence (or should anyway)

[Flubber]

Op-ed pieces are written primarily by people stupid enough to major in journalism, not smart enough to get a job doing anything productive, but moderately-skilled trolls who know how to get people to quote them and discuss what they say.

Whoever reads the Opinion section of a newspaper should not be allowed to vote.

Ever consider thinking for yourself?

I do think quite well for myself thanks. I am quite able to read editorials, op-ed pieces, article and books, even posts by computer folks who think they know everything and yet maintain my own opinions.

I actually seek out and wish to read a wide variety of opinions. I am not so arrogant as to believe I have thought of every angle or am in possession of more facts than every writer out there. Nor am I so stubborn that I cannot alter my views based on good arguments or new facts.

So I consider myself every bit as qualified as you to vote, thanks, even if I am perusing an op-ed piece as I walk into the polling booth

[Asher]

Op-ed/editorials are nothing but sales pitches by the author. I can't stand sales pitches. Especially people paid to make them.

If it was a fair and balanced article, there'd be no need to insert opinion.

[Asher]

I think 99% of the posters on this site would be qualified enough to write editorials and op-eds.

[Flubber]

I think 99% of the posters on this site would be qualified enough to write editorials and op-eds.

Probably although it depends what you mean by qualified-- If its just the idea that you can write coherently and express an opinion, that is a pretty easy standard.

I read OPINION here and obviously you do as well and just like posters here, there are columnists for instance that I enjoy reading and those that I feel are a waste of time. I often disagree with what I read but thats irrelevant to whether I enjoy reading it.

[Asher]

This article goes into why the British may not understand what's going on. Despite their similarities, the Canadian and British systems are very different: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1424937/

Few countries can claim such a pathetic Parliament
By John Ibbitson
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Proroguing's only the half of it. In a generation, Canada's legislature has decayed more than even the U.S. Congress. And while British and Australian MPs can slap down party leaders, here it's the reverse

The U.S. Congress returned to work Wednesday. So did the British MPs at Westminster. Parliamentarians will reassemble in Canberra on Feb. 2. New Zealand's House of Representatives will be on the job a week later.

But Canada's House of Commons and Senate will remain dark until early March because of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision last week to have Parliament prorogued.

It is a small symptom of a grave condition. Our Parliament has become the most dysfunctional in the English-speaking world, weaker and more irrelevant than the U.S. Congress or the parliaments of Britain, Australia or New Zealand.

If Britain is the mother of Parliaments, her Canadian daughter is a fallen woman. Government MPs are cowed; parliamentary committees are too often irrelevant. Three consecutive minority governments haven't strengthened the powers of the House to hold the government to account; instead, they've encouraged new methods by which the Prime Minister's Office seeks to centralize authority.

If the idea is to produce responsive parliamentary government, then you've got to give the MPs something to do.Campbell Sharman, University of British Columbia

Prime ministers have been growing more powerful since the days of Pierre Trudeau. Maybe the rising power of the provinces forced Ottawa to centralize authority in response; maybe modern government became so complex that parliamentary deliberation became an anachronism. Maybe Parliament declined as politics became more partisan, and politics became more partisan as Parliament declined.

"This prorogation can be seen as a reflection of the decay of Parliament's relevance that has been taking place over the last generation," maintains Peter Dobell, founding director of the Parliamentary Centre, an Ottawa-based institute that promotes parliamentary government around the world.

But whatever came before, Stephen Harper's decision to have Parliament prorogued for the second time in a year establishes a potential precedent, in which prorogation can be "used strategically to bring an end to a session when the going gets tough for the government," observes Lori Thorlakson, a political scientist who specializes in comparative government at University of Alberta.

No other legislature among what Winston Churchill called the English-speaking peoples would tolerate such treatment. And since Westminster-style parliaments tend to have weaker legislatures than those in other developed countries, our House of Commons could be described as the weakest of the weak.

Watching the health-care debate south of the border, you might think that, however messed up Parliament Hill might be, it can't compare with Capitol Hill. The House of Representatives is full of gerrymandered districts; it can take tens of millions of dollars to run a Senate campaign; legislation is stuffed with pork aimed at securing crucial votes; bills are routinely eviscerated or defeated because of powerful special interests. Congress has spent almost a year crafting health-care reform legislation, which still hasn't reached a final vote.

Nonetheless, Congress does pretty much what the framers of the American Constitution set it up to do: act as a check on the administration. Representatives don't hesitate to vote against the party line if they feel a piece of legislation doesn't serve their constituents' interests. Senators are powerful voices who can rival presidents in their ability to drive or derail an agenda.

As well, "the powers of the Senate and the House are superbly advanced by the fact that they have investigative powers" to summon elected and appointed officials to explain themselves, observes William McKercher, a specialist in American politics at the University of Western Ontario.

Dysfunctional short-termism ... sees momentary political advantage trump the common good.Jon Johansson, Victoria University, New Zealand

In comparison, Canadian MPs cower at the hands of the party whips, and parliamentary investigations are so ineffectual that the only hope of getting to the bottom of anything is to pressure a prime minister into calling a public inquiry.

British MPs are considerably more autonomous than their Canadian counterparts - ironically, because there are so many of them. The British House of Commons (barely) holds 646 MPs, compared with the 308 in the Canadian House. There are typically around 23 ministers in a British cabinet, compared with the 38 in the current Canadian cabinet.

Many British MPs know that they will never make it into the cabinet, and so feel much freer to take on their own party leader. When Tony Blair brought a motion to authorize British intervention in Iraq, 59 of his own Labour MPs voted against him. Last year, one or more Labour MPs voted against their government on 30 per cent of bills.

"The Labour government has had to worry more about its own back benches than it has about the Conservatives," Prof. Thorlakson observes.

Were a prime minister to attempt to wield prorogation as a political weapon, "it would be huge," she says.

Prof. Thorlakson and Mr. Dobell both point to the greater seriousness and respect with which British parliamentarians view their Parliament.

"Their sense of an ongoing tradition is stronger than others," Mr. Dobell says, "simply because it goes back hundreds of years."

Australian MPs and senators enjoy an ultimate weapon not practically available to their Canadian counterparts: They can replace the party leader any time they like. Last month, they did just that.

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull committed his Liberal Party to supporting Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's climate-change legislation. But the Liberal Party in Australia is actually conservative, and there was strong opposition to the bill from within the caucus.

So Mr. Turnbull suffered a "leadership spill," as the Aussies call it - a vote of no confidence by the members of his own caucus, who installed Tony Abbott, a social conservative and global-warming skeptic, as leader of the opposition.

"It looks undemocratic that caucus should choose the leader," acknowledges Campbell Sharman, who teaches politics at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Australia. "But if the idea is to produce responsive parliamentary government, then you've got to give the MPs something to do."

The Australian Senate, unlike its Canadian counterpart or the House of Lords, is elected and acts as a check on the House of Representatives, further strengthening the powers of the Parliament. And caucuses - or, at the least, the leaders of the factions within a caucus - have a direct say on who gets appointed to the cabinet.

As for prorogation being used to limit opposition opportunities for debate, Prof. Sharman maintains a website that contains a glossary of Australian political terms. "To my embarrassment, it doesn't contain an entry for prorogation," he says. "And the only justification is it's so unusual."

As for New Zealand, its Parliament has only one house, the House of Representatives. But since 1996, the House has been elected through a form of proportional representation, and neither the National nor Labour parties has won a majority of seats. The result has been a series of more-or-less stable coalition governments.

This prorogation can be seen as a reflection of the decay of Parliament's relevance that has been taking place over the last generation.Peter Dobell, founding director of the Ottawa-based Parliamentary Centre

Jon Johansson, who teaches comparative politics at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, observes that since the move to proportional representation, "lawmaking receives greater scrutiny in our select committees, and legislation can be slowed on occasions."

MPs on legislative committees in Canada, in contrast, pretty much hew to the talking points issued by the leader's office.

Parliamentary governments typically have weaker legislatures than those in other consensus-style democracies. Some European governments have had unhappy experiences with leaders who turn into dictators. Others are marked by sharply polarized politics.

To prevent the repeat of past abuses, Prof. Thorlakson says, modern European constitutions tend to have strong legislatures and relatively weak executives. "Governments cannot just prorogue or dissolve Parliament easily."

The case against Canada's Parliament isn't entirely black and white. Our MPs do spend more time at their desks than some of their equivalents elsewhere. While Congress and the British House of Commons spend more time in session than our Parliament does (159 and 154 legislative days in 2009, respectively, compared with our House's 130 days), the Australian and New Zealand legislatures both sit for less than 100 days a year.

And Prof. Johansson observes that governments everywhere "suffer from the same malaise: Our elected leaders and representatives cannot overcome their entrenched partisanship to tackle our respective nations' long-term policy dilemmas" because of the "dysfunctional short-termism that sees momentary political advantage trump the common good."

If you scan newspapers in Washington or London or Canberra or Berlin, you'll see the same thing: Governments are every bit as determined to control the agenda; the hysterics of the opposition is every bit as shrill; and critics offer the same laments about the decline of Parliament, or whatever it's called.

But at least other prime ministers haven't got it into their heads that they can shut down their legislatures on a whim. Though that could be because it hasn't yet crossed their minds.

[notyoueither]

I've said it before, many times.

Fixing our Parliament involves changing the laws regarding nominations, beginning with eliminating the power of the leader/central party administration to decide nominations.

[Asher]

Liberals are running TV ads trying to make more hay out of the issue. It's retarded.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/spector-vision/what-the-liberal-prorogation-ad-is-hoping-we-forget/article1425870/

What the Liberal prorogation ad is hoping we forget

Norman Spector

I see that my esteemed blogging colleague Bruce Anderson is suggesting that the Liberals hammer away at Stephen Harper’s arrogance rather than on the Afghan detainee issue, which he says does not resonate with enough Canadians. It appears however, that Mr. Ignatieff and his advisers have their own ideas: In their ad, the Liberals are accusing Mr. Harper of a cover-up which the narrator says has until now been far more familiar to other countries.

Mr, Ignatieff’s chief of staff, Peter Donolo, knows the truth on that point — and all about cover-ups — having been Jean Chrétien’s director of communications when the little guy from Shawinigan shut down the Somalia inquiry investigating the torture of Somali civilians, including one who was shot in the back.

Compared to that unprecedented action by the Chrétien government, Mr. Harper’s decision to postpone opposition questioning on Afghan detainees that will inevitably come with a new session — while deplorable — looks almost benign.

Peter Desbarats — one of Canada’s leading journalists and journalism educators — was one of the commissioners who had his work guillotined in 1996. Here, from a speech at McGill that he gave shortly thereafter, is part of his reflections on the incident, and on the Chrétien government’s communications strategy:

"We achieved the dubious distinction of being the first public inquiry in Canadian history to be terminated by a government — for blatantly political reasons — before its work was completed. I still have a hard time believing that this actually happened, and an even harder time accepting and understanding that Canadians tolerated this violation of our democratic system with hardly a murmur…."

While the government acted without scruples, Desbarats says the media also failed to exercise any ethical responsibility, concentrating instead on the political gamesmanship. In doing so, they completely failed to see the forest.