Jim Reed
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Canada’s Parliament Debased by Petty Politicians
This is the kind of thing that goes on daily in our House of Commons.
The “debate” – on December 10th, concerned the parliamentary investigation of the Afghan detainee issue.
Keith Martin, the elected Liberal member for the British Columbia riding of Esquimalt Juan de Fuca, spoke about the need for fairness. He asked the government to provide the parliamentary committee with the same uncensored documents it had earlier provided to pro-government witnesses, who testified before that committee.
It wasn’t a great speech perhaps, but it was a reasonably well-argued appeal for decency and fairness on the government’s part.
Here’s the central point made by Mr. Martin:
- This debate would not be taking place if the government had given the committee the documents that the government gave to the witnesses. It failed to give those documents to the members of Parliament who sit on that committee. Is it not absolutely remarkable that members who sit on the committee were deprived and denied access to the very documents that witnesses had privy to? It is not, as the government claims, an issue of public security at all. It is an issue of obfuscation and stonewalling which has become the sine qua non of the government’s behaviour not only in this area but in so many other areas.
Ontario, interrupted Mr. Martin with this ridiculously petty remark about the presence of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan:
- Hon. Gary Goodyear: You sent them there.
Then the next speaker, the NDP member for Burnaby New Westminster (also in B.C.) – decided to ridicule his British Columbia colleague – rather than continue with the rational effective argument which had been started.
Here’s how Peter Julian responded:
- Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague from B.C. I am very happy that the Liberal Party has caught up to the NDP. The NDP was the first to call for a judicial inquiry and the first to call for the minister’s resignation. The Liberal Party, creaking and groaning, but getting there nonetheless, has now followed the NDP on those recommendations. It did take some time, but it did get there.
Mr. Julian went on to address the issue, but his remarks were drowned out by his pettiness.
And they wonder why Canadians have contempt for politicians.