.Harper Suspends Canada's Parliament
OTTAWA -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is suspending Parliament until March to give his government time to "recalibrate," an aide to the prime minister said on Wednesday.
The move postpones the 2010 start of Canada's legislature to March 3 from Jan. 25 -- after the winter Olympics in Vancouver -- and lets the government prepare "the next stage of Canada's economic action plan," said Dimitri Soudas, Mr. Harper's press secretary.
Opposition politicians are lambasting the move as "arrogant" and "despotic," and accuse Mr. Harper of trying to duck embarrassing questions on the nation's track record in Afghanistan at a time when the eyes of the world will be on it.
Parliament has been holding hearings for two months on allegations the Canadian military knowingly sent suspected Taliban insurgents to probable torture at the hands of Afghan intelligence.
Just before its year-end recess, the House of Commons had passed a motion demanding the government disclose documents relevant to those allegations -- something the government was refusing to do on national-security grounds. The suspension of Parliament kills that motion, along with the Parliamentary committee that had been looking into the allegations. That committee must now be reconstituted in March.
"Clearly this is a move on their part to avoid public scrutiny, to avoid further investigation on Afghan detainees," said Libby Davies, House leader for the opposition New Democratic Party.
Mr. Soudas said the Afghan-detainee issue had no bearing on Mr. Harper's decision to suspend Parliament. "The committee is examining old news and has found absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Canadian soldiers, diplomats and the Armed Forces," he said.
This marks the second time in as many years Mr. Harper has suspended Parliament, in what critics say is a mark of his heavy-handed governing style. Last year, Mr. Harper suspended Parliament for more than a month when his minority Conservative government faced almost sure defeat by a coalition of the three opposition parties.
The Afghan-detainee issue burst onto the public scene in November, when Canada's former No. 2 diplomat in Afghanistan testified to a Parliamentary committee that the country's military had handed captured insurgents to Afghan intelligence, despite repeated warnings in 2006 and 2007 that such detainees faced likely torture.
The government responded by saying the diplomat, Richard Colvin, wasn't credible and refusing to release reports he had authored. The government's stance elicited a letter from more than 100 former Canadian ambassadors and diplomats, protesting Mr. Colvin's harsh treatment.
During ensuing weeks of Parliamentary testimony, a string of former Canadian military and diplomatic officials testified that they had done nothing wrong -- in part because there was no system in place at the time to track what happened to Afghan detainees once they left Canadian hands.
Then in early December, Canada's top general abruptly called a news conference to say there was evidence a prisoner captured by Canadians in 2006 had subsequently been beaten by Afghan interrogators -- reversing his previous Parliamentary testimony. The general, Walter Natynczyk, said he was ordering an investigation into why it took so long for the information on the case to get to him.
WSJ
The Banana Republic of Canada
The move postpones the 2010 start of Canada's legislature to March 3 from Jan. 25 -- after the winter Olympics in Vancouver -- and lets the government prepare "the next stage of Canada's economic action plan," said Dimitri Soudas, Mr. Harper's press secretary.
Opposition politicians are lambasting the move as "arrogant" and "despotic," and accuse Mr. Harper of trying to duck embarrassing questions on the nation's track record in Afghanistan at a time when the eyes of the world will be on it.
Parliament has been holding hearings for two months on allegations the Canadian military knowingly sent suspected Taliban insurgents to probable torture at the hands of Afghan intelligence.
Just before its year-end recess, the House of Commons had passed a motion demanding the government disclose documents relevant to those allegations -- something the government was refusing to do on national-security grounds. The suspension of Parliament kills that motion, along with the Parliamentary committee that had been looking into the allegations. That committee must now be reconstituted in March.
"Clearly this is a move on their part to avoid public scrutiny, to avoid further investigation on Afghan detainees," said Libby Davies, House leader for the opposition New Democratic Party.
Mr. Soudas said the Afghan-detainee issue had no bearing on Mr. Harper's decision to suspend Parliament. "The committee is examining old news and has found absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Canadian soldiers, diplomats and the Armed Forces," he said.
This marks the second time in as many years Mr. Harper has suspended Parliament, in what critics say is a mark of his heavy-handed governing style. Last year, Mr. Harper suspended Parliament for more than a month when his minority Conservative government faced almost sure defeat by a coalition of the three opposition parties.
The Afghan-detainee issue burst onto the public scene in November, when Canada's former No. 2 diplomat in Afghanistan testified to a Parliamentary committee that the country's military had handed captured insurgents to Afghan intelligence, despite repeated warnings in 2006 and 2007 that such detainees faced likely torture.
The government responded by saying the diplomat, Richard Colvin, wasn't credible and refusing to release reports he had authored. The government's stance elicited a letter from more than 100 former Canadian ambassadors and diplomats, protesting Mr. Colvin's harsh treatment.
During ensuing weeks of Parliamentary testimony, a string of former Canadian military and diplomatic officials testified that they had done nothing wrong -- in part because there was no system in place at the time to track what happened to Afghan detainees once they left Canadian hands.
Then in early December, Canada's top general abruptly called a news conference to say there was evidence a prisoner captured by Canadians in 2006 had subsequently been beaten by Afghan interrogators -- reversing his previous Parliamentary testimony. The general, Walter Natynczyk, said he was ordering an investigation into why it took so long for the information on the case to get to him.
WSJ
The Banana Republic of Canada
posted by madtom at 10:50 PM
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