To listen to the Kady O'Maley's of the world tell the story, the prorogation of Parliament is entirely about covering up the Afghan Detainee issue and silencing dissent in Question Period (as though QP is a source of national pride). News flash, the detainee matter is not a current matter. We all agree that the Conservative Government cleaned up the mess, this whole debate is about how quickly they cleaned up the Liberal mess. What really happened in 2006 will be no different in March than it is now. The Liberals are pissed off because they are going to lose their tactical advantage in the senate to filibuster and alter legislation. They continue to make unelected amendments to legislation that passed the elected House of Commons with unanimous consent.
That is why the Liberals are raising a stink. This costs them an advantage, on an issue that will be no different after the Olympics. It will be interesting to see how the Liberals treat the senate when they lose their majority, whether they will continue to support the status quo or whether they will shift towards the strong majority of public opinion and call for the senate to be elected or abolished. By my nearest estimation, 96% of Canadians support electing or abolishing the senate. It will be interesting to see which side Iggy takes.
And having watched a lot of CBC news yesterday, on the second to last day of 2009, I saw no mention that the TSX, the barometer of our economy, is up 4000 points since March. Instead of talking about the magnificent job that Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty have done for our economic recovery, all that you will see on the CBC is debating whether we should debate the Afghan detainee issue before or after we host the world at the Olympic Games. A major International event such as this requires a whole lot of government work, and debating a 4 year old matter instead of hosting the Olympics doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
First, the alleged Afghan prisoner torture is not so much an issue with me as is the Conservative attempts to hide information from the public and parliamentary committee looking at the issue. The message that the Conservatives send me is "We do not trust Canadians. Let's hide as much information as possible."
ReplyDeleteThe Afghan prisoner issue may not be important to you. However, the Liberal, NDP, and Bloc MPs legally represent their constituents. This issue may be important to them. It may or may not be important in March.
Next, don't expect the Liberals (or NDP) to capitulate on Harper's Senate reform proposal. The Liberals could state that they would be interested in meaningful Senate reform if the provinces are interested in discussing it.
Personally, I do favour Senate reform--just not Harper's version. I do think that Canadians could have a meaningful Senate. I have examined that if both the Commons and Senate were elected by some form of proportional representation (even at different times) the Senate would unlikely block the wishes of the House of Commons. The senators may suggest changes, but numerically, they won't likely block the Commons on bills. It wouldn't matter if the Senate were pure triple-E or slightly less.
You would think that after 4 Canadian troops and a journalist were killed by Taliban terrorists yesterday the Liberals and the MSM would give the Taliban Detainee Hysteria a rest.
ReplyDeleteBut no all Deatainee all the time by the MSM enablers, that's why I do not trust the MSM and would never vote for the corrupt Liberal Party of Canada.
They protect and cover up for the murdering Terreorists and accusse our brave troops of torture and war crimes
Pathetic
It should be interesting to see what happens with the senate once the Conservatives have a majority. I predict that we get an elected senate with 8 year maximum terms. Only thing that bothers me about that is what kind of pension their will get for only serving for 8 years.
ReplyDeleteBull
ReplyDeleteThe Liberals created this mess. Their knee-jerk anti-americanism would not allow CF to hand over detainees to the US while Abu Graib and Guantanomo were political issues. Instead they figured the political risk was far less if they handed them over to Afghans and then buried the whole process in red tape. They knew exactly what they were doing. It's the old Ottawa two-step. Foreign Affairs hates DND and DND is loathe to take orders from Foreign Affairs, especially in a time of war. These two massive bureaucracies are always at war and woe to the "peacekeepers" the government of the day rotate in and out of those portfolios with surprising frequency. No one should be surprised to learn it used to take months to shuffle a single piece of paper between the two until the CPC gave them their marching orders. To their credit, they found a way to work together and the reporting process was later trimmed from months to days. The real story here is that it isn't a lot worse than a couple shoes thrown.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see a poison pill called a reduction in entitlements by our politicians in an effort to help curb the culture.
ReplyDelete10% cut in all MP salaries and benefits retroactive to Jan 2010.
Full disclosure on all expenses for MP, Senate, paid by taxpayers.
Someone at Macleans had an article asking for new words based on the past year. I never got around to it but I wanted to put this one forward:
ReplyDeletewherry (v.): to post incessantly on an issue that no one cares about while there are much bigger fish to fry.
"He really wherried on the detainee issue when the climategate emails came out."