Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Harper Needs a Better Explanation


Prime Minister claims proroguement necessary for economic work

Speaking to reporters about the recent proroguement of Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the increasingly-controversial move on the basis of the need to prepare his economic agenda.

Harper accused the opposition parties of being obstructive in Parliament, and distracting his government from the important work ahead of it -- something that Harper doesn't expect to change when Parliament resumes.

"The games begin when Parliament returns," Harper said. "The government can take our time now to do the important work to prepare the economic agenda ahead."

"That said, as soon as Parliament comes back ... the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there'll be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year," Harper continued. "That's the kind of instability markets are actually worried about."

Many of the Canadians who are following the story legitimately believe Harper, that numerous factors -- including the diplomatic opportunity offered by the presence of numerous foreign dignitaries in Vancouver during the Olympics, and his need to prepare his new economic agenda -- have made the proroguation of Parliament necessary. Others are supporting his proroguation out of sheer partisan fervour.

For Harper, the problem is that many Canadians don't seem to believe him. A recent poll indicated that, of the 67% of Canadians who are following the proroguation story, 58% opposed the move.

Included in this were a significant portion of Conservative supporters.

Among those Conservative Party supporters, one will find an unexpected figure -- none other than Tom Flanagan.

“The governments talking points don’t have much credibility," Flanagan said. "Everybody knows that Parliament was prorogued in order to shut down the Afghan inquiry, and the trouble is that the government doesn’t want to explain why that was necessary. I personally think it was a highly defensible action but instead of having an adult defense of it the government comes up with these childish talking points.“

The thing about the controversy is that, considering all of the facts surrounding the issue, few Canadians could be blamed for believing the worst about Harper's proroguement.

In the Afghan torture allegations the Conservative Party has handled what is actually a low-value scandal -- the revelation that failures in the chain of command may have obscured the torture of Afghan detainees from the government -- very poorly.

Considering the way in which Harper has handled the issue -- a better response would have been to call a complete inquiry into the entire timeline of Canada's operations in Afghanistan, including the period prior to 2006 -- and present the full reality of the matter: that the pre-2006 Liberal government was actually responsible for the state of affairs in the first place.

Instead, Harper and the Conservatives flailed clumsily, and executed what was very likely a long-planned proroguation of Parliament when opposition pressure just happened to be most intense.

No one could blame so many Canadians for believing that Harper prorogued Parliament to escape the pressure.

Among the Canadians who oppose the proroguement on a principled of basis are those who oppose it on partisan grounds. Murray Dobbin seems to firmly understand that stage two of Harper's economic plan is at the centre of the proroguement (and considers it unthinkable that the government would ever want to reduce government spending).

Stephen Harper needs a better explanation for his actions. For every reason that a Canadian may hear Harper's explanation and believe it, there are just as many reasons to not believe him.

Right now, the opposition is telling a better story.


9 comments:

  1. For a "master strategist" Harper seems to follow the Yasser Arafat "strategy" of continually snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Look how often Obama admits to screwups, and it doesn't seem to be hurting him. Only the hard core Cheneyites would claim admitting the security apparatus failed for the underwear bomber is somehow endangering America.
    Over at hunterland, they try to make it about "the left says proroguing is too long a holiday" and are now engaging in tedious calendar counting to make that case. When really it's about the coverup. Remember Clinton? His people tried to make it about the right wing being angry about someone getting a blowjob, when of course it was really about the fact he lied about it. "It's the coverup, stupid".
    All the claims that having a discussion here about the details of the mission somehow emboldens the terrorists there is bogus. In fact we are now showing the terrorists not to fear a democracy. Don't worry about debate and pesky dissent. Just play along, and when you get enough power you too can act like a tyrant.

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  2. Great post, I don't think the PM can justify to the media, opposition when they report that parliament is closed for 2-3 months.

    I am confident those who are using tyrant, despot will never be satisfied with anything this government does. The PM will be judged by his results in the next election.

    Will he be punished for the twenty scandals pushed by our media, opposition in 2009?

    I am thinking this budget will force the coalition parties out in the open again. The warning signs of NO new spending and return to tackle the deficit means no payola largesse for the opposition to hide behind. What possible reasons could they possibly support this right wing party? What politicial party will suppport the CPC in 2010?

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  3. Right, Libby. It's all just a big coverup.

    There's no economic recession -- no economic program to prepare, it's all about covering up a non-story!

    Sheesh. Remember when I talked about Canadians with principled opposition to the proroguement of Parliament?

    Libby isn't one of them.

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  4. Shutting down the torture questioning is the coverup. You can deny it all you want, and say "everything's a cover up" like it's some conspiracy theory, wave calendars around, but it's all about shutting down those embarrassing questions. For some reason, you said that in your post, but when I agreed you reflexively decided it's now bad. Make up your mind.

    Time will tell if this is the tipping point. A lot of people are fed up with the lies and obfuscation. Lacking a charismatic leader, the CPC may go the way of the Martin Liberals due to the public being fed up just as they were then. More likely they will go the way of the Mulroney PCs.

    Oh yes, congratulations on winning the "first to use ad hominem" award for this thread. Even though you always win that, each new win is as fresh as the first.

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  5. Pff.

    God forbid that the Canadian government not sit still for questioning about something that prison guards in another country did.

    It's pretty disgusting the way that the opposition parties -- especially the Liberal Party, who are directly and solely responsible for this state of affairs -- have attempted to partisanize this affair.

    God knows we don't expect any better of them -- or from you.

    (And by the way, Libby, I'm the one who parts out awards around these parts.)

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  6. God forbid that the Canadian government not sit still for questioning about something that prison guards in another country did.
    It is still not about the length of the prorogue and it is still not about prison guards in another country. It is about the possible coverup of complicity in war crimes by the highest levels of our government.

    It's pretty disgusting the way that the opposition parties -- especially the Liberal Party, who are directly and solely responsible for this state of affairs -- have attempted to partisanize this affair.
    The only ones politicizing this are the BTs and the CPC. These are the same people who call anyone who questions the government a traitor. Save your fake disgust for The Hague. What is disgusting is you continue to blame others and hope that it makes the current government's reprehensible conduct ok. The Liberals were not in power when the repeated and persistent reports were made. The Liberals were not in power when these reports were ignored. The Liberals were not in power when the orders went out to stop sending the reports. The Liberals were not in power when the government refused to release the uncensored reports.


    God knows we don't expect any better of them -- or from you.
    Poor baby.

    (And by the way, Libby, I'm the one who parts out awards around these parts.)
    Your self congratulation is exceeded only by your self linking on other blogs.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. "It is still not about the length of the prorogue and it is still not about prison guards in another country."

    Conveniently, no one here said anything about the length of the proroguement. Thanks for playing.

    "It is about the possible coverup of complicity in war crimes by the highest levels of our government."

    I'm sure you'd like everyone to honestly believe that.

    "The only ones politicizing this are the BTs and the CPC."

    Non-fucking-sense.

    "What is disgusting is you continue to blame others and hope that it makes the current government's reprehensible conduct ok. The Liberals were not in power when the repeated and persistent reports were made. The Liberals were not in power when these reports were ignored. The Liberals were not in power when the orders went out to stop sending the reports. The Liberals were not in power when the government refused to release the uncensored reports."

    Perhaps to you, these things would be enough.

    But the Liberal government ignored warnings from diplomats that torture was prevalent in Afghan prisons.

    Moreover, they went ahead and signed the prisoner transfer agreement that is responsible for this in the first place.

    So, Libby, let's compare the Conservative Party response to the torture issue to the Liberal Party response.

    Conservative government receives credible reports of prisoner torture -- they rescind prison transfer agreement, re-negotiate one that increases the level of Canadian oversight.

    Liberal government receives credible reports of prisoner torture -- they say "fuck it", sign a prisoner transfer agreement that gives Canadian soldiers insufficient oversight of the treatment of transferred prisoners.

    The difference between the two is that the Liberal Party has attempted to make this a partisan issue, where as the Tories haven't.

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  9. Libby, I invite you to translate this. It's from the April 28, 2007 edition of La Presse.

    I'll make this so easy for you.

    Read it and weep.

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