A Post-Election Reflection on Contempt

Looking back on the 2011 election, one thing becomes crystal clear:

The left did try so very hard.

Left-wing groups leapt over one another online for the privilege of being the group that not only prevented Prime Minister Stephen Harper from winning an election, but turfing him out of the Prime Minister's office entirely.

They fear mongered at a torrid pace, burned up the Twitter feeds of the nation, and (in the case of websites such as ShitHarperDid), blatantly lied wherever they felt they needed to.

And they came up short. Which is fitting when one considers the biggest lie ever uttered in the 2011 federal election: the so-called "contempt of Parliament" lie.

Moving to defeat the government on charges of Parliamentary contempt was, no doubt, the most desperate gambit the left had ever imagined. It was intended to panic Canadians about the direction of the government.

It clearly didn't work. More Canadians voted than in 2008, and more voted Conservative. More voted Conservative than for any other party, and as a consequence Harper is returning to Ottawa at the head of a majority government.

Many of those who campaigned so hard on the back of "contempt" charges are surely scratching their heads today, wondering why Canadians didn't take that nearly so seriously as they thought they would.

The reason to that is very simple:

There was nothing to these charges of contempt.

Queen's University professor emeritus Ned Franks is considered the top advocate of Parliamentary privilege in the entire Commonwealth. If Parliamentary privilege had truly been breached, or if Parliament had truly been impeded in its funtions, one could fully expect that Franks would be apoplectic about it.

Apoplectic he was not.

"If the finding of contempt is purely the result of a political game, it's not super serious. If the finding of contempt is something really went wrong, then it is serious," Franks remarked in March. "I have wrestled with this, and I'm not convinced that there actually is a contempt of Parliament and I don't think it's the important issue."

In fact, Franks pointed to a bigger problem with Parliamentary procedure in regards to contempt: that it isn't terribly well-defined.

"To be found in contempt of Parliament, a person must be found guilty by the House of Commons of actions that have obstructed or impeded the House in the performance of its functions," Franks mused. "That's not the same as privilege and I think we have to appreciate that there's no limit to what might be contempt."

Nor is there any guarantee that cases of Parliamentary contempt will be equally pursued in all cases.

For example, there's the famed "crosses burning in Prince George" remark uttered by Liberal MP Hedy Fry in the House of Commons in 2001. Fry later admitted that it wasn't true, and apologized.

Fry was, at the time, the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. So her misleading of Parliament was actually an extremely serious matter. Yet she was not held in Contempt of Parliament. That the House of Commons was controlled by a Liberal majority at the time is likely of no small consequence.

Another case is that of Lloyd Axworthy, who was also a member of the Chretien government that tabled and passed the long-gun registry. Liberals told Canadians that the long-gun registry would cost $2 million to put in place. By 2006, costs had exceeded $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Axworthy had reportedly instructed his fellow Cabinet ministers that they shouldn't talk about the cost of the long-gun registry, and that they should talk about expected public safety-related benefits instead.

Axworthy was never held in contempt of Parliament, largely because he had left Parliament by the time his remarks had come to light. Parliament was (again) controlled by a Liberal majority at the time of Axworthy's tenure, so it's unlikely he would have been held in contempt even then.

It seems that the Liberals, at the very least, have four approaches to contempt of Parliament: one for when the Conservatives govern, and one for when they govern. One for a minority Parliament, another for a majority Parliament.

It shouldn't surprise anyone. When one considers the results of the 2011 federal election, it becomes clear: it really didn't. Canadians took the matter with a grain of salt, and voted accordingly.

The rest is history.

Some Election Season Poetry

In Vancouver Centre, Dr Hedy Fry apparently think she's quite the poet.

So in that spirit, the Nexus offers some election season poetry of its very own:

Hedy told tales of crosses on fire/
Everyone soon learned Hedy's a liar

Thank you.

Afghan Detainee Torture: The Orphan Timeline

Writing in a blog post at Macleans.ca, Aaron Wherry does his bit to respond to the recent revelation that, while negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement with the government of Afghanistan, the Liberal Party knew about the torture that was prevalent in Afghan prisons.

Wherry seems to think that he has the answer to what seems to him to be a horrible dilemma: simply ignore the revelation at hand, and shift attention back to 2007.

After an ever-so-brief mention of the La Presse revelation, Wherry directs his attention to an April 25, 2007 Globe and Mail article in which it was stated that the government had received warnings about "extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial" of Afghan prisoners.

In skating over the La Presse story, Wherry demonstrates precisely where he thinks the readers' attention should be: after 2006, so long as they only pay attention to developments before April 28, 2007.

Under the stewardship of reporters like Wherry, the pre-2006 portion of the torture chronicles becomes an orphan timeline: disowned by those who are presenting this issue in the public eye. Along with that portion of the timeline, the truth is orphaned as well.

This helps Liberal MPs like John McCallum ignore their party's uncomfortable responsibility for torture and pretend that the Conservative Party didn't approach the issue properly: by investigating and fixing the problem.

But McCallum isn't the only Liberal MP enjoying this orphaning of the truth.

Speaking in a column written for Vancouver's Georgia Straight, Liberal MP Dr Hedy Fry -- who has a history of lying in the House of Commons -- has the temerity to invoke the memory of George W Bush to try to score some cheap points.

"What is it that George Bush used to say?" she asked. "'You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.' It seems to me that Stephen Harper is taking that advice. Or at least one has to wonder."

It seems that this is exactly the the strategy being used by Fry -- whose previous highlight was raising comical allegations of a Conservative Party/HBC conspiracy -- and Wherry. In Dr Fry's case, the hypocrisy of it remains as astounding as it was in McCallum's -- she served in the government that is directly responsible for the torture as Secretary of State for Women and Multiculturalism.

Wherry, Fry and McCallum seem to think they're working it to perfection.

But when truly pressed on the Liberal Party's direct complicity in the torture of detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers, they seem to recognize the key defect in their strategy -- that it will stop working when Canadians realize that the scandal is their fault in the first place.

And while Aaron Wherry, Hedy Fry and John McCallum seem to think they can distract Canadians from that fact by severing the entire pre-2006 period from the torture timeline, they'll find out in time that they can't.

Dr Hedy Fry: Kinda Stupid

Liberal MP embarrasses party, self -- again

One simply had to rest assured that if the Liberal party had a Rob Anders of its very own, it would be a kinder, gentler Rob Anders.

Those who follow Canadian politics even passingly know who Anders is: he's the Conservative MP for Calgary West, and generally a disgrace to Parliament, his party, and himself.

Among the various controversies Anders has stirred up included denouncing Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist, and firing the manager of his riding office over a financial dispute.

But the Liberal party has a Rob Anders of its very own, and it bears the very unthreatening guise of MP Dr Hedy Fry.

Like Anders, Dr Fry is well-known and recognized as a general embarrassment to Parliament, her party, and herself.

Among the various controversies Fry has stirred up included claiming cross burnings were taking place in Prince George, BC, and sending out mailings that seemed to imply that Canada's military was no longer proud to wear the flag on their ruck sacks.

But today Dr Fry seems to think she's finally hit that partisan home run she's been itching for, when she drew comparisons between some Olympic gear the Hudson's Bay Company are selling to commemorate the Vancouver Olympics and the Conservative party logo.

Dr Fry insists that the logo being used for the gear "bears a striking resemblance" to the Tory logo.

Even blogging magnate Jeff Jedras has taken the bait.

One assumes that a great many Canadians would be surprised to find out that HBC is actually secretly a Conservative party front -- perhaps none more than HBC itself.

Back to the Drawing Board for Michael Byers

Michael Byers fails to bring down Liberal giant

Among the official results available this evening: Michael Byers has lost his bid to enter the House of Commons, coming in third to incumbent (and victor) Liberal Hedy Fry and Conservative Lorne Mayencourt.

Fry took home just under 35% of the vote. Mayencourt slid in at second with just under 25%, and Byers claimed 22%.

It seems that Byers just wasn't able to swing voters in Vancouver Centre with his promises to shut down the tar sands and to shut down the evil private health clinics.

Byers has already blamed his electoral loss on the financial crisis.

In the end, the excuses will count for very little. Byers just isn't ready for federal politics, pure and simple. At the very least, this particular candidate -- who really has offered very little aside from ideology -- wasn't well situated to win in a riding with strong competition from a fellow left-of-centre candidate.

So it's back to the drawing board for Michael Byers. Sometimes being a self-proclaimed foreign policy expert just doesn't cut it.

Pressure's On Jack Layton

Potential leadership challenger Michael Byers waiting in the wings

In 2006, NDP leader Jack Layton led his party from a meagre 18 seat caucus to prey upon Liberal weakness and return 29 Members of Parliament.

The eventual by-election victory of Thomas Mulcair in Outremont -- a Liberal stronghold riding formerly held by Pierre Trudeau brought the NDP up to a respectable total of 30 seats.

With the 2008 federal election now underway, however, it seems the pressure on Layton could be as intense as ever. If he fails to make further gains or (worse yet) loses seats, it seems the NDP's candidate in Vancouver-Centre, Michael Byers, may decide to make a run for the NDP leadership.

According to the Georgia Strait's Charlie Smith, the entrance of BC Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt as a federal Conservative candidate may have put Byers in the driver's seat in Vancouver-Centre.

Mayencourt, currently representing the provincial riding of Vancouver-Berard, may siphon enough conservative Liberals discontented with the carbon tax to potentially unseat Hedy Fry.

According to Smith, if Mayencourt manages to attract as much as 20 percent of the ridings voters -- based on appeal to pro-free enterprise gays and lesbians and the law-and-order vote -- and Green candidate Adrianne Carr (formerly a provincial Green party leader) can attract 15-20% of the vote in the riding, either Byers or Fry could claim a victory with just over 30% of the vote.

Smith predicts that Byers could do even better than that, winning 35% of the vote if Jack Layton runs a good, solid campaign. Even if Layton doesn't run a good campaign -- and there's no reason to expect he won't -- Byers is still a definite contender in the contest.

Byers seems to understand this, as well. Byers didn't even wait for the campaign to begin before taking the fight to Hedy Fry.

Certainly, a successful campaign by Layton would benefit Byers at least in the short term. However, such a successful campaign could only put off any leadership amitions Byers may have.

However, should the NDP campaign flounder federally, Jack Layton will almost certainly find himself subject to a leadership review. Should disgruntled New Democrats decide to ouster Layton as leader, a Byers victory in Vancouver-Centre -- toppling the giant killer who once slew Prime Minister Kim Campbell -- would make him a tough opponent to beat.

Not that the NDP is guaranteed to be well-served by Byers' leadership. He has a tendency to make narrow ideological foreign policy statements that fail to stand up to scrutiny.

But if Byers wants to follow Michael Ignatieff's lead into federal politics, he may as well do it in style. And while it may be unbecoming for Byers to be keeping his fingers crossed for the failure of his party leader, one can't help but wonder if that isn't exactly what's on his wish list for the 2008 federal election.