The Privilege to Waste Your Time

Joan Fraser sites undefined privileges in complaint

More details have emerged over the faux-outrage surrounding Alison Redford and Dave Chomiak's exit from a Senate Committee on a justice bill eliminating the two-for-one bill regarding time served.

Liberal Senator Joan Fraser recently demanded that Redford, the Attorney General of Alberta, and Chomiak, the Attorney General of Manitoba, face contempt of Senate charges because they attended a press conference with federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson before going to the airport.

They had told the committee that they needed to be excused so they could catch their flight.

“Ms Redford misled the committee about the reason for curtailing its hearings," Fraser complained. "She left the committee with the clear impression the reason why she and Mr Chomiak were leaving ... was to catch planes west.”

“Misleading committees is a serious matter,” Fraser added, and later complained that "Our privileges have been breached."

One may wonder precisely what privilege Fraser is talking about. Considering that Redford and Chomiak were scheduled to be before the Senate committee for one hour, and instead spent an hour and ten minutes at the committee, it would seem that the privilege that was "breached" was either some imagined privilege to set the schedules of ministers of the crown, or the privilege to waste their time.

Either that, or Fraser can't appreciate Redford's tact. After all, "we have to catch our flights" is a more polite way to terminate a conversation than "you're clearly wasting our time".

Of course, one knows that Fraser's objection really has nothing to do with misleading a Senate committee. Instead, this is an attempt at a vengeance burn, pure and simple. Fraser is angry that her amendments to the bill in question -- granting 1.5 for one time served -- are being criticized.

At least one Senator present wasn't prepared to tolerate Fraser's obvious attempt at silencing criticism of the Liberal Senators' ideological wrangling.

"It does not matter whether they wanted to go to McDonald’s for a hamburger or they needed to go the restroom or whatever," countered Bert Brown.

As the only elected Senator in the chamber, Brown has a moral authority on this particular matter that Fraser would do well to consider. Likewise, Redford can speak with a similar authority.

“I’m at a loss. We see what goes on in jails and in the courts. People don’t have confidence in the system. The Senate is not in touch with the real world,” said Redford. “I’m an elected official. People voted for me. The idea of the Senate holding a provincial minister in contempt. What can they do? We have a serious problem here. This is like Disneyland.”

There may be another important motive underlying Fraser's move -- drawing attention away from the fact that the Attorneys General from each Canadian Province, including governments from each of Canada's federal political parties (no, the Bloc Quebecois doesn't count) supported the bill in question.

Fraser cannot pretend that the government's outrage over the matter is purely partisan. Conservative, NDP and Liberal provincial governments approved of abolishing two-for-one sentencing provisions. Nor can Liberal justice critic Dominic LeBlanc.

As pitiful as this matter truly is, it may be a good opportunity to consider another possible reform for the Senate.

The Liberal Senate caucus has yet to explain themselves on this matter. As Dave Rutherford notes, they claim that abolishing the two-for-one sentencing provision is unconstitutional, but they won't explain how or why.

Perhaps the Senate should be reformed to allow provincial legislatures to summon Senators before them to explain themselves. They could finally be required to explain the alleged unconstitutionality of the bill in question, aside from their own say-so.

At the very least, the Alberta legislature would be able to use such powers to summon Joan Fraser to explain how it is she thinks she can dictate the schedule of a provincial Minister.

Find Some People Willing to Vote For You, George

Then we'll talk

Like many people, Green Party of Alberta leader George Read has a beef with the Alberta Elections Act.

Read seems to think that the Elections Act bilked his party out of $19,750 in non-refundable candidacy deposits. Money that otherwise could have been used to advertise and promote the party.

His issue revolves around the $500 deposit collected from candidates for provincial elections. $250 is refundable once the candidate files all the necessary paperwork to actually run. The remaining $250 is refundable only if the candidate wins, or if the candidate at least claims 50% of the winning candidate's votes.

"This is just a penalty against people who don't do well in the political process," Read insists. "Just because you didn't do well isn't a reason for someone to be penalized."

Of course not. In the Green party, they believe that not doing well in the political process is somehow still entitled to a seat. (But that's another story.)

But Read isn't just getting mad -- he wants to get even. He's written a letter to Alberta Justice Minister Alison Redford threatening to launch a Constitutional challenge if the Elections act isn't amended to refund the entire deposit to candidates.

He's even set a deadline of September 10, 2008. And if the government doesn't amend the Elections act accordingly, they's-a-gonna-geddit.

In response to the letter, Redford has promised to review recommendations stemming from the past two provincial elections.

Read, being the leader of the Alberta Greens (a party infamously inept when comes down to actually campaigning), has naturally missed the point. The portions of Alberta's Elections Act that he wants to contest aren't meant to discourage or hinder candidates or their supporters from participating in the election. They're meant to cut back on a potential glut of single-issue candidates with little to no hope of winning an election (hey! That kind of sounds like the Green Party!).

Plenty of other parties, like the Communist party and Separation Party of Alberta, ran candidates with little to no hope of victory. But you don't hear them crying for an extra $250 for each of their defeated candidates.

Of course, being the leader of the Alberta Greens, Read has one other quality hindering his ability to accept political irrelevance: that is, delusions of relevance.

In a province where he already has to compete for a razor-thin pool of potential supporters with Brian Mason and the only marginally less politically irrelevant NDP (for the record, here Mason is pictured holding a press conference on what appears to be his front lawn), George Read at this point should be feeling more like Charlie Brown, unable to ever quite kick that damn football (good grief).

A more pragmatic leader would look at a situation like this and wonder "why bother? Maybe I'll just go ahead and join the NDP".

Not George Read. He looks at a situation in which his party simply doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning and figures he'll just sue the government. Somehow, that'll make everything all better.

But it won't. Even if the Alberta government changes the Elections Act to his liking and he gets his extra $20,000 next election, George Read will still face a nearly insurmountable challenge:

Finding some people who are willing to vote for him. Good luck with that one, George.