Why we need a Commons Select Committee on Intelligence

I haven’t written a whole lot on the Afghan detainee document battle between Parliament and the Conservative government. I’ve felt my blogging colleagues have covered the issue well. My own feelings, in short, are that Parliament has the right to demand documents, and it must fight for that right. Also, it can’t cede that right to a government-appointed judge. It’s a dangerous precedent that would dilute its constitutional prerogative, and besides, is also an obvious stall by the government to avoid the issue until after the next election.

I’ve been thinking, though, that the issues raised by this affair highlight the need, beyond the specifics of this case, for real, lasting structural change in the relationship between our legislative and executive branches of government, and how they deal with issues of national security. We need structure and procedures in place, so when issues like the Afghan torture documents come up, it’s handled in a structured way and not in an ad-hoc manner as we’re seeing now, where partisan considerations are seen, correctly or not, as colouring the positions of each side.

The opposition believes the government is using national security as a smokescreen to avoid political embarrassment. The government believes the opposition is willing to toss aside national security for a political fishing expedition. Neither side is willing to back down.

That’s why, looking beyond this case, we’ve got to, in so much as it’s possible, get the politics out of it.

Let’s go back to basics, and examine what the relationship between the executive (the Harper government and cabinet) and the legislative (House of Commons and Senate) is intended to be. The government governs, within the laws and budget passed by the legislature. The government acts within those laws and budget, and the legislature examines and monitors those government actions. Checks and balances, it’s called. We’ll leave the judiciary out of it for now.

It’s more defined in the U.S. system, where the executive (the president) is elected directly and separately from the legislative branch (Congress). It gets more muddled in our parliamentary system, with the executive being drawn from members of the majority (or just the largest) represented party in the House of Commons, nominally by the Governor-General. But the same principle of checks and balances holds true: the role of the legislative branch is to examine and scrutinize the actions of the executive, and national security cannot trump its responsibility to do so.

And this is an occasion where we can actually take a lesson from our American cousins. Hey, really, it does happen sometimes. They have what’s called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It includes Senators from both parties. It usually meets confidentially, and the White House and the intelligence agencies (the executive) is required, by law, to brief the committee (the legislative) on intelligence activities so government actions can be scrutinized and examined. Nothing held back for national security excuses: the committee hears it all. Obviously national security must be respected, and secrets must be kept secret. And the law proscribes penalties for the disclosure of confidential information. But the executive must brief and be questioned by the legislative, which can take further action if it determines it to be necessary.

We need something similar for Canada. We need a House of Commons Select Committee on Intelligence. Members from each party, sworn into the Privy Council to allow them to be briefed on confidential information by the government, and be bound by law and the penalties proscribed thereby to respect that confidentiality. The committee would meet confidentially, and be fully briefed by the government on national security matters, nothing held back, with the ability to question and probe and call witnesses like other parliamentary committees to investigate government activities in its area of responsibility.

We usually won’t get to know or hear what the committee knows or hears. But we can be confident knowing all of the parties are at the table, being briefed, so we can be confident our views are being represented, putting faith in the good judgement of our representatives. So if our guys have been briefed and tell is its all good, we can believe them more readily than we can believe the other guys. And secrets stay secret.

And if the committee feels that wrongdoing has occurred, that security is being used as a smokescreen, then mechanisms can be put in place to deal with that; be it the power or a procedure to seek the declassification of documents and expose them to the light of day, or a procedure for investigation, sanction, and/or court proceedings when warranted.

The details and specifics would need to be ironed out, but I think the core idea and principle is what we need to commit to: a mechanism to allow Parliament to truly exercise its oversight duties over the executive while respecting the appropriate bounds of national security. There may be other more ad hoc ways to do it, but I think a committee as outlined would a meaningful way of getting there, and a lasting structural change that would go some ways to removing partisanship from the equation.

I hope the Liberals, and all the parties, will consider going down this road in the near future, so we don’t have to suffer more dramas like the detainee document case.

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Harper is on guard for thee, but the instability contagion is spreading!

Be on watch, patriotic Canadians! There is a sinister danger lurking in our gentle land, an evil scourge that threatens our economy, our jobs, our economic recovery, even our families and our very way of life. What is this evil plague, you ask? Is it gingivitis? Well, that’s bad too, but no, I’m talking about: Instability!!

Yes, I know, it’s frightening, but it’s true. Instability has taken root in our land and is spreading. No one is safe. You, or your little dog Toto, could be next. Thankfully, we’re lucky enough to have a glorious leader in Stephen Harper with the foresight and bold vision to recognize this growing threat. And he is waging the battle against instability for you, Joe and Jane Canadian!

He recognized the growing threat of instability as far back as this summer, when the possibility of an election that would send Canadians to the polls to vote for their elected representatives threatened to give instability a beachhead into our democratic system:

"We do not need another round of political instability and another round of elections — we need parliament to focus on the economy," Harper said in Adstock, Que., as he announced a $225-million project to expand high-speed internet to rural areas across Canada.

Yes, our leader Stephen Harper had the foresight to know an election would give oxygen to the embers of instability and allow its flickering flames to burn our nascent recovery in the fiery fires of even more instability, but a kind that burned people and stuff.

NO! He declared, you stay away from Parliament, you dreaded instability! We need Parliament working, passing legislation, focusing on the economy, we need Parliament doing its work and not getting all unstable, and what not!

In September, seeing the instability still advancing, the Prime Minister launched another counterattack: get back, instability, we need Parliament on the job!

“The fact of the matter is that Canadians do not want an election, Canada does not need an election and an election is not in this country's best interest. We have important economic measures before Parliament. All the parties in Parliament should be focused on those measures and on the economy. The Leader of the Opposition should focus on our country's best interests.”
– Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Hansard, September 14, 2009.

Despite his valiant efforts though, instability proved to be a tenacious adversary. Despite Harper’s defences, and the ordering of plenty of instability vaccine, even if it arrived rather late, the instability was insidious and, rather than triggering an election, the instability mutated, and began to infect Parliament itself.

Instability, in our Parliament! We did not make this up! We’re not allowed to make this up.

Faced with this threat of instability in the very cradle of our democracy, with the infection beginning in the toe and spreading slowly up the leg, like a surgeon Stephen Harper had no choice but to do what he had to do to stop the spread of instability before it became life-threatening: cut off the foot.

"As soon as Parliament comes back, we're in a minority Parliament situation and the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there will be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year. That's the kind of instability I think that markets are actually worried about. But you know the government will be well-prepared and I think Canadians want to see us focus on the economy."

You see, he had no choice but amputation, er, prorogation! Yes, it was vitally important that we had Parliament on the job back in July to focus on the economy, that’s true. But that was before the instability infection had spread to Parliament. Now it had to be prorogued, for the good of the economy and Tim Horton’s and Hockey Night in Canada, before the instability spread further.

Let’s just hope that Harper finally has this nasty bout of instability beat, and that prorogation will do the trick. If the instability spreads to his cabinet, if the incompetent performances of his ministers begins to put the recovery at risk, he may have to resort to a cabinet shuffle.

Because if that doesn’t work, the instability could even infect the Prime Minister’s Office itself, and Stephen Harper could be out of a job.

And that would be pretty unstable indeed.

Well, for Mr. Harper, at least.

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Parliamentary decorum and all that jazz

It was with a touch of amusement over the past few days that I’d ignored all the talk bemoaning the state of the decorum in parliament, the stories of teachers not wanting to bring their students to question period, and the admonishment of the speaker for everyone to behave themselves.

I was amused because parliament has always been like this. The speaker regularly stands up and goes tut tut, honourable colleagues, settle down now and what not. And then everyone goes right back to behaving badly. I’ve long since tuned it out, convinced this speaker (and his predecessors) have no real desire to raise the level of decorum on the house, and none of the parliamentarians particularly want to either, beyond feigning righteous indignation now and again.

So I was surprised, and pleasantly so, when I read that the speaker has actually found some backbone and has moved beyond semi-stern fatherly admonishments to real action, and is actually cutting-off MPs that step over the lines of decorum into personal attacks.

Speaker Peter Milliken cut off Tory MPs three times Thursday as they began taking shots at Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff during member statements.

Milliken had already warned members that he was fed up with the proliferation of personal attacks in their statements ahead of the daily question period.

While all parties take pot-shots occasionally, the Conservatives have long been systematically attacking the Liberal leader in their statements.

Good on Peter Miliken, although it’s a seriously overdue move. We’ll see if it continues, or if this is an isolated thing.

On a semi-related matter though, this confuses me: just what is the point of the Conservatives using member’s statements to systematically attack the Michael Ignatieff, the Liberals, Warren Kinsella (other than discrediting Ignatieff by proxy), and so on? Here’s the unnamed Liberal sources’ theory:

Some Liberals say the Tories are doing by stealth in the Commons what they have been reluctant to do on the airwaves.

(snip)

But a senior Ignatieff strategist said he believes the attacks in the House are a precursor to negative ads: "We had sort of accepted [this] as the beginning of the ad campaign," said the strategist. "They have been using many of their [statements] to get personal and make outlandish statements and exaggerating little events to change the channel from the economic disaster. It's really childish, and serious people are fed up."

Negative ads coming, sure, I get that. But what’s the point of the member’s statements strategy? No one really pays attention to member’s statements. The media don’t generally report on them. Undecided voters sure don’t watch them on CPAC (or know where CPAC is on the dial). If it’s an appeal to their base, how is their base supposed to find out about it?

Harper’s chess playing has left me puzzled again, although I’m sure there is a master plan.

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Opps

Another sign MPs don't actually read these bills before they pass them:

The federal government said Tuesday it will fix a problem with the newly revamped Elections Act that prevents up to a million rural voters from casting a ballot.

Four months ago, Parliament passed amendments to the Canada Elections Act that requires each voter produce proof of identity and a residential address before being allowed to cast a ballot.

However, more than one million Canadians living in rural areas don't have an address that includes a street name and number.

This is the kind of thing that happens when members of parliament forget their first responsibility is to be legislators. Perhaps if MPs spent a little more time doing their job, examining legislation, considering all the implications, hearing testimony, and proposing reasonable amendments, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

Unfortunately, that's not the environment in this Parliament. Rather than sober analysis of legislation, political tactics have become more important, with legislation being used not to improve the lives of Canadians but to try to embarrass political opponents or gain tactical advantage. Doomsday threats are issued if just one comma is changed. That is neutering parliamentarians, and it's a recipe for legislative disaster.

That's not what Canadians want. They don't want an election. They want this Parliament to work together. It's incumbent on all the parties to get the message, and remember who they really work for.

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