Does "The Harper Government" have Parliament in a pre-emptive lockdown!

Tories 'creating very bad precedent' by using majority muscle to shut down debate in secret, says NDP MP Caron

Conservative MP Andrew Saxton says, 'It is common practice when we’re discussing committee business that we do so in camera.'

By TIM NAUMETZ
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
In camera: Conservative MP Andrew Saxton, pictured with PM Stephen Harper recently, says it's normal for committee business to be discussed behind closed doors. (The Hill Times Photograph by Jake Wright)

PARLIAMENT HILL—A new NDP MP from Quebec says Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Federal Accountability Act is “not worth the paper it’s printed on” after a third government oversight committee in the House of Commons fell victim Wednesday to a Conservative majority that defeated attempts to probe sensitive topics that could embarrass the Conservatives.

The charge came after an NDP motion calling on the Commons Public Accounts Committee to resume studies or finalize reports from the last Parliament on a range of topics—including allegations of wrongdoing in a $9-million Parliament Hill renovation and controversial military helicopter acquisitions—disappeared after Conservative MPs forced the committee into an in camera hearing, with no public debate over the government’s motives.

The manoeuvre came after Conservative MPs on two other government accountability panels—the Privacy, Access to Information and Ethics Committee and the Government Operations and Estimates committee—earlier either defeated motions in public that would have looked into the controversy of $50-million worth of controversial federal spending in Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ontario) riding for the G8 summit last year or forced in camera sessions to defeat the motions behind closed doors.

“We find it really disappointing, really actually outrageous, that we have to discuss these behind closed doors without any ability for the public or the media to actually see what’s happening, and this is important,” NDP MP Guy Caron (Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques, Quebec) told reporters after the nearly-two-hour secret session of the Public Accounts Committee ended.

“They (Conservatives) actually try to make their bread and butter on the issue of transparency and accountability and I must say at this point, I’m not sure if the Accountability Act is actually worth the paper it’s printed on,” said Mr. Caron, chair of the NDP’s Quebec caucus and the party’s senior member on the committee.

“Right now what we’re seeing is every attempt, especially on oversight committees, to try to just bury the work and the discussions and the debates that are happening and Canadians and the media need to see.”

The government move took place only two hours before the government, hefting its majority clout in the House of Commons, ended debate on a controversial omnibus crime bill, over the protests of opposition MPs.

Both developments came on the heels of critical comments to The Hill Times from a leading constitutional scholar, Queen’s University Professor Ned Franks, that Mr. Harper and his government are ruling Parliament by “fiat,” and similar criticism from Daniel Drache, a leading political scientist at York University in Toronto.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ontario) justified debate closure on the massive 102-page crime bill on grounds its components had been dealt with in the last Parliament, prior to the May 2 federal election, in the form of separate bills. The Commons vote sent the bill into committee for further study, though it is expected the government will use its majority there to limit witness appearances.

But, as noted by a member of the Public Accounts Committee, Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Newfoundland) 36 of the 166 Conservative MPs who supported the government on the crime bill were first elected last May and had not taken part in the debates and study that took place in the last Parliament.

A total of 106 government and opposition MPs who voted on the crime bill were first elected on May 2.

Ironically, a rookie Conservative MP argued at the Public Accounts Committee that he and other new Conservatives on the panel did not want to go through the past studies and or approve reports because they had not been in Parliament when evidence and witnesses were heard.

“I’m a new Member of Parliament, so I have to speak from the perspective of a new MP,” Conservative MP Bryan Hayes (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) said as he apparently laid out the government’s position before the committee was forced to close its doors.

“I was not privy to the decisions leading up to the requests for studies and reports, and you know that puts me, I think, at a disadvantage,” Mr. Hayes said, noting he was a three-term city councillor in Sault Ste. Marie prior to his election to Parliament and “when a new council came on, we dealt with new and current issues, we didn’t deal with issues of the past, that was the reason that you had a new council.”

The NDP wanted the committee to pick up on a total of eight studies or draft reports that were interrupted by the election, including several studies of reports by former Auditor General Sheila Fraser.

Apparently addressing the recent controversy over the government using its muscle behind closed doors of committees, Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (North Vancouver, British Columbia), Parliamentary Secretary to Mr. Clement, explained the government’s reasons for going into secret sessions.

“I would like to say it is common practice in this committee when we’re discussing committee business that we do so in camera, it’s certainly something that is very common and it’s something that we need to do,” Mr. Saxton said.

The Conservatives also argued committees do not normally resume work from a Parliament that has been dissolved for an election, but the chair of the committee, NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre, Ontario), told reporters he has been on the committee since 2004 and it has regularly picked up on previous work following elections.

MPs are prevented from disclosing anything that takes place during in camera committee meetings, so the New Democrats could not even confirm that the Conservatives used their majority to kill the NDP motion. The motion is simply not reported as being adopted, and disappears from committee business.

“If the government flexes its muscles to try to impose something on this committee, which is studying government, it’s creating a very bad precedent, if that’s what they’re doing,” Mr. Caron said in answer to a question from a reporter.

“This is an oversight committee, a committee that studies issues of transparency, issues of accountability, expenditures. Right now what we’re seeing is every attempt, especially on oversight committees, to try to just bury the work and the discussions and the debates that are happening, and Canadians and the media need to see."

tnaumetz@hilltimes.com