Montreal Gazette - January 24, 2012
Also Published in:
The Province - January 25, 2012
The Windsor Star - January 26, 2012
Times Colonist (Victoria) - January 26, 2012
The Charlottetown Guardian - January 26, 2012
The Journal Pioneer - January 26, 2012
By Colin Kenny
I have a story to tell you. But first allow me to say a few words on one of humanity’s finest jewels: democracy.
Governments in countries like Syria have Draconian ways of dealing with citizens who dare to speak openly without their approval. They send out snipers to shoot them in the street.
Governments in countries like Canada aren’t like the government in Syria. Western governments celebrate free speech, openness and transparency. Our government funds activities around the world that promote the kind of civic discourse that is at the core of democracy.
All governments, however, are at times tempted to circumvent democratic principles when those principles threaten their grip on power. The Harper government, as many have noted before me, has succumbed to such temptations with unprecedented passion.
Control is out of control, as it were. Ministers are scripted; committees are neutered; debate is cut off; public servants are muzzled; laws and court edicts are ignored; official watchdogs are fired; bills are adulterated with agenda-filling provisions unconnected to their rationale; opposition amendments are dismissed out of hand; provincial premiers are avoided; and the prime minister’s communications control team grows at a steroidal pace in an era of restraint.
There is no public outcry about these abuses of process. The polls show that that none of this disturbs the drowsy comfort of Canadians the way, say, a tax hike might. Or a paper cut.
It was in 1957 that John Diefenbaker swept to power simply because the governing Liberals invoked closure in cutting off debate on the building of – is this too ironic? – a pipeline. Not these days. Closure – shutting down dissent – has become a political crime tantamount to jaywalking as a criminal act.
But I promised you a story. As a parliamentarian I try to tackle issues that interest me and are of importance to Canadians, like national security. As former chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I presided over the publication of many reports leading to changes in government policy.
Two of these reports dealt with improving the performance of the RCMP. I have met privately with nine RCMP commissioners during my time in the Senate. I have listened to them; I have learned from them; I have offered advice to them. I have used insights garnered in these exchanges in what I deem to be the best interests of the RCMP and the best interests of Canadians.
After Bob Paulson was announced as the new Commissioner of the RCMP, I sent him a friendly e-mail saying that I would like to meet with him, so we could share insights. At first Commissioner Paulson said he would like to meet with me. Then he got back to say that he couldn’t do that until he cleared the meeting with the Department of Public Safety.
Whoa! Commissioner of the RCMP has always been a very powerful position, held at arm’s length from government. The reasons are obvious. If a member of a government is alleged to have broken the law, the Mounties are the people called on to investigate. The RCMP is funded by the government, but cannot become the instrument of any given government.
I told Paulson that he was being muzzled. He said he didn’t think he was – that the government was just managing fair relationships between parliamentarians and public officials.
Mark Johnson, an assistant to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, contacted my staff. He advised them that the reason I could not meet with the Commissioner alone was to assure that all Parliamentarians had equal access to government officials, so all official parties would have to be represented at any meeting with those officials, including the commissioner of the RCMP.
I replied that, of course, all parliamentarians should have access to public officials, but at their own requests and on their own time to pursue their own issues. I told Mr. Johnson the following:
“The concept infringes on my Parliamentary rights to have a conversation with an Official without two-thirds of the time being consumed by people with a different agenda and even if you were to suggest that they were simply going to sit in the room and audit the conversation that I am having with the Official the concept is totally unacceptable.
“Particularly in the case of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police it is conceivable that I might have issues of a nature that would be inappropriate to share with others than the Police.”
Mr. Johnson’s reply? He said he would take my perspectives under advisement, but that the policy remained the same.
It is clear to me that this government is diminishing both the Commissioner and the Parliament of Canada by imposing ridiculous chaperone restrictions on private meetings that can serve no other purpose than to control all exchanges of information.
The Canadian public had better wake up soon. You don’t have to send out snipers to damage democracy. As Prime Minister Harper well knows, all you have to do is lull people to sleep.
[Colin Kenny is former chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca]