It was a fun constitutional mini-crisis while it lasted. After a late-game extension to work out a deal all sides could agree on, it looks like all four parties in Ottawa have agreed to allow a committee of eight MPs access to the government’s files on detainee abuse in Afghanistan. The MPs will be sworn to secrecy and will decide which documents can be shown to the rest of Parliament and which cannot. Unsurprisingly, members of the House are quite pleased with themselves and took this opportunity to explain how kick-ass they all are.
From the CBC:
“In your ruling on April 27, you were confident that members of Parliament of all parties could come to an agreement,” [Justice Minister Rob] Nicholson told Speaker Peter Milliken. “I just want you to know that confidence was not misplaced...”
Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale told the Commons that “the participants in the talks over the last two and a half weeks have all tried, I believe, to get it right.”
There’s nothing funnier than when the boys and girls in Ottawa momentarily go all Care Bears on each other (“See? You just needed to share”) before returning to their partisan accusations of hating the troops or being in the clutches of the religious right.
As for why this deal finally got cobbled together now, look no further than the four most common words in Canadian political journalism over the past three weeks: “an election nobody wants.” If the polls are to be believed—and if you’re a party leader, they always are—nobody came out of this mess looking good, or at least nobody’s numbers improved.
• Harper pleased with Afghan document deal [CBC.ca] • MPs reach agreement to share Afghan detainee info [National Post] • Afghan detainee deal a pioneering compromise on national security [Globe and Mail]
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