Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Prime Minister Shrug

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, March 10, 2011 3:45pm - 51 Comments

The Prime Minister reacts to yesterday’s rulings.

“We have debates in Parliament all the time. The Speaker rules, you win some, you lose some,” Mr. Harper said Thursday following a health-care announcement in Toronto. “If you lose, you comply and that’s what we’ll do.”

Tags: , , ,

Bookmark and Share
  • gottabesaid

    Geez, I thought this whole thing was about the supremacy of parliament and the right of MPs to do the job they were elected to do. It's just an administrative dispute? Boy, did I get that wrong.

    Anyway, folks, turns out it was just a little mix up. Nothing to see here. Did you hear the Leafs are a few points out of the playoffs? Yeah! Go Leafs!

    • tedbetts

      And anyone who says otherwise, hates hockey and Canada.

      And the troops. Of course.

      • Amateur Hour

        Thug hugger.

        • Reverend_Blair

          He hugged Jason Kenney?

          • MostlyCivil

            No, Zdano.

      • gottabesaid

        Wow, you must really like the Leafs. That's pretty hard core.

  • Loraine Lamontagne

    What did the Harper Government lose? The game, I guess, because that's what they're doing, playing games. They always knew they would have to produce the documents parliament was asking to see. A dysfunctional parliament, courtesy of the group who wrote the manual on how to obstruct the work of committees. We shouldn't expect more. NOT-A-LEADER this Harper.

    • Keith in Brampton

      "They always knew they would have to produce the documents parliament was asking to see."

      They were told to produce the Afghanistan documents ages ago and have yet to comply, so I think they still suffer from the belief that parliament and the Speaker aren't worth paying attention to.

      “If you lose, you comply and that’s what we’ll do.” Note that Harper said nothing about WHEN. I think he's thinking a decade or so will be timely enough.

  • John D

    Some days you gets the democracy, some days the democracy gets you.

  • tedbetts

    "Win some and lose some"??

    Shouldn't you actually, oh, I don't know, win one before you claim to have won some?!?!

    Democracy and Accountability – 3; Harper Government – 0

    • Not Stephen Colbert

      Clearly he's trying to equate rulings on privilege matters with rulings on more routine matters. This will probably be effective on exactly the number of people who already think that he's doing a great job.

      • John.K

        Harper's doing a terrific job. Unfortunately, not the job we elected him to do…

  • Mike T.

    Harper ended by adding "…and I got your little dog, too!"

  • Reverend_Blair

    I think the Liberals would do well to bring down the Conservatives ASAP. It would end the taxpayer-paid campaigning the Conservatives have been doing and level the party advertising. I'm guessing it won't happen until the 21st though.

    • Mike R

      Hmm, based on today's Angus Reid numbers it would be a very brave or foolish Liberal caucus to do that. A sixteen-point gap is enough to make anyone think twice.

      • Guest

        In 12 of the last 15 elections, the leader in the polls at the beginning of the campaign was not the winner.

        • Poker Face

          Yes, but of those 3 outliers…. I believe they were the last 3 elections.

      • Reverend_Blair

        Nice try, but if you are going to quote polls please note that the fallout from In and Out, if any, won't show up for at least another week. Then there is the matter of Guest having a point. Also, I spent decades listening to Reform, Alliance, and Conservative members tell me that the polls didn't matter, so I find when they make reference to the polls now it sound extra disingenuous.

  • tobyornotoby

    Dear Mr. Harper:

    You already had the ruling from the Afghan detainee documents and you STILL haven't complied with that, except to complicate the complying with a secret coalition committee.

    Now you have two more requests for documents, on the fighter jets and on the implications of the crime bills, that are the essentially the SAME ruling. In two or three weeks or months or however long we have you mismanaging our affairs, and some other request for documents comes from a committee on some other subject, are you going to need a ruling for that too?

    What does "comply" mean to you?

    • McC_

      “We have rulings in Parliament all the time. The Speaker rules, you comply with some, you don't comply with some,” Mr. Harper said Thursday following a health-care announcement in Toronto. “If we don't comply, you lose and that’s what we’ll do.”

    • madeyoulook

      That "secret coalition committee," not much of a secret if we know about it, but anyways, was the direct result of the Speaker's failure to follow the rules that are supposed to kick in once he finds there is a prima facie case for the breach-of-privilege complaint. Milliken begged the MPs to find a way to ignore his prima facie finding by hatching an agreement. And this is what we got

      • Mike T.

        Are we sure the speaker doesn't have an overarching discretionary power to implement the measure he did?

        • madeyoulook

          No.

          If the Speaker is satisfied that the necessary conditions have been met and finds a prima facie breach of privilege or contempt, the decision is announced to the House. As soon as the Chair has apprised the House that a prima facie case of privilege has been found, the Member raising the matter is immediately allowed to move a motion.
          http://www2.parl.gc.ca/procedure-book-livre/Docum…

          All the Speaker can do is decide whether his "first glance" at the issue (raised as a point of privilege) convinces him there is enough "there" there to let this complaint supercede all other items on the order paper. Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege because I believe parliamentary privilege has been breached. –> debate –> deliberation –> "Yes, the prima facie case is made." –> IMMEDIATE motion in the House, typically to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for further analysis and recommendations that will come back to the House.

          • Mike T.

            To be more clear, then, are we sure the speaker does not have sufficient authority to hold his own determination in abeyance, whether the text of rules is repeated in boldface or not?

            For instance, a judge would be allowed to adjourn proceedings if the parties might settle, even if a specific rule of procedure required him to do something within a time period covered by that delay. It's because he has an inherent authority over the procedure itself. Although I don't have all the materials in front of me, it seems more likely that a similar kind of thing is what is going on, rather than out and out rule violation. Occam's razor and all.

          • madeyoulook

            Point of Order, Mr. Speaker!
            (Speaker permits MP to speak)
            Here (complaint of breach of privilege) is why the House must place this item ahead of all others on the order paper.
            (Speaker permits debate)
            (Speaker rules, or deliberates, then rules)

            If Speaker rules a prima facie case is made, BOOM! the complainant's motion trumps all else on the order paper.

            I will gladly entertain evidence from the parliamentary procedure rule book that offers the Speaker discretionary power to ignore the consequences of his own ruling. I sure haven't found it, and in weeks (months?) of my yapping about this nobody has pointed me to it, either.

          • Mike T.

            so nobody knows authoritatively, and the speaker acted in accordance with my interpretation, is what it comes down to.

          • madeyoulook

            If by "in accordance with my interpretation," you mean "my interpretation that if that's how he acted, it must be ok regardless of the rule that says it isn't," then yeah, he has acted in accordance with your interpretation. But warning to you and to Milliken: tight circles of reasoning like that cause dizziness.

      • Mike T.

        Harper could have also solved the issue by doing the right thing and making the documents available when ordered, making everything afterward unnecessary.

        • Reverend_Blair

          Er…the words "Harper" and "do the right thing" don't really go together very well.

      • tobyornotoby

        Its secret in that we don't know when it meets, how often, or what the agenda is. The question of how long it will take to "comply" with he ruling is also a secret (if anyone knows). I agree that it stems from a willingness by the speaker to let some of the parties usurp the role of the members.

    • Olivier

      The CPC complied with the speaker's ruling on the detainee affair. If you do a bit of research you'll find that the NDP was outraged by the way how the agreement between the government and the other opposition parties was struck, I don't remember the detials though…. I'll look it up.

      • Olivier
      • madeyoulook

        The CPC honoured the Speaker's plea for negotiation. But NOBODY complied with the Speaker's ruling on the detainee affair, least of all the Speaker himself.

        • Mike T.

          see above, m'lad.

  • chet

    How dare Harper reflect the populace's opinion…

    and not play along with the hyperventilating hyperpartisans….

  • Tceh

    Harper has no sense that he has done anything wrong, or what is right and what is wrong for that matter.

    He fits this profile nicely: http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

    • http://tiny.cc/CRUSH Nadine Lumley

      ♥♥♥ We are working hard to get the word out to Canadians about our Crime Minister / Prime Spender Stealin' Harper. ♥♥♥ Google this discussion group of 6,000+ Canadians: (CRUSH) Canadians Rallying to Unseat Steve Harper ♥♥♥ Also we run a website called: unseatHarper dot ca ♥ We talk, share newstories and help each other understand the lies told to us by Harper and the MSM. ♥♥♥ Steve HarperCon: Government of One ♥♥♥

  • http://secondthots.blogspot.com Dennis_F

    “We have debates in Parliament all the time. The Speaker rules, you win some, you lose some,” Mr. Harper said Thursday following a health-care announcement in Toronto. “If you lose, you comply and that’s what we’ll do.”

    BINGO!!

    They must have been reading my comments on here yesterday!! Ha ha.

    • tobyornotoby

      When is the complying scheduled for?

      If I'm charged with stealing a car, and then I desist from stealing cars and instead steal trucks, does that mean I'm complying with the first ruling?

      • http://secondthots.blogspot.com Dennis_F

        First, not sure what you're talking about. Second, you're comparing this to stealing cars and trucks? Boy, you coalition supporters sure are desperate. lol

  • Michael

    Yes.

  • LdKitchenersOwn

    Here's an idea. How about complying with basic ethics and tenants of accountability BEFORE you lose rulings on matters brought before the Speaker?

    • http://secondthots.blogspot.com Dennis_F

      But they disagreed on what that means, which people do in civilized society. And, when you have such disagreements, there are processes in place to deal with them, which is exactly what happened in this case.

      Some people seem to have this notion that being democratic or ethical means agreeing with them, but that's the exact opposite of what those concepts are in a free society. You have disagreements, and processes to work them out. What we don't have is an expectation that one side is always right. They have that kind of a system in Cuba.

  • Holly Stick

    The Prime Minister of Conservativia then followed that comment up with "You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube." Oh wait, he just thought that, he didn't say it this time.

  • OriginalEmily1

    Why does this remind me of an old Mulroney quote about 'rolling the dice'?

  • excanuck

    You ARE an anti-Conservative obsessive.

  • Reverend_Blair

    Is that when he was gambling away the bribe money?

  • OriginalEmily1

    PC for over 30 years.

  • http://stumblingabordeaux.blogspot.com Pato31

    I think Harper is now openly mocking the Canadian electorate and I mean, he has every right to do so. We wont react, and his party will keep climbing in the polls.

  • Claudia Lemire

    Pato31, long time no see, welcome back!

    Do you know that pato means duck in spanish and it is a nickname for Patrick (Patricio)?

  • http://stumblingabordeaux.posterous.com Pato31

    Well my name is Patrick. My last name happens to start with an O. And I happen to have fond memories of the Pan-American Games mascot in Winnipeg who was named Pato.

    And thanks for the welcome back! I've been around, just reading, not so much posting! With the time difference (from France) I tend to get to posts a lot later and by then, most people have already posted interesting comments!

Previous

Next

From Macleans