Peter Kent isn't feeling the love from his little brother these days.
Arthur is the brother in question - an award-winning foreign correspondent, whose reporting (and good looks) during the first Iraq war earned him the nickname the "Scud Stud."
Arthur Kent is based in Calgary. Besides making documentaries, he has of late been writing thoughtful but extremely pointed pieces critical of Stephen Harper and his government's decision to shut down Parliament. He says the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament to try to contain the damage from the Afghan detainee inquiry.
"In truth, there has been an unwritten fatwa maintained by the Prime Minister's Office against discussion of any and all controversial aspects of the Afghan debacle," Mr. Kent wrote recently on his news site, SkyReporter.com.
In an interview, Arthur Kent added that if Stephen Harper is uncomfortable with democracy, he should quit his job.
His older brother, Peter, wouldn't agree.
Peter Kent is Mr. Harper's Minister of State of Foreign Affairs. Right now, he is dealing with the earthquake disaster in Haiti. He is saying nothing about his brother's efforts; his spokesperson did not return requests for comment.
"Hey, we're like many other Canadian families," Arthur Kent says. "I don't think we're the only Canadian family divided by this.
"We love and respect each other enormously," he says of his brother who at 66 is 10 years older. "He has always been my idea of a classic, naturally talented broadcast news correspondent. [Minister Kent was a foreign correspondent and news anchor.]But now he is a politician. I'm not going to phone him and discuss something that is divisive. But I know he wouldn't expect me to keep my mouth shut."
Arthur Kent knows of what he speaks, having covered the Afghan story since the 1980s; he knows the people, the region and the issues. And that is why he was so moved to speak out when the Prime Minister made his decision to prorogue.
He says that while Canadian troops continue to put their lives in danger, "Stephen Harper has called it quits halfway around the world in Ottawa."
Indeed, prorogation is the issue that just isn't going away for the Harper government.
Like Mr. Kent, many Canadians are upset. Support for the Tories is dropping in national opinion polls and anti-prorogation protests are planned for across the country next Saturday, resulting from a seemingly spontaneous outpouring of support for an anti-prorogation Facebook group, which now boasts 192,000 members.
Even in the midst of the Haitian earthquake crisis, Canadians are still concerned about the shutdown of Parliament.
EKOS pollster Frank Graves says the government's quick response to the tragedy "provides a temporary respite or shelter from the prorogation storm."
"If this problem was simply a product of ire about prorogation then it might even dissipate somewhat even after focus on the crisis in Haiti fades," he says. "But I believe that prorogation was just the match that lit the fuse to a broader range of frustrations the public had with what was seen as an increasingly autocratic governing style lacking in the accountability and transparency themes that Harper appealed to in replacing the Liberals."
Harper supporters and some pundits dismiss the prorogation matter as something bothering the elites but not those who drink Tim Hortons coffee.
Arthur Kent, meanwhile, says he's hopeful the government goes back to work on Jan. 25 as had been originally planned.
"I've expressed the view that when our troops are at war and [Afghan President Hamid ]Karzai is making cabinet appointments that do violence to our chances for success, then Canada's Parliament has to do what Afghanistan's Parliament is doing, which is sitting overtime.
"It is rather perverse for our Parliament to be silenced when theirs is struggling."
(Photos: The Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail)