The morning buzz: What's making news on Parliament Hill
1. Lawrence Cannon defends Afghan detainee transfers. In Kabul, where he watched the inauguration of Afghan President Hami Karzai today, the Foreign Affairs Minister spoke with reporters, saying there has never been any “proven” evidence that Afghan prisoners were tortured. However, he said that Canada has been “responsive to allegations of abuse and has taken them seriously.”
Mr. Cannon was responding to explosive testimony given yesterday in Ottawa by Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin who said that Canada handed over prisoners to torture. He was warning government officials about this in 2006 and 2007. It wasn’t until May, 2007, that the government made changes to its transfer system. Yet the Harper government has never admitted it knew this was happening.
Said Mr. Cannon this morning in a telephone conference call: “Canada has been responsive to the allegations of abuse and has taken them seriously. When we’ve had specific allegations of abuse we’ve acted. And we will not tolerate proven evidence of abuse. You know, nothing has been proven here and we’ve changed the system. We have indeed cleaned up what was left to us by putting in a place a new regime.”
Mr. Cannon also told reporters that he met privately with President Karzai, who has “an immense task ahead.” Indeed, much of the commentary around the inauguration has been about the corruption in his government. Mr. Cannon did not touch on this specifically. Rather, he said Mr. Karzai made some “important and positive commitments,” such as a commitment to good governance and merit-based cabinet appointments. The President also spoke about accountability, Mr. Cannon said.
Meanwhile, Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae said this morning, in an email interview, that while Canada needs to be “more forthright publicly about the corruption issue, and about the need for reconciliation, which is one of our stated objectives.” He added that the government also needs to be “clearer about post-2001, and our efforts to play a political role.”
2. Afghan torture and the China connection. How much of a bind is Stephen Harper in when it comes to his upcoming visit to China? Here’s how much: David Mulroney is Canada’s ambassador to China now. But he has played prominently in the testimony by Richard Colvin. At the time of the time of Mr. Colvin’s allegations of torture of Afghan prisoners, Mr. Mulroney was the government’s senior point man on Afghanistan. According to Mr. Colvin, Mr. Mulroney did not want to hear the allegations.
Today in the Chinese media the headlines are not helpful for the Prime Minister and his visit next month, his first to the country: “Diplomat: Canada handed over Afghans for torture” reads the online China Daily. It will be difficult for Mr. Harper to raise human rights issues, given this testimony. And what makes it even harder is that the Harper government has been seen to have snubbed the Chinese over the last few years; Mr. Harper needs to succeed on this visit in order to re-establish good relations for potential trade.
According to a CBC report this morning, Ambassador Mulroney is so far refusing comment.
3. Guns and politics. The Liberals were talking guns yesterday behind closed-door during their weekly caucus meeting, considering the merits of the long-gun registry amid a Tory bill that is calling for it to be scrapped. The issue is highly divisive within the Liberal caucus, exposing a rural-urban split. All this comes with the release of a new poll by Angus Reid that shows only 11 per cent of Canadians think the Canadian Firearms Registry has been successful in preventing crime - 32 per cent say it has had no effect and 46 per cent say it was unsuccessful.
“Even Quebeckers, who express high support for stricter measures throughout the survey, think the long gun registry has not been successful in preventing crime,” says the release accompanying the poll. The online survey of 1,000 Canadians was conducted between November 12 and November 13. The survey says that half of the respondents, 51 per cent, support getting rid of the long-gun registry; 34 per cent disagree and it notes that “support for abandoning the registry surpasses the 50 per cent mark in every Canadian province, with he exception of Quebec.”
Given this, perhaps Toronto Centre MP Bob Rae, who supports the registry, was correct yesterday in warning the Liberal caucus that this issue could seriously divide the party. He urged his colleagues to think hard about putting forward a lot of political capital to push forward amendments that had no chance of passing.
