Prime Minister Stephen Harper responds during Question Period in the House of Commons on Thursday, December 10, 2009.
One of the great principles of English liberty, upon which our system of government is founded, is this: no parliament may bind a future parliament.
It therefore will not do for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet to assert that the House of Commons cannot have the documents it demanded this week, because producing them might violate some law a predecessor parliament past long ago.
Parliament is supreme in our system of government, subject to the Charter of Rights. Which is not in our constitution to protect war criminals from justice, or ministers from scrutiny. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are accountable to the House of Commons. The House demanded yesterday that its own ministers table, unexpurgated, the documentary record relating to the abuse of enemy combatants in Afghanistan who fell into our country's power.
The ministry must now do this.
Some important constitutional issues arise from the Prime Minister's conduct a year ago, as I argued in this space earlier. But there is no exceptional circumstance here. The nation is not at risk of being controlled by the separatists and the socialists today. What we have here is a straightforward test of whether or not we are governed in a system of responsible government.
And so, whether or not this issue will be " a ballot question," this is a fundamental test of the character, principles, and judgement of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his colleagues.
In 1996, Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan wrote an article in Next City entitled "Our Benign Dictatorship" (you can find a copy here). This important article rewards a careful read on many issues.
But the issue today is this: do any of Mr. Harper's principles survive?
Or has he been so corrupted by his brief time in the executive suites of Ottawa that he has become the agent for the final victory of all the faults of our national government, discussed in that article?
Is his historic role to help reform our increasingly secretive, irresponsible, and undemocratic national institutions - as he claimed? Or the exact opposite?
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Update My equally esteemed blogging colleague Norman Spector has entered this discussion with what I will respectfully suggest is a straw man. He reports correctly that old laws are in force until replaced by new ones. And somehow suggests this means the government can defy a direct order from Parliament to surrender documents that Parliament requires in an inquiry.
I don't think so, colleague. The government can throw up procedural roadblocks of course. But Parliament can (through the slow working of its own machinery, including its right to vary existing law) require its own ministry to surrender documents it deems appropriate. Arguably Stockwell Day and his cabinet colleagues are in contempt of Parliament today.
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(Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)