In giving his (enjoyably contrarian) take on yesterday's ruling by Peter Milliken, Paul Wells takes a passing swipe at colleagues more preoccupied with process than with policy:
"There is a question of substance here (How did Canadian governments permit detainees to be treated in Afghanistan in the early years of this conflict?) and one of circumstance (How does a government respond to an assertion of MPs’ collective privilege?). I have a hard time mustering appropriate reverence for colleagues who don’t give a damn about the substance but who want to build observatories of circumstance."
I know where Paul's coming from, because the disproportionate focus on pure politics over stuff that actually matters to most people outside Ottawa is one of my pet peeves. But I'm not sure the coverage of this week's events - which shouldn't qualify as inside-baseball - is a great example of that bias.
Certain newspapers, notably the one that employs me, have spent an awful lot of time and effort investigating the treatment of detainees. It's an important issue, and I hope we continue to cover it closely. But it's not something that every journalist in Ottawa needs to be on top of. Particularly if you haven't spent any time on the ground in Afghanistan, you may not have a whole lot to add.
A precedent-setting ruling on the relationship between the government and Parliament, on the other hand, is something that nobody who covers politics can afford to ignore. And it's something that should be explained, at as much length as possible, to an electorate that tends not to be entirely up to speed on the intricacies of parliamentary democracy.
In fact, I would go so far as to argue that the dysfunctional Parliaments we've seen over the past several years is largely the product of that ignorance. Yes, Stephen Harper's Conservatives have shown an alarming disrespect - often contempt - for our democratic institutions. But it would have been much more difficult for any government to behave in that manner if Canadians were more aware of what those institutions are, and why they matter - and if previous governments hadn't been given so much leeway to step all over them.
If there's a silver lining to the ugliness of the past six years of minority parliaments, it's that we've gotten a bit of a civics lesson. There's more awareness of what "proroguing" means, and why the Governor-General matters, and how the Speaker is expected to play referee.
Still, there's not nearly awareness enough. The more journalists that want to explain and explore the checks and balances on the government's power, the better for everyone.
