“Stephen Harper has done everything in his power to hide what his government knew about the treatment of Afghan detainees. Now he’s doing it again, but with help from the Liberals and the Bloc,” said Layton at a press conference today. “Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Duceppe, end this charade today and join us in holding Mr. Harper accountable.”
“A full year after Parliament demanded those documents, this charade hasn’t made a single document public. It flies in the face of the Speaker’s ruling. Instead of holding this government to account, my opposition colleagues are helping to shield records at the heart of this investigation,” said Defence Critic Jack Harris. “If they couldn’t see it six months ago, surely they can see it now: We need a public inquiry.”
My earlier predictions for context:
Detainee Deal A Dud
Afghan Detainee Document Sham
Nothing Settled
Parliament isn't supreme, it's hidden in a back room while the PMO laughs its ass off. Embarrassing.
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6 comments:
Understandable why the LPC doesn't want any light shining on detainee issue. Detainees were handed over when they were in power, too. Not nearly as many as under Cons, tho. Why is BQ playing along with the charade?
The sad and disgusting part of all this is that the torture is continuing to this day and we're only pretending to investigate into incidents that are years old.
JB
I don't think it's that, the Liberals have consistently said all documents are on the table. Your point about the Bloc being onside sort of negates that angle as well.
I think it was really about not having the stomach politically. This issue wasn't resonating, it was protracted and I think everyone was tiring of it dominating the political debate. Now, we have no coverage whatsoever, it's the forgotten issue, the government has really already won. The Liberals are defending this deal, no threat of walking out, so it's mission accompllished for the government. The kicker, this "deal" dies with this Parliament and it will NEVER be renewed.
Just like no one in North America wants to deal with the Pentagon contractor supplying young boys to Afghan honchos. A task that will probably have to be taken over by Canadians once we're in "training" mode.
Did you just see Bob Rae's performance on P&P? When did he become the Foreign Affairs Minister for the Cons?
IMO, it's essentially the same phenomena seen in the United States when their military and intelligence arms were not only found to be complicit in torture but engaging in it.
The bulk of Canadians, like our cousins south of the border, simply do not want to acknowledge that sometimes we do bad things - if we did this would be more of an issue.
We would much rather pretend it didn't happen. I would also argue there is a racist element at play that doesn't want to understand the gravity. Unfortunately, the value of life seems subjective, depending on location.
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