“You win some, you lose some”

Elizabeth May

That is how Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to two rulings on one day that his government had breached parliamentary privilege -- “You win some, you lose some.”

“Breaching Parliamentary privilege” is a very formal way of saying that Mr. Harper has ignored the rules of the House, has thwarted the respect that is owed from any Government to the House of Commons itself.  Quite simply, Mr. Harper acts as though he is above the law.  He certainly acts as though he is unaware of the supremacy of Parliament. 

So, with a philosophical shrug, designed to suggest that two rulings in one day was no big deal, the Prime Minister said, “You win some, you lose some.”

Which made me stop and wonder:  when has he ever “won some”?  In the last year there have been four separate rulings from the Speaker of the House.  The first dealt with the government’s refusal to turn over the documents pertaining to the Afghan detainees last May 2010.  Then in January, the Speaker ruled on the complaint about the forged CIDA documents approving – and then "NOT" – KAIROS funding.  And then the two rulings yesterday.  One dealt with complaints that the government had not given the House adequate information about the costs of crime legislation.  The other dealt once again with misleading statements from Minister Bev Oda, related to the KAIROS controversy.

The Speaker ruled all four times that the government’s behaviour was inappropriate, three times going so far as to find a breach of Parliamentary privilege.

It would have been more accurate for the Prime Minister to say “You lose some and then you lose more because you never changed your attitude.”

In fact, Mr. Harper’s government is setting records for trampling concepts of supremacy of Parliament. Prof. Ned Franks, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Queens University told The Chronicle Herald, that no government in Canadian history has so often lost on rulings from the Speaker.  Prof. Franks said, "(The rulings) suggest, to put it kindly, that the government is, at a minimum, ignorant of the rules and principles governing parliamentary democracy and, to put it unkindly, that they don’t give a damn and they’ll try to get away with what they can."

On top of that, we have Minister Jason Kenney using his Parliament Hill office to fundraise for more ads (aimed at those Canadians he terms “very ethnic”), the charges for violations of the Elections Act, a scheme involving faked invoices which Mr. Harper has dismissed as an “administrative dispute,” and the gag order and settlement with his Ethics Commissioner who stands accused by Auditor General Sheila Fraser of failing to protect whistle-blowers. That is just this week.

No wonder some of us feel that democracy in Canada is on life support.  In his “win some, lose some,” response, Mr. Harper is oblivious of the fact that the real loser in his abuse of power is democracy itself.