Speaker: House has right to ask for Afghan detainee documents

[RedHot25]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...b=TopStoriesV2

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/201...ge-ruling.html

Live video here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/ID=1443773102

From the CBC article:

The Speaker of the House of Commons is delivering his ruling on whether the government breached parliamentary privilege by refusing to hand over uncensored documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees.

Speaker Peter Milliken has been weighing three "questions of privilege" from MPs for several weeks and began delivering his ruling immediately after Tuesday's question period. It is expected he will take about 45 minutes to deliver the full ruling.

His decision could settle a showdown between Parliament and the Prime Minister's Office — or trigger a snap election if the government deems it a non-confidence issue.

[RedHot25]

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/201...ge-ruling.html

The House of Commons has a right to order the government to produce uncensored documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees, Speaker Peter Milliken has ruled.

....

Speaking Tuesday in the House, Milliken ruled the parliamentary order for the government to produce the documents was "clear" and procedurally acceptable.

He also ruled Defence Minister Peter MacKay did not intimidate government witnesses slated to appear before a parliamentary committee with his statement in the Commons.

.................................................. .........................

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...b=TopStoriesV2

The Speaker of the House of Commons has ruled that opposition members have the right to ask for uncensored Afghan detainee documents, and MPs must now decide how to view the records without jeopardizing national security.

[octothorp]

Looks like the the government gets a two week reprieve to work things out, and if they don't, then Milliken will probably rule in favour of the house.

[RedHot25]

Yup, octothorp, you are right. As per ctv:

He said the House has two weeks to create a system for viewing the sensitive detainee records.

[Pastiche]

Mr. Milliken reminds the House that, if a breach of privilege is determined, the House must immediately vote upon it. It is a matter that is "heavy with consequence" he says.

[LChoy]

My 2 cents

I'll start by saying I haven't researched this issue throughly so I may be missing some facts or misunderstood some of the issues
In the grand scheme of things, How do Canadians want the Canadian Forces to deal with the enemy combatants they capture?
As an ideal, Canada does not support torture, and is a signatory of the Vienna Convention. Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan to support that country build a functioning country that will one day stand up on its own. In that fighting, they will capture enemy combatants
I'm thinking Canada's best option for these people is to hand them over the acting government. It is their land and ultimately their laws that Canada is fighting for (and help craft). We couldn't be handing them over to the Americans with the flack that they got over in Gitmo. We also supported the Americans and resisted the creation of a world court. Lastly, we couldn't bring these prisoners back to our land or to our allies without a lengthly judicial process that we are not prepared for.
At the end of the day, if it can be shown that Canada was transferring custody to the Afghan government, with provisions that they be treated fairly and with accordance to any treaties and conventions that might apply, then Canada has done its due dilligence

however, if the issue is about Canada deliberately transferring over custody, with full intention/consent that they'll be tortured by the Afghan government for intelligence, then I can I see the uproar

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Lchoy

My 2 cents

I'll start by saying I haven't researched this issue throughly so I may be missing some facts or misunderstood some of the issues
In the grand scheme of things, How do Canadians want the Canadian Forces to deal with the enemy combatants they capture?
As an ideal, Canada does not support torture, and is a signatory of the Vienna Convention. Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan to support that country build a functioning country that will one day stand up on its own. In that fighting, they will capture enemy combatants
I'm thinking Canada's best option for these people is to hand them over the acting government. It is their land and ultimately their laws that Canada is fighting for (and help craft). We couldn't be handing them over to the Americans with the flack that they got over in Gitmo. We also supported the Americans and resisted the creation of a world court. Lastly, we couldn't bring these prisoners back to our land or to our allies without a lengthly judicial process that we are not prepared for.
At the end of the day, if it can be shown that Canada was transferring custody to the Afghan government, with provisions that they be treated fairly and with accordance to any treaties and conventions that might apply, then Canada has done its due dilligence

however, if the issue is about Canada deliberately transferring over custody, with full intention/consent that they'll be tortured by the Afghan government for intelligence, then I can I see the uproar

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good run-down of the issue, although I sort of suspect that when we learn about the documents, the truth will fall somewhere in the middle: that they didn't intentionally hand the prisoners over to torturers, but that they didn't do their required due diligence in making sure that the detainees were not tortured by the Afghans.

[Devils'Advocate]

I think a bigger story is that a party that ran their campaign preaching transparency in government has shown nothing but contempt for the Canadian public in trying to shield the people from having access to information.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...938/story.html

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by Lchoy

My 2 cents

I'll start by saying I haven't researched this issue throughly so I may be missing some facts or misunderstood some of the issues
In the grand scheme of things, How do Canadians want the Canadian Forces to deal with the enemy combatants they capture?
As an ideal, Canada does not support torture, and is a signatory of the Vienna Convention. Canadians are fighting in Afghanistan to support that country build a functioning country that will one day stand up on its own. In that fighting, they will capture enemy combatants
I'm thinking Canada's best option for these people is to hand them over the acting government. It is their land and ultimately their laws that Canada is fighting for (and help craft). We couldn't be handing them over to the Americans with the flack that they got over in Gitmo. We also supported the Americans and resisted the creation of a world court. Lastly, we couldn't bring these prisoners back to our land or to our allies without a lengthly judicial process that we are not prepared for.
At the end of the day, if it can be shown that Canada was transferring custody to the Afghan government, with provisions that they be treated fairly and with accordance to any treaties and conventions that might apply, then Canada has done its due dilligence

however, if the issue is about Canada deliberately transferring over custody, with full intention/consent that they'll be tortured by the Afghan government for intelligence, then I can I see the uproar

Good post, but I think the issue is about the bolded part. Did we do due diligence? It appears that some of this information being held back may be relevant. And before it is countered with partisan/politics/etc etc angle, both sides in my mind are guilty of doing it. At first glance I like the idea of basically giving the parties 2 weeks to sort out a proper way of reviewing things. We'll see what comes out of it, however.

[starseed]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I think a bigger story is that a party that ran their campaign preaching transparency in government has shown nothing but contempt for the Canadian public in trying to shield the people from having access to information.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...938/story.html

He says there will be more transparency in one side of his mouth, then immediately tells the government to shutdown CAIRS in the other.

[Bunk]

Tory statement on Milliken ruling:"We are ███████ that ████ doesn't seem ██ ████. We ██ █████ to ███ our ██ ███."



-from various sources

[bcb]

The Tories must be doing a top notch job running the country if this is all the media/opposition runs with.

Let's see...detainees, Helena, third world abortion, communion wafer...Wow, give Iggy long enough in opposition and he might actually find an issue people actually care about.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by bcb

The Tories must be doing a top notch job running the country if this is all the media/opposition runs with.

Let's see...detainees, Helena, third world abortion, communion wafer...Wow, give Iggy long enough in opposition and he might actually find an issue people actually care about.

Thats personally my problem with this whole thing.

We know that the Canadian's passed over prisoners to Afghanistan, they did it under the Liberal's they did it under the Conservatives.

I'm guessing the concern is how much care did we take to ensure that they weren't mistreated once they were handed over.

Personally to me, I don't know how much responsibility we should bare once we turned them over, and how much mistreatment happened. And while I'd like to know, I think we're wasting too much time and effort on this in government instead of working on more important issues.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by bcb

The Tories must be doing a top notch job running the country if this is all the media/opposition runs with.

That they went back on a major campaign promise? That's usually a good thing to run with.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

That they went back on a major campaign promise? That's usually a good thing to run with.

Yeah, that's the rub there. Its interesting - and you can argue the extent of the individual things, etc - but when a major plank is accountability, transparent government, etc....(and this coming from a voter who has voted at varying times for all 3 major parties).

I don't know, I guess I just find this as a major issue - for both the Conservatives and Liberals as Captain has referenced. Also for the fact that apparently this ruling could impact the future of parliaments/house of commons (parliament vs pmo etc).

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Thats personally my problem with this whole thing.

We know that the Canadian's passed over prisoners to Afghanistan, they did it under the Liberal's they did it under the Conservatives.

I'm guessing the concern is how much care did we take to ensure that they weren't mistreated once they were handed over.

Personally to me, I don't know how much responsibility we should bare once we turned them over, and how much mistreatment happened. And while I'd like to know, I think we're wasting too much time and effort on this in government instead of working on more important issues.

Yeah, and the correct way to do that would have been to let the committees continue to deal with the detainee issue, and let parliament focus on the bigger issues, rather than shutting down parliament for two months to try and submarine this issue (oh wait, that was to consult with Canadians on the economy... right).
For me, that's what the current issue is all about: not whether anyone was tortured or whether people in the government knew it was happening (although O'Connor's complete ignorance about our obligation was pretty embarrassing), but rather that Harper's approach has been to throw up roadblocks at every step of the way, even at the expense of democratic process.