Where in the world is Frank Iacobucci?

Kady has been trying to get some answers on how Justice Frank Iacobucci's inquiry into the Afghan detainee documents is coming along, given that Speaker of the House Peter Milliken ruled on Tuesday that Frank's mandate is outside of parliamentary oversight and he reports only to the Minister of Justice.

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Well, at least we know where he is.

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Milliken: Parliament is supreme; Gagnon: No, not really

Speaker of the House Milliken ruled today that Parliament is supreme and Steve is not the President of Canada.
Milliken ruled that government was in breach of parliamentary privilege by refusing to comply with the House’s order in December to produce documents related to the transfer of Afghan detainees to risk of torture and Steve now has two weeks to figure out the details of a face-saving compromise with the opposition parties that would safeguard national security while still obeying the House's order to produce.
A victory for democracy then.

However ...

Over at the Military Police Complaints Commission today, Major Denis Gagnon testified that those very same Afghan transfer orders that Milliken has just ordered be produced are :

"all thrown together in a storage bin, a sea container" and an assessment of how long it would take to catalogue documents and identify the records requested by the commission may take years."

So. Milliken says Parliament is supreme and has the right to them but some major says sadly it just isn't going to happen.

"Earlier a senior military official testified that some Afghan detainee documents requested by the commission have been delayed to ensure no information gets out that could jeopardize the security of troops in Afghanistan."

Really. How much info from transfer orders made in say 2007 is going to jeopardize troop security today? You've been using this same excuse for years now.

"The commission was also told that Defence officials are screening out documents that military police would not have seen in the course of their duties."

... because last year Steve curtailed the authority of the MPCC to ask for docs that do not directly pertain to the military police.

"Gagnon said he makes the decision on what military police would have seen based on his personal experience in theatre and his knowledge of communications channels within the military chain of command and communications links with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade."

So it's the Dept. of Defence that decides what is relevant then, not the MPCC.

"Commission counsel Ron Lunau asked if the commission could look at the documents that have been screened out since it should be up to the commission, not Defence officials, to determine what military police should have seen.

The answer from government counsel Alain Prefontaine and from Gagnon was a firm no."

Ok. Parliament may be supreme but Defence is supremer. Got it.
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How's our national media handling the constitutional crisis then?

You know, the one wherein just yesterday Harper imagined he was George Bush and told Parliament to go cheney itself because he is in charge and democracy is for wusses.

Behold : from the front pages of five national papers today :



And as Thwap noted earlier - ditto CBC.

The media put serious wood into emotional concern-trolling about the troops and national security. Now that it's obvious the real issue is about Parliament's oversight over the government, suddenly they've all turned into paper tigers.

Dave - pissed off and rightly so .
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Who here believes in parliamentary democracy?

Come on - hands up.
Yes, quite a few of us actually.
Yet judging from the vote in the House today on a motion demanding the release of uncensored government documents to the Special Committee on Afghanistan charged with oversight of the 'mission', almost half of our elected MPs do not. The motion passed by a mere 2 votes - 145 to 143. I find that quite astonishing.

The docs, already made available to journos and committee witnesses sympathetic to the Cons but not released to the committee, would not be disclosed to you, me, and the national press. The docs could remain in camera. Yet even that amount of parliamentary oversight is too much for the almost half of the people we elected to represent us who apparently do not much care for the concept of parliamentary privilege.

So I have to ask - what do they think they doing there?
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‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’

You'll remember Paul Manly as the guy who shot that video of CEP union President Dave Coles exposing the 3 rock-toting Quebec police provocateurs at the Montebello SPP protest in Aug. 2007. Paul has finally finished his full-length feature film : ‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’, exposing "the latest manifestation of a corporatist agenda that is undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America".

Here are a few quotes from the trailer :

Naomi Klein :

"… after the shock of Sept 11 … that crisis was expertly manipulated by our political leaders to push through a range of policies they actually had wanted to push through before Sept 11, but didn’t have the political conditions that made that possible."

Gordon Laxer, Director, The Parkland Institute, Alberta :

"…if we go along with the Americans on their military, on their human rights, on their Patriot Act, on immigration and refugee policy, on energy, on all kinds of regulations over pesticides or whatever, then they will allow us access to their markets."

Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, journalist :

"… what the SPP really represents is a parallel government, so that the important decisions are either made outside of parliament and outside of legislatures or they make it impossible for those kinds of decisions to be made in those legislative bodies, so that democracy is slowly being gutted."

with more from Peter Julian, Michael Byers, and Maude Barlow.

And here's a portion of the film I posted this morning. To purchase your own copy of the whole film - $20 well spent - and for listings of local screenings, visit Paul's website at manlymedia.com. If we want this quality of reporting from independent journalists, we're going to have to support it. If you can't afford the $20 for your own copy, get your local library to buy a copy, leave him a message of encouragement, and pass on the word. As Paul says : I made this film for all of you.

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Oct 2009 Update : Paul and his film are on a cross-country tour of 33 countries across Canada. You can see all the tour dates on the film website here Each confirmed screening date has a pdf poster, handbill and press release that can be downloaded and used to promote the screening. Please help out where you can. All of the screenings are either free or by donation.

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