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PrintGovernment losing credibility battle on Afghan detainees
While the current Prime Minister has a well-deserved reputation for pushing back aggressively when under attack, Stephen Harper has—in this—been empowered by a weak-kneed Liberal opposition.
MONTREAL–Even before the core Conservative narrative on the Afghan detainees succumbed to lethal friendly fire from Canada's top general, Stephen Harper's government was losing the credibility battle.
According to a CBC-EKOS poll completed earlier last week, a majority of Canadians already did not buy the government's assertion that it did not overlook the strong possibility the prisoners Canada was handing over to the Afghan authorities would be tortured.
That makes the detainee issue one of this government's biggest public relations flops since it was caught off guard on the environment in the fall of 2006.
But that is not to say that anyone on Parliament Hill believes it could lead to a snap election. The government is hoping the storm will blow over during the Parliamentary break. But even if it flares up again in the new year, few opposition strategists believe it will resonate loudly at the ballot box.
That is not a judgment on the seriousness of the detainee matter but rather a reckoning of the fact that governments are usually defeated on issues of a more bread-and-butter variety.
But while it may not determine the eventual fate of the Conservative government, the detainee issue does offer the opposition parties and, in particular, the slow-learning Liberals useful lessons as to how to finally make the minority Parliament work to their advantage.
The first is that the absence of an imminent election threat gives opposition attacks more, rather than less, edge. That may seem counterintuitive but the reality is that the substance of a policy debate is more likely to be lost in the shuffle of the horse-race speculations that attend a looming make-or-break Parliamentary showdown than the opposite.
It is no accident that the NDP's policy prescriptions have enjoyed significantly more attention since the party stopped opposing the government on principle on every confidence issue. By the same token, one of the most durable hits the Harper government has endured to date was inflicted in its early days on climate change and at a time when the Liberals were leaderless and an election was clearly not in the works.
Another lesson is that over time a policy-based critique of the government trumps tabloid-style attacks.
The past four years have featured a lot of the latter and not very much of the former as an immoderate Liberal appetite for quick hits made for an official opposition with a short attention span.
While a daily dose of real or imagined scandals keeps the adrenaline flowing in the Commons, its main effect outside the Parliamentary bubble is to shift the channels from issues that involve the managerial competence of the party in power to infomercials about the collective failings of politicians.
And then, while the current Prime Minister has a well-deserved reputation for pushing back aggressively when under attack, Harper has—in this—been empowered by a weak-kneed Liberal opposition. It promptly turned to JELL-O under pressure on issues ranging from last year's coalition to consecutive extensions of the Afghan deployment and, even, its own carbon tax.
Finally, a key feature of the dynamics of the Parliamentary debate over the detainee issue has been the competence of the opposition critics that have been spearheading it. As a group, they have offered a more informed and a more thoughtful performance than the Conservatives the government lined up against them.
To sum up: the opposition raised its game; the government did not, and enough Canadians took notice to potentially make this end-of-session debate a watershed moment in the life of the minority Parliament.
Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer for The Toronto Star.
The Hill Times
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Government losing credibility battle on Afghan detainees
While the current Prime Minister has a well-deserved reputation for pushing back aggressively when under attack, Stephen Harper has—in this—been empowered by a weak-kneed Liberal opposition.
MONTREAL–Even before the core Conservative narrative on the Afghan detainees succumbed to lethal friendly fire from Canada's top general, Stephen Harper's government was losing the credibility battle.
According to a CBC-EKOS poll completed earlier last week, a majority of Canadians already did not buy the government's assertion that it did not overlook the strong possibility the prisoners Canada was handing over to the Afghan authorities would be tortured.
That makes the detainee issue one of this government's biggest public relations flops since it was caught off guard on the environment in the fall of 2006.
But that is not to say that anyone on Parliament Hill believes it could lead to a snap election. The government is hoping the storm will blow over during the Parliamentary break. But even if it flares up again in the new year, few opposition strategists believe it will resonate loudly at the ballot box.
That is not a judgment on the seriousness of the detainee matter but rather a reckoning of the fact that governments are usually defeated on issues of a more bread-and-butter variety.
But while it may not determine the eventual fate of the Conservative government, the detainee issue does offer the opposition parties and, in particular, the slow-learning Liberals useful lessons as to how to finally make the minority Parliament work to their advantage.
The first is that the absence of an imminent election threat gives opposition attacks more, rather than less, edge. That may seem counterintuitive but the reality is that the substance of a policy debate is more likely to be lost in the shuffle of the horse-race speculations that attend a looming make-or-break Parliamentary showdown than the opposite.
It is no accident that the NDP's policy prescriptions have enjoyed significantly more attention since the party stopped opposing the government on principle on every confidence issue. By the same token, one of the most durable hits the Harper government has endured to date was inflicted in its early days on climate change and at a time when the Liberals were leaderless and an election was clearly not in the works.
Another lesson is that over time a policy-based critique of the government trumps tabloid-style attacks.
The past four years have featured a lot of the latter and not very much of the former as an immoderate Liberal appetite for quick hits made for an official opposition with a short attention span.
While a daily dose of real or imagined scandals keeps the adrenaline flowing in the Commons, its main effect outside the Parliamentary bubble is to shift the channels from issues that involve the managerial competence of the party in power to infomercials about the collective failings of politicians.
And then, while the current Prime Minister has a well-deserved reputation for pushing back aggressively when under attack, Harper has—in this—been empowered by a weak-kneed Liberal opposition. It promptly turned to JELL-O under pressure on issues ranging from last year's coalition to consecutive extensions of the Afghan deployment and, even, its own carbon tax.
Finally, a key feature of the dynamics of the Parliamentary debate over the detainee issue has been the competence of the opposition critics that have been spearheading it. As a group, they have offered a more informed and a more thoughtful performance than the Conservatives the government lined up against them.
To sum up: the opposition raised its game; the government did not, and enough Canadians took notice to potentially make this end-of-session debate a watershed moment in the life of the minority Parliament.
Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer for The Toronto Star.
The Hill Times
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