The Martlet

Don’t look now, but Harper is at it again.

For his second time in about a year, he has shut down Parliament Hill. Instead of our elected officials working diligently on… something… anything… they’ll be taking the next two months off.

No doubt Harper, a hockey historian in his own right, will take advantage of his extended vacation by coming west to see Canada play in the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Which is only fair. After all, Canada is his country. The rest of us are just paying rent.

But there’s more to prorogue V2.0 than time off to see the luge. And most of it favours Harper’s political ambition, even if at the expense of our democracy.

The first advantage to proroguing parliament is that all political debate will cease until the Conservatives return with their next budget on March 4. Depending on how the budget goes, an election could follow.

This election would be in the flickering flame of the Olympics, and all the national pride they’ll undoubtedly muster, rather than the shadows of the Afghan detainee controversy that the opposition parties have been hammering against the Conservatives.

That’s right, all discussion on what happened in Afghanistan, something Conservative public relations people have been quoted on CBC and in the Globe and Mail as calling “old news” and being unimportant to Canadians, will simply be swept under the grand rug of prorogation. Who cares about keeping a government accountable, when there are the Olympic Games to watch?

It also means no parliamentary debate regarding the aftermath of Copenhagen. All Canadians that paid attention are aware of just how hard Harper worked during his trip to Denmark, so it’s understandable that he needs a few extra weeks to recover. But still, some voters would have preferred to see our elected officials actually getting to work on the matter of climate change.

Harper’s governmental closure comes with even more bonuses. He’s soon to appoint five more Senators to give the Conservatives two more than the Liberals have in the Upper Chamber. Sure, Harper has repeatedly said he was going to reform the Senate but, in the meantime, he’ll have added 32 new senators in just over a year.

What does that have to do with prorogation you might ask? Well, Senate committees are organized proportionally to how the Senate is composed. The Liberal-dominated Senate has been a pain in Harper’s side since the beginning. But after he appoints his next batch of senators, Harper’s legislation will receive much less scrutiny. However, Senate committees stay intact until parliament goes out of session. Cue the prorogation, after which new Senate committees will be formed, showing the Conservatives new plurality. How convenient.

Harper has cleverly undermined our political institutions, yet again. He’s now silenced the Military Police Complaints Commission that was looking into the tortured Afghan detainees. He’s also silenced opposition members of parliament that kept asking about it during question period.

Plus, any serious attempt to address Copenhagen and climate change is now put off until March. Unless there’s an election, then that could be even longer. Last but not least, when parliament does return to session, Harper will now have control of the Senate. Not bad for a couple of months off work.

So, come February, it will certainly be appropriate having Prime Minister Harper sitting in Canada Hockey Place watching the men go for gold on the same ice as the infamous Todd Bertuzzi incident, since Harper just Bertuzzied our democracy.