Over the past couple of weeks, with the great feigned outrage over the defence minister Harjit Sajjan's exaggeration regarding his role with Operation Medusa in Afghanistan, we have seen a number of troubling trends coming from the opposition ranks, and most especially from the Conservatives. Apparently, our constitutional norms count for nothing when it comes to this performance, and this fact should be chilling to all Canadians.
When this story first erupted, the Conservatives were quick to pick up on it, eager to drape themselves in the mantle of defender of the Canadian Forces, and they immediately started using language about the incident that had a corrosive effect on some of the constitutional lines of civil-military relations. They co-opted the term "stolen valour" to try and portray Sajjan's exaggeration as some kind of grotesque perversion of the actions of a soldier in glory-seeking, but if you look up the term, it refers to someone being a military imposter, which is a Criminal Code offence. Sajjan is not a military imposter.
More troubling was the way in which the Conservatives nursed this notion that it was affecting the morale of the men and women in uniform and a number of them did go to the media anonymously to grouse about it. The problem with trying to cash in on a few aggrieved voices from within the ranks and claiming that the military had lost confidence in the minister is that it very deliberately blurred those civil-military delineations. The military does not get to decide if they have confidence in a political minister that's the prerogative of the prime minister who appoints him. We have civilian control over the military in this country, which is a pretty important thing that the Conservatives would willingly try to nurse ideas that the military should have some say in who guides them, for the sake of a few sound bites, is a dangerous overreach, because it is essentially endorsing coup-talk. Why anyone thought this was a good idea to score some points is utterly galling.
But it didn't end there. After a week of getting insufficient traction from the government on demands for Sajjan's resignation, the Conservatives decided to use their Supply Day on Monday to put forward a motion of non-confidence in the minister something which is completely unconstitutional.
Under our Westminster system, the House of Commons decides whether the government as a whole has their confidence they do not decide on the confidence in individual ministers. That again falls to the prime minister, and the government (meaning Cabinet) stands or falls as a whole. That's why we have things like Cabinet solidarity in our system it's an important consideration that cannot be readily understated, and to try and go around it for the sake of scoring a few cheap political points is a pretty big deal.
Oh, but it's just "symbolic" and "non-binding," they argue. But no the term "non-confidence" has actual meaning and weight under our system. Trying to be cute with the term in the text of a motion is a big deal, particularly when doing so is blatantly unconstitutional. If they wanted to express non-confidence in the government because they have proven that they can't handle an important file like Defence, and that they have no confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to choose competent cabinet ministers or what have you, then fine that's a perfectly legitimate motion that can be debated. But this monstrosity on Monday that they trotted out was just that a grotesque perversion of what they should be doing as the Official Opposition.
At the same time, the Liberal government has dropped the ball on this whole affair. I'm not talking about Sajjan's lack of explanation for why he embellished his role frankly, I really don't think it matters. What does matter is that he apologised and took personal responsibility rather than blaming underlings, which is a rare act of political courage in this day and age. This aside, that the government and Sajjan himself have refused to call out the opposition on either their dangerous blurring of civil-military relations, or on the unconstitutionality of the Supply Day motion is a problem.
The government's tactic instead? Tease the release of the Defence Policy Review with accusations that the previous government underfunded the military to dangerous levels by constantly shifting dollars around when it comes to botched procurement projects, or to create a paper surplus in time for the election. It was an attempt to both go on the offensive as well as to stick to their message discipline about how they plan to do great things for restoring our military capabilities…eventually.
Think about this for a minute our constitutional norms are now under attack, and they chose to respond not by pointing that out, but by trying to get their own message track out. Is our very system of government not worth defending?
At the same time, the Speaker didn't rule the unconstitutional motion out of order as he should have. The Liberals should have raised that before it came to the floor of the Commons, and if not at the floor, then rising on a point of order as their very first action when it did come to the floor. But they didn't. Instead of Sajjan responding to the Conservative motion by simply saying "Mister Speaker, the motion before this Chamber is unconstitutional" and either sitting down at that point, or reading the Conservatives to filth for not respecting the norms of Responsible Government, he reiterated his tease of the Defence Policy Review. It was completely and utterly irresponsible.
If neither the government or Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition can be bothered to defend our constitutional norms, then what is the point of our parliament anyway? Has it become so debased that it is now just a chamber for delivering talking points for media consumption rather than to discuss important matters of state, or to do the actual job of holding the government to account (which this Sajjan nonsense is most certainly not)? It's time that we have a serious look at where we are headed, and I fear that the conclusion will be nowhere good.
