On delay and distraction

Not to pick on Susan Delacourt too much in the wake of yesterday's post. But she goes astray again in not only drawing the questionable analogy between Peter Milliken's function as speaker and Michaelle Jean's as Governor General, but now suggesting that it's somehow a "compromise" to drag the Supreme Court of Canada into the mix as well:

Governor General Michaëlle Jean granted Harper a request to prorogue Parliament, but reportedly made clear, in a two-hour discussion with the Prime Minister, that the government was being granted the stay of execution on condition that it co-operate better with the majority opposition in the Commons.

Now, a little more than a year later, Harper’s refusal to co-operate with this parliamentary order could be viewed as defiance of the governor general’s instructions. In that case, if this dispute lands in front of Jean again, she may have no choice but to dissolve Parliament, recognizing that it has become dysfunctional.

The Supreme Court, however, could represent a compromise of sorts. If Milliken sides with the argument that Parliament prevails over government, the Justice Department may well draft a formal reference to the Supreme Court – in the form of a constitutional, not a political question – about which laws have precedence in the case of a dispute.

In other words, rather than going to the governor general, and almost certainly an election, the problem would head to the Supreme Court, where everyone could buy some time.

Now, the most basic problem is that "buying time" isn't a compromise position at all. When the dispute revolves around the government using every delay tactic at its disposal to avoid allowing the opposition to do its job even in the wake of an explicit order of the House of Commons, anything that merely pushes matters back even further is a full win for the Cons and a loss for Canada.

Leaving that aside, though, I'm at a loss to figure out the supposed relevance of Jean's rumoured conversation with Harper during the coalition showdown. It would seem obvious enough that whatever Jean may have said during their December 2008 meeting falls short of setting any binding obligations on Harper. (Though if she thought the conversation important, one would think Delacourt would be particularly suspicious about the delay involved given that Jean likely wouldn't be in the GG position by the time the Supreme Court reached any decision.)

But more importantly, the only way a "dispute would land in front of Jean" again would be if Harper demanded either prorogation or dissolution - the former of which she's apparently decided to allow as a matter of course, the latter of which would put an election squarely on Harper's shoulders rather than Jean's. So ultimately, Delacourt's effort to shift responsibility to Jean and/or the Supreme Court serves only to distract from where it properly belongs.

All of which is to say that Delacourt seems to be trying to be too cute by half at every turn in seeking compromises where none exist. We've long since reached the point where conflict avoidance means allowing a secretive government to abuse its power by preventing either elected representatives or responsible tribunals from holding it to account. And it does nobody but the Cons any good to portray their position of "give Harper what he wants or the country gets it" as justifying an effort to meet halfway.