timeimmortal

Ezra Levant has some details on his blog regarding the Conservative government of Canada’s apparent non-concern over the proposed internal review of/by the CHRC.

I don’t think that the folks in the bunker at the CHRC understand the Conservative government at all, and the Prime Minister in particular. I think that of all the political chess moves they could have made, this stunt was perhaps the most foolish and counter-productive they could have chosen.

Until now, they simply stonewalled, brazening it out, denying any wrongdoing whatsoever, even denying the bald facts as revealed in various hearings, under oath. That’s not particularly unusual for decaying bureaucracies.

But [Jennifer Lynch]’s move was different: it was insubordination. It was meddling with politics — meddling with MPs’ turf. In particular, the thought that a third-tier government appointee like Lynch would presume to review her own political mandate, and presume to commission a report on what her job should be — instead of doing the job she was given — is exactly the thing that irritates the PMO.

I am reminded of a story from the first few weeks of ’s tenure as Prime Minister. There had been an election in Belarus, and it was rigged. Harper wanted to issue a critical statement, and he ordered that it be done. The bureaucrats from the Department of Foreign Affairs nodded, but sent back a mealy-mouthed press release about “monitoring the situation”. Harper was frustrated that he was being ignored, so he asked again for a critical release to be drafted. Again, the crats came back with pablum. Enough was enough: Harper literally hand-wrote a scorching press release, and ordered it sent out. “I am shocked that a dictatorial and abusive regime, such as this one, can continue to exist in today’s Europe,” he wrote.

…What’s the point? The point is that Harper probably didn’t care a lot about Belarus. He just wanted a critical release to be issued. But the DFAIT bureaucrats wanted to “Yes, Minister” him. All of a sudden, he cared very much about Belarus. Sure, it was about democracy in an Eastern European country. But it was also about democracy in Canada: who was running the government — him or unelected civil servants? It was their own belligerence that made Harper up the ante.

One is hopeful that the government will look askance at the proposed internal review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and pursue its own review instead, and then more passionately. It’s high time that yet another batch of unelected civil servants be educated about who is, and who is not, running this country.