The Conservative Harper government in Canada continues to shun democracy. For a second time this year, Stephen Harper shut down Parliament.
The shutdown killed all legislation making its way through the parliamentary process, including bills championed by Mr. Harper’s Conservative government.
It also shut down all parliamentary committees, including a special one that was raising embarrassing questions about the government’s policies on Afghans detained by Canadian troops before being turned over to the Afghan government. Human rights groups and a Canadian diplomat say the detainees were abused after being handed to the Afghans. Mr. Harper’s government denies the allegations.
The Richard Colvin affair and the failure of the Canadian government to act on allegations of torture of Afghan detainees makes this highly probable. Canada, signatory to the International Criminal Court, could find itself up there with Uganda and the DRC.
Realistically, this probably will not happen. However, it would be an effective way to clean up Canada’s tarnished image. Taking accountability for its actions, Canada might be able to temporarily clear its slate of support for human rights abuses showing that not only poor African countries are ICC targets.