By Lloyd Mackey

I received a challenge, last week, from Peter Biggs, a west coast Christian and journalist colleague. "[I] hope you might explain why we are proroguing Parliament" he said, having concluded that John Ibbitson's December 30 piece in the Globe and Mail ('Proroguing Parliament - a travesty, yet clever') was "not wholly objective, but persuasive."

I will try to rise to the challenge.

I would submit that the proroguing of Parliament is not only democratic, but provides opportunity for people of faith and goodwill to get some fair exposure in the Canadian media.

To keep this piece from getting too long, I will try to turn two anti-prorogue arguments on their heads. Then I want to repeat some previous pleas for collaborative governance -- this time with some constructive suggestions for opposition MPs who might be up to the tasks that involve conciliation, rather than demonization.

The two anti-prorogue arguments are: á The Afghan detainee issue will not be discussed in parliamentary committees for two months. á The Senate committees will be restructured to benefit the governing Tories, rather than the opposition.

* * * With respect to the detainee issue, I suggested, two weeks ago in OttawaWatch #253, that the training provided to their Afghan counterparts by Canadian police and corrections officials has been under-reported.

My writing about that subject brought a response from Michelle Landry, who pointed out that Christians and Westerners are not the only ones advancing restorative justice in Afghanistan.

Landry noted: "The spiritual roots of restorative justice are found in all major religions, including Islam . . . Some ex-Taliban fighters and mujahidin are now devoted to building schools for girls in very remote parts of their countries. They want their children to be educated; they know that literacy and education are the keys to a different kind of future."

And there is a further, tragic argument in the December 30 killing of the Calgary Herald's Michelle Lang, who died while embedded with members of a Canadian Forces provincial reconstruction team. She and four soldiers were killed when an insurgent-placed bomb (IED) blew up their vehicle.

Lang was in Afghanistan to report on what soldiers have been doing as part of the defense/diplomatic/development task in Afghanistan.

Specifically, this team of soldiers was en route to a 'model village' where the order of the day was reconstruction, relationship building with residents and the establishing of employment which would preclude armed insurgency.

Not to belabour the restorative justice and reconstruction team examples, but it can be constructively argued that the proroguing of parliament will open the way for these kinds of Canadian efforts in Afghanistan to be reported.

* * *

The anti-prorogue argument has it that the move to restructure Senate committees demonstrates a dictatorial approach to governance exhibited by the incumbent prime minister.

The take from this corner is that the restructuring of committees is a logical and incremental step toward democratic reform.

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As has been widely reported, the proroguing of Parliament will enable the Senate committees to be restructured following the filling of five Senate vacancies. This will provide a new plurality for the Conservatives - something that will enable the governing party to get its Commons legislation passed in the upper house. The restructuring will mean government majorities on the Senate committees that are responsible to study and, if appropriate, amend legislation that has been approved in the Commons.

* * *

The Afghan issues and the Senate committee restructuring are just two examples of some useful re-jigging of the roles of the opposition parties.

I would gently suggest that there have been questionable ethics used in parliamentary committees to try to build the illusion of criminality around the present government.

True, it is one of the roles of the opposition to oppose. But, from this view, it can be argued that it is grossly unethical to use parliamentary committees to continuously accuse government of 'breaking the law.' That is true especially when the aura of criminality is implanted without the benefit of the rules of evidence that form a bulwark within our court system.

There is another role for opposition, as well -- particularly that part of the opposition which can bring itself to practice both principled and strategic collaboration with the government.

In my fondest moments, I wonder, of course, whether the blue Liberals -- especially those who could be defined as urban conservatives -- could find themselves willing to coalesce with the Conservatives, to give them a majority that would enable them to govern effectively until 2012.

There are, of course practical reasons to eschew such moments. Just one example: What kind of language and negotiation would a Conservative prime minister use to bring on board those Liberals who are really conservatives, without being accused of doing what then-PM Paul Martin did in reverse, when he won over Belinda Stronach from the Tories?

And how careful does a Conservative prime minister need to be, in reaching out to potentially collaborative blue Liberals, to be sure that he is not inviting Trojan Horses into his bailiwick?

The present prime minister has had considerable success, of course, in bringing a disparate range of conservatives into one fairly cohesive unit.

One would think that his experience has prepared him to know just how much further he might extend the hand of goodwill to those presently in opposition, who more appropriately are equipped to collaborate, or even coalesce.

* * * Whatever, the prorogue is, for the most part, a good thing, because it gives breathing space to all sides of the House, to consider whether collaboration can be better than demonization.

* * * Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006); More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005); and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

January 6/2010