OTTAWA - Canada's acrimonious minority Parliament took one step toward peace Tuesday but two steps back into partisan warfare.
The Harper government accepted the resignation of Guy Lauzon, Tory chair of the official languages committee, ending a stalemate that had paralyzed the committee for several weeks.
But no sooner had the government untied that parliamentary knot than a new brouhaha broke out at the information and ethics committee, which is examining the censorship of documents released under access to information regarding the treatment of Afghan detainees.
Tory MP Scott Reid suggested that New Democrat Pat Martin may have broken the law by giving committee members copies of secret documents in which information that was to be blacked out for public consumption could be read. Even though the supposedly secret excerpts were first published in two newspapers, Reid asked Parliament's law clerk to rule on whether Martin was "guilty of an offence" under the Security of Information Act.
A furious Martin said Reid's ploy demonstrates the Tories aren't serious about ending the obstruction and manipulation that ground many parliamentary committees to a halt two weeks ago.
"There's no attempt to make peace. In fact, there's this ham-fisted slap-suit attempt to intimidate MPs going on in my committee," Martin fumed in an interview.
"It's another Conservative attempt to muzzle MPs."
Opposition parties were initially optimistic that the departure of Lauzon signalled a new Tory intention to work co-operatively with them to end parliamentary paralysis.
"I think it's a sign that you cannot have a minority government and have the government to say it's my way or no way," said NDP whip Yvon Godin.
But that optimism faded after a meeting of all parties' House leaders late Tuesday. Liberal Ralph Goodale wouldn't disclose details of the confidential meeting but he said the tone adopted by Government House Leader Peter Van Loan was not encouraging.
"I didn't sense any great new spirit of flexibility," Goodale said in an interview.
"Reasonable (opposition) requests on issues that should have been more in the molehill category than the mountain category were just summarily denied. So there does not appear to be progress across the board."
Just prior to last week's parliamentary break, the Tories were embarrassed by the leak of a handbook issued to all Tory chairs of committees. The manual coached chairs on how to promote the government's agenda, ensure friendly witnesses and, if need be, how to filibuster, obstruct and even entirely shut down committee proceedings.
Opposition parties claimed the leak proved the government had been deliberately plotting to paralyze Parliament. And they had plenty of recent examples in which the tactics detailed in the manual appeared to have been employed.
One of the most egregious, as far as the opposition parties were concerned, was Lauzon's decision to cancel, on a moment's notice, a hearing in which witnesses were scheduled to testify about the impact of the government's cancellation of the court challenges program.
Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois members of the official languages committee voted to remove Lauzon as chair but Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to name a replacement, leaving the committee in limbo.
Liberal whip Karen Redman speculated that the embarrassing leak of the Tory manual forced the government to show some contrition and get rid of Lauzon.
But Lauzon said Tuesday that it was his choice to resign and he did it in the interests of breaking the impasse and letting the committee get back to work.
"I'm a francophone. I lived in a minority situation all my life. I want this committee to do the good work that it can do," he said in an interview.
Lauzon said he still believes he was right to cancel the hearing on the court challenges program. In his view, the committee "was being used for political purposes."
In return for Lauzon's departure, opposition parties agreed to disband the "unofficial" languages committee they set up two weeks ago. They also agree to never again unilaterally try to change the rules to allow an opposition MP to chair the committee.
