Speaker Milliken took the mushy middle route yesterday in his ruling concerning the release of documents on the Afghan detainees. He basically threw it back at the government and parliament to sort things out and gave them a deadline of two weeks.
I think his ruling was wrong. We are not living in normal times. We are at war. Our national security is at risk and the safety of our troops should trump any release of documents.
Can we really trust opposition MPs to keep secret whatever they may see in those documents? I think not. This is a highly partisan parliament right now and I think what you are seeing with all the antics that the opposition parties have been engaged in the last 4 years with all the faux scandals is to try and make the government look bad and score some political points. I believe they would "leak" any information to the media in a heart beat even sensitive information would put our brave men and women in uniform in greater harm than they already are.
The Bloc? Give them access to secret documents? Wouldn't that set a dangerous precedent?
The media in my opinion because of their bias against the Conservatives would do anything and everything to torque headlines (because that's what most pay attention to) and spin to make the government look bad no matter what.
Furthermore, do Canadians really care about the treatment of Afghan detainees? I think they care more about jobs, the mounting deficit and debt, health care, pensions, etc. You know the everyday bread and butter issues rather than detainees that burn down schools, throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls, and plant road side bombs that kill our brave Canadian soldiers.
This has been a political ploy that at the end of the day really benefits no one. Rather sad if you ask me.
