Tories push bill to clear RCMP wrongdoing
Conservatives are rewriting prior legislation to shield details from the public record
OTTAWA— Legal and parliamentary experts say there’s nothing to stop the Harper government from retroactively rewriting a law to absolve RCMP wrongdoing and stuffing the changes in an omnibus budget bill — even as police investigate.
“There is no restraint on Parliament’s legislative powers other than legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution Act 1867 and the charter,” former House of Commons law clerk Rob Walsh said Thursday.
In simpler terms, “there’s nothing wrong with it,” according to Ned Franks, a professor emeritus at Queen’s University.
“It’s unorthodox, but you can get away with it,” Franks said.
Bill C-59, currently on the fast track to be passed by Parliament in the next four weeks, includes amend- ments backdated to October 2011 that would retroactively remove all elements of the now-defunct longgun registry from Canada’s Access to Information Act. The unprecedented move was prompted by a finding of wrongdoing against the RCMP by federal information commissioner Suzanne Legault and the Conservative getout-of-jail-free legislative move is drawing howls of outrage from opposition MPs and academics.
“This is banana-republic behaviour,” NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said. “It’s absolutely reprehensible what they’re doing, the technique itself is reprehensible.”
The Ontario Provincial Police have confirmed they are investigating the RCMP’s alleged breach of the Access to Information Act after receiving the file from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
That investigation won’t deter the government from pushing through its latest, 167-page budget bill — including the non-budget-related gun registry changes.
“Royal assent was given to a law passed by Parliament years ago requiring the destruction of the data from the long-gun registry,” Stephanie Henderson, a spokeswoman for the Conservative House leader, said in an email.
“Can they do it? The answer is yes,” said Michel Drapeau, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. “Is it legal? The answer is you can probably find a way, but it’s against every precedent, against any notion, against any principle that laws should not be retroactive,” he added.