My take on Harper....

[Hunteroffortune]

I grew up in Wainwright and have a very healthy respect for the military, so I have been very happy that PM Harper has been so strong in his support of the military. I will never forget our troops being sent to Afghanistan with green camo's, what a disgrace. I have also recently talked to someone who was over in Afghanistan when PM Harper made his trip over there, she was very impressed with his support, and she is one smart lady (Physics degree, I failed Physics twice  ???), something that shouldn't shock anyone, but most uninformed people seem to think that those in the military are uneducated. I wish the media would be more truthful about the mission and our troops.

I am proud to wear red every Friday in support of the troops, it helps me feel like I am doing something. I feel that finally the military are getting some of the recognition that they deserve, some of the equipment that is vital, and for this alone I would support the Conservatives.

I have other things I like, they have raised the age of consent from 14 to 16, given money to parents to decide how their children should be cared for, and started with income splitting for seniors.

All in all, when you take the opposition noise out of the equation, I'm pretty happy with their performance to date.

Something I am curious about, are people who join the military more likely to be conservative thinking, or is that just my imagination?

 

[RangerRay]

I have other things I like, they have raised the age of consent from 14 to 16...

I could be wrong, but I thought this was being held up by the Opposition, or by the Liberal-dominated Senate...

???

 

[tdwebste]

Again an additional nomination is only required to remove the independence of the judicial. A police representative can be filled as one of the three appointment available to the federal government.

Can you explain to me how it is a threat to judicial Independence to have police and crime victims represented at these nominations?  If they were going to go over judicial sentences one by one and change them, sure that would qualify but having a voice in the nomination process can not and does not.

Exactly we agree. Having a police and crime victims representative does NOT require Harper to take away the independence of the Judiciary by adding another member selected by the Federal Government. So why is Harper undermining the independence of the Judiciary?

Further more the independence of the Judiciary is required to insure that laws are applied uniformly and fairly. Setting higher minimum sentences and stiffer parole conditions for violent offenders does not lessen this requirement.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
Something I am curious about, are people who join the military more likely to be conservative thinking, or is that just my imagination?

If you read Samual P Huntington's The Soldier and the State – The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Harvard, 1957) you will learn that the military, as an institution, is broadly conservative in, equally broadly, liberal societies.   (But remember, please, that conservative ≠ Conservative and liberal ≠ Liberal, when Conservative and Liberal = Canadian political parties)

 

[Reccesoldier]

Exactly we agree. Having a police and crime victims representative does NOT require Harper to take away the independence of the Judiciary by adding another member selected by the Federal Government. So why is Harper undermining the independence of the Judiciary?

Further more the independence of the Judiciary is required to insure that laws are applied uniformly and fairly. Setting higher minimum sentences and stiffer parole conditions for violent offenders does not lessen this requirement.

I see what you are getting at, you fear the government having more members on the panel than the Judges and Lawyers.

To be rather blunt... Bollocks!

Who do you think placed the government in power? 

It was the people of this country, not the elite, not the academics not the lawyers and not the criminals but every single person who went out and voted. 

So with our representative government in place just who do you think has more of a right to decide what the composition of one of these panels should look like, the unelected lawyers and judges or the people through our elected representatives.

Judicial independence is not the private right of judges but the foundation of judicial impartiality and a constitutional right of all Canadians.

  Man, this is spinning like a top!  Cut away the bafflegab and what you are left with is Lawyers telling the people that only lawyers are qualified to say who should become a judge.

The lawyers and judges do not fear loosing their independence, they fear loosing their power.

I'm with Shakespear (King Henry VI (Act IV, Scene II), or more rightly Wat Tyler (1381)...  Kidding

 

[a_majoor]

The Demos are having a difficult time making up their minds, what we are seeing is the instability of a system which is about to undergo a phase change:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=7bc933f3-3397-4b38-885b-5b91f7bc7c65

Everywhere you look: losers
Andrew Coyne, National Post
Published: Wednesday, May 16, 2007

He's toast, of course. You don't do yourself the kind of harm Gilles Duceppe did over the weekend and expect to carry on as before. Trailing blood, Mr. Duceppe has been allowed to hang on as leader of the Bloc Quebecois for the time being, by the grace and favour of his caucus. But with his party floundering-- some recent polls show it scraping 30% support among Quebecers, a historic low -- the broader party membership will soon begin to ask whether he is the man to lead them into the next election.

Mind you, Mr. Duceppe is hardly alone in this predicament. Stephane Dion's shaky start as leader of the Liberals is the despair of much of the party. Former leadership rivals do not even bother to leave the bad-mouthing to subordinates. At slightly more than 30% nationwide, the Liberals may no longer be touching their own historic lows as they were earlier this spring. But any consolidation of their support has come at the cost of positioning themselves way out to the left. With the threat of an election receding, some in the party may see the coming hiatus as a chance to rethink the decision of last December.

But then, as long as we're talking about leaders in trouble, what about Jack Layton? Though it has attracted fewer headlines, the NDP finds itself battling to stay ahead of a party that does not even have a seat, the Greens. Caught out by the sudden emergence of global warming as an issue, the party is now trapped in a dilemma, fearing to bring the government down but infuriating and demoralizing its supporters every time it props it up -- as in the recent vote on a Liberal motion to pull Canadian troops out of combat in Afghanistan in two years.

That leaves the Conservatives -- who in some ways are doing worse than any of them. Nearing 40% in public support scant weeks ago, three recent polls have the Tories trailing the Liberals. This, after all their efforts to remake themselves as a comforting, middle-of-the-road party. As they cast about for explanations, one analyst after another points to Stephen Harper as the cause: his chilly persona, his inability to connect with voters, the abiding mistrust he engenders.

Strange, but true: All the major parties are struggling, and all of the leaders are under fire, at the same time. It's hard to believe this is even arithmetically possible, let alone politically.

What's going on? One theory: All of the parties and their leaders struggling to adjust to the new world that was created on Jan. 23, 2006 -- or rather, the one that was in the works for some time before that: a world without a dominant Liberal party. Not that the Liberal party itself is going anywhere. But the age of Liberal hegemony, the days in which the Liberals could safely bank on winning three elections in four are over. As with any such epochal event, the decline of the Liberal empire has brought with it great uncertainty. Everyone has had to change their playbook, and with change and uncertainty come mistakes.

For the NDP, the playbook used to be very simple: While the Liberals were the party of power, the New Democrats were the party of principle, the "conscience of Parliament." But if the Liberals' place in the firmament was no longer so certain, then neither was the NDP's. Perhaps, some in the party reasoned, they could displace the Liberals as the left-of-centre alternative to the Conservatives. Perhaps they could dare to dream of power. Hence what was previously an unthinkable sight: the Conservatives, governing with the support of the NDP.

The Bloc, likewise, had a simple enough playbook: to run against Liberal arrogance and corruption, both in ample supply so long as the Liberals were actually in power. But what to run against without the Liberal bogeyman? The Bloc has no answer to that.

It is the two largest parties, however, for whom the dilemmas have been most acute. The Liberals, forced at long last to ask themselves the existential question -- Who are we? -- have answered by moving sharply left, embracing the environment in particular with evangelistic fervour. It hasn't been an entirely convincing performance, not least because of the party's own record.

The Tories, for their part, have also moved left, which is to say into the centre. Sensing an opportunity to make the Conservatives the new "natural governing party," Mr. Harper has pushed through the most extraordinary series of reversals: whether of policies his government had just adopted (the ill-fated Clean Air Act), or of promises on which they campaigned a year ago (income trusts), or in some cases of the beliefs of a lifetime. But again, they overdid it, alienating their own base even as they were confusing other potential voters. Tory partisans have been left reassuring themselves of the very thing they most hotly deny to others: Don't worry, there's a hidden agenda.

This situation is unlikely to persist. Eventually one or the other of the parties is bound to recover its equilibrium, to find the right balance of principle and pragmatism for a new political era. Until then, welcome to Canada, where all the parties are below average.

[email protected]

 

[niner domestic]

This may someday come back to bite the PM in the butt as voters often do not recall the minute details of an action at polling time only that it appears in their eyes, to have been an effort to "hide" something.  http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/15052007/3/canada-pm-invoking-parliamentary-privilege-defamation-case.html I hope Harper can survive this and the numerous mini scandals that have cropped up. 

 

[Hunteroffortune]

This may someday come back to bite the PM in the butt as voters often do not recall the minute details of an action at polling time only that it appears in their eyes, to have been an effort to "hide" something.  http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/15052007/3/canada-pm-invoking-parliamentary-privilege-defamation-case.html I hope Harper can survive this and the numerous mini scandals that have cropped up. 

At first blush, that article looks bad, but thinking about it, why would the PM get involved with a fight between a sour grapes rejected candidate and the CPC? Let them fight it out, why drag the PM into it?

Mini scandals created by the opposition, like the language committee, interesting that they fired the Chairman on the same day that the language Commissioner gave his report. Partisan politics, yes, the opposition needs to grow up, this will not score any points in the west, even Quebecors understand the grandstanding by the opposition.

 

[Edward Campbell]

When he stays in his lane (politics) the Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin – often excoriated by the Ruxted Group for commenting on strategic/military matters which are outside of his lanes - is worth a read.  Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, from today's Globe is a column in which he offers PM Harper some advice:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070517.wxcomartin17/BNStory/National/home

Harper's Act II: Retrench, refuel, retool

LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail

May 17, 2007 at 3:51 AM EDT

So what do they do now?

The Harper Conservatives have run low on gas at the quarter poll. Their rush of activity - their five priorities, their war push, green plan, liberal-like budget - laid the groundwork for an election that never happened.

So much for phase one. Now it's about finding a follow-up act and signs are - check their momentous announcement yesterday of a plan to keep foreign strippers out of the country - they're having trouble figuring out what it might be. They're going to shut down Parliament early - at the start of June - and then go away to try and figure it out.

But to listen to the party members is to get the sense that there's going to be a slowdown, a more modest second instalment - one that they feel will fit well with the mood of the nation.

"Doing big things makes Canadians feel uncomfortable," said Deepak Obhrai, the Calgary MP who is parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. "We don't need a new big idea. Low key is the way to go."

"It's all about good management," said John Williams, the Tory, who as chair of the public accounts committee, pried into Liberal wrongdoing. "That's what Canadians want."

"Jean Chrétien lived off low expectations," said Goldy Hyder, a spokesman for the party, who also wants Stephen Harper to gear down. "I mean, this is Canada. It's doing well. People don't go to bed at night worrying about interprovincial trade barriers."

Mess with the country, try to do too much with it, you get burned. "Canadians don't want to be over-promised. Get out of their faces."

The new script is a far cry from the phase one decisiveness. Others put a less gracious spin on things, saying the retreat to the drawing board has been forced upon them because they hit a wall. They threw out everything they had and wound up - in terms of support - barely at their starting line.

"We seem to have run out of ideas already," said a disappointed Conservative Senator, who criticized Mr. Harper as "a narrow boring individual" who makes the mistake of listening only to his own counsel. "We're left scrambling." Retrenchment is a good idea, the Senator said, as long as there's a fresh approach - this instead of having everybody report to the PM like frightened Boy Scouts. "The PM has to learn that governing is about more than just vote-targeting."

Some see Mr. Harper as being in the unfortunate position of having nowhere to turn. He is trapped between his base supporters, who are getting restless in their demands for more allegiance to conservative principles, and the bigger flock of Canadians, who want him to be like them - more moderate. He is trapped between his own instincts and having to sell out to the masses.

At the heart of the dilemma is what happened on Jan. 23, 2006. In that election, the country didn't vote for Stephen Harper's ideology. They elected him because they were tired of the other governing party.

He has tried, with some early success, to do the improbable balancing act of simultaneously catering to his right-wing base and to the centre. For the right, he loaded up the Armed Forces, reformed the court-appointment process along conservative lines, steered foreign policy in a dramatically pro-Israel direction and began Senate reform. For the moderates, he has offered liberal spending, avoided heavy tax reform, taken a soft line on Quebec, and turned from being anti-green to semi-green.

But neither side has been left satisfied. For Mr. Harper to move harder to the right would reduce his overall support. To push the moderate buttons would alienate his base, as well as further contradicting his own principles. On the war, he is stubbornly committed. On the green plan, he's been gored. There are a lot of things in the platform still to be done but, as many MPs noted, none carry a big whack. Thus the push, while the country profits from a good economy, for a cycle of quiet governance.

Canadians don't want drum-beaters. Given Mr. Harper's limited options, it may be best for him to follow the dictum of the reputedly tedious, but highly effective, prime minister Mackenzie King. When times are good, he reasoned, leave the flock to nibble in the grass and rest in the shade.

[email protected]

I think Martin has it here:

At the heart of the dilemma is what happened on Jan. 23, 2006. In that election, the country didn't vote for Stephen Harper's ideology. They elected him because they were tired of the other governing party.

He has tried, with some early success, to do the improbable balancing act of simultaneously catering to his right-wing base and to the centre. For the right, he loaded up the Armed Forces, reformed the court-appointment process along conservative lines, steered foreign policy in a dramatically pro-Israel direction and began Senate reform. For the moderates, he has offered liberal spending, avoided heavy tax reform, taken a soft line on Quebec, and turned from being anti-green to semi-green.

But neither side has been left satisfied. For Mr. Harper to move harder to the right would reduce his overall support. To push the moderate buttons would alienate his base, as well as further contradicting his own principles. On the war, he is stubbornly committed. On the green plan, he's been gored. There are a lot of things in the platform still to be done but, as many MPs noted, none carry a big whack. Thus the push, while the country profits from a good economy, for a cycle of quiet governance.

I share the view that Canada is not, broadly, favourable to so-called right wing positions.  Jean Chrétien, following well established Liberal Party tradition campaigned left – with special attention to (broken) social spending promises and large dollops of anti-Americanism – and then governed right (well, right of centre, anyway).  Harper need not copy the anti-Americanism (although, as he demonstrated during his first days in office when he lambasted US Ambassador Wilkins over some quite proper comments about America's views of Canada's claims over the Arctic waterway he is quite capable of enlisting anti-Americanism into his campaign) but he may want to copy Chrétien's formula of low expectations and sound, quiet government.  Of course the Liberals will not want to allow him that luxury and, in a minority parliament, Harper's options are limited.

 

[GAP]

"The PM has to learn that governing is about more than just vote-targeting."

I would say that is just what governing is all about....everything is orientated towards that.

 

[CF_Enthusiast]

Well maybe if he got majority then he could start governing. Real governing. 

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Why doesn't the left realize that every dollar spent on Kyoto and global warming, is one dollar less to help our elderly and disabled. Or do they understand that and just don't care?

They understand.  Their method is to spend the first dollar, and then take another one from somewhere and spend it as well.

Whatever the merits of judicial independence, the point of law isn't to be an arcane game for the enjoyment and enrichment of the guild members.  It is to serve the interests of the society.  All the powers of government are nothing more than the delegated authority from each person, summed over all the people.  Ultimately the law has to be created and interpreted to serve those interests.  If we are dissatisfied with the outcomes of interpretation, it is within our authority to directly influence how the interpreters are appointed.

 

[tdwebste]

Agree, but the devil is in the details. In the days of Trudeau, judges was a patronage appointments. People elected Trudeau so I guess he had the right. ha ha, just kidding, it was not a good system. After Trudeau, a systems was setup that actually resembles the election scrutineer system. Representatives from the recognized parties, plus a regional representative, and 3 members selected from the Ministry of Justice. Two of the Ministry of Justice selected members can not be lawyers. This was vast improvement.

Adding a fourth member selected from the Ministry of Justice is easily used to defeat the ability of the members to scrutinize in unpartizan manner.
In the past I was a reform party member, how does not feel Harper represents good government. I joined the reform party because of the Liberals, now Harper turns out to be worse.


Singing off. Political threads go no where here. This political thread should be locked.


Lets get back to discussing Mil:
How to reduce mine risks. I am know many systems pull anti-mine trailers. Can you please point me to systems the push anti-mine trailers, so that the mine is detonated before the vehicle drives over it. I know mine rollers and plows are used for this purpose. But how well do they work in tight manouvering? Do mine rollers and plows have any other drawbacks?

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Agree, but the devil is in the details. In the days of Trudeau, judges was a patronage appointments. People elected Trudeau so I guess he had the right. ha ha, just kidding, it was not a good system. After Trudeau, a systems was setup that actually resembles the election scrutineer system. Representatives from the recognized parties, plus a regional representative, and 3 members selected from the Ministry of Justice. Two of the Ministry of Justice selected members can not be lawyers. This was vast improvement.

Adding a fourth member selected from the Ministry of Justice is easily used to defeat the ability of the members to scrutinize in unpartizan manner.
In the past I was a reform party member, how does not feel Harper represents good government. I joined the reform party because of the Liberals, now Harper turns out to be worse.


Singing off. Political threads go no where here. This political thread should be locked.


Lets get back to discussing Mil:
How to reduce mine risks. I am know many systems pull anti-mine trailers. Can you please point me to systems the push anti-mine trailers, so that the mine is detonated before the vehicle drives over it. I know mine rollers and plows are used for this purpose. But how well do they work in tight manouvering? Do mine rollers and plows have any other drawbacks?

And there are a lot of sheep out there still who think that anything St Pierre did was the absolute only way to do things. Maybe we can try some new ways of doing business that might work for us all and not just the Liberal elite.

 

[Reccesoldier]

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=f7806f79-bf1f-4bd1-8d33-c904feb71047

Among other things, since the film's release last year, scientists have rejected Mr. Gore's claims that 2005 was the warmest year on record (temperatures have been receding since 1998), that polar bears are heading for extinction (their numbers are growing), that Antarctica is warming (interior temperature readings show cooling) and that sea levels will "rise 18 to 20 feet," swamping coastal cities (the International Panel on Climate Change predicts a few inches).

Not everyone has been lulled into a scientific dreamland by Global Warming hype, hyperbole and hysteria.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I have shared The Ruxted Group's general disdain for Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin when he strays out of his lane and into defence issues and, especially, when he resorts to cheap, dishonest and personal attacks on Gen. Hillier.  In general, however, despite a clear anti-Conservative (maybe just anti-Harper-Conservative) bias, Martin is an astute observer of the Canadian political scene.

That brings me to today's column, reproduced from today's Globe and Mail under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, which lambastes Prime Minister harper for failing to achieve the ethical standards he set for his government:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070521.wxcomartin21/BNStory/National/home

So much for the new governing morality

LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail

May 21, 2007 at 2:50 AM EDT
There is no more important job to do than cleaning up government and bringing accountability back to Ottawa.
Stephen Harper, Nov. 4, 2005

At the outset, this was a government intent on bold contrast to Liberal rule by bringing a new morality to governance. Transparency, cleanliness, accountability were the watchwords. The Conservatives of Stephen Harper were Canada's moral minority.

Take a look now, however, and try to find anyone who is describing this government as ethically high-minded. Hopes that our hockey-fan Prime Minister might have captained a classy team have been dashed. What we have instead is something more akin to the Philadelphia Flyers of the 1970s -- the "Broad Street Bullies."

It's rare that a week has gone by without evidence of blatant obstructionism, or ministerial misconduct, or political thuggery of some kind. The Conservatives haven't yet stooped to the levels of contamination that the Grits reached in their bad seasons. But give them time.

Last week was symptomatic. At an ethics-committee probe of the Afghan detainee controversy, they tried for hours to block the appearance of witnesses whose testimony could prove embarrassing. They shut down the official languages committee - the same day as the tabling of a report by the Official Languages Commissioner highly critical of their performance.

In the Commons, they typically ran away from pointed questions, choosing instead to "hide behind political rants," as Liberal Ken Dryden put it.

On the cleanliness front, they've been caught up in several conflict-of-interest allegations and, now, just like the Grits, are getting dinged for living the high life at taxpayers' expense.

One of the first to be cited was Heritage Minister Bev Oda. Declining to use a minivan, she racked up $6,000 in limousine expenses in Halifax last year while attending the Juno Awards. In reference to a famous film about a Ms. Daisy, the NDP labelled the affair "Driving Ms. Lazy."

Ms. Oda, who was also caught up in a conflict of interest imbroglio over a fundraiser in her riding, was not alone. Two other cabinet members, International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner and Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, racked up exorbitant limo expenses. Then the men, Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, jumped on board. Only this time, it was airplanes - government-jet joy rides, allegedly without disclosing the trips as required by government regulations.

As chief example-setter for team transparency, Prime Minister Harper has his own woes. He has steadfastly refused to disclose the campaign donors for his 2002 Alliance Party leadership run. His party initially failed to report more than $530,000 in donations for their 2005 convention. He once raised a storm over Reform Party leader Preston Manning's failure to disclose his sizable clothing allowance. Now, Mr. Harper refuses to reveal how much he spends on a personal image adviser he frequently takes around with him.

The PM appointed a separatist to investigate polling commissioned by the previous Liberal government. But it was then revealed that he failed to disclose his own department's public-opinion research in ethnic communities last year. In what looked to be a positive move in reducing patronage, he created a public appointments commission, but abolished it when his nominee to head it was rejected.

Often accused of running a one-man government that barricades the doors, Mr. Harper ran into heavy criticism for initially refusing to allow media coverage of fallen soldiers returning from Afghanistan. Former information commissioner John Reid then charged that the Prime Minister did a complete about-face on his promises of openness, saying his planned changes to the Access to Information Act were retrograde and dangerous. The words seemed harsh, but journalists probing, for example, the Afghan detainee question have found that released documents are censored to an extraordinary degree.

The Conservatives, to their credit, brought in accountability legislation that had many good features. But their comportment has served to undermine what the act represents. They repeatedly seek to justify their own failings by pointing to the failings of previous governments. What kind of defence is that when the whole point of the exercise was to move away from the sullied Liberal ethic?

The new morality was to be one of this government's cornerstones. In less than a year and a half, the cornerstone has crumbled.

[email protected]

I share Martin's general view: Harper set a laudable, necessary goal and then he went some way (Accountability Act) to accomplishing it but he and his team are failing to live up to the standards they set.

I am not off-put by the 'How to manipulate committees' book – that's old hat in parliamentary Ottawa I am told.  I am somewhat dismayed by the Conservatives' general contempt for the committees and the committee process, however, as I think committees are the best part of our current parliament.  I recognize that the Liberals and NDP, especially, are trying to back seat drive the legislative agenda but that's allowed in a minority parliament.  If Harper cannot endure that level of interference then he can engineer a general election.

I am also not off-put by Harper's failure to disclose his funding in the old Reform-Alliance days.  There is neither a legal nor a moral requirement for him to do so.  It is an inside the green-belt issue of interest to an unholy cabal of Liberal politicians and Liberal (anti-Harper, anyway) journalists.

I am dismayed by the actions and inactions of some of Harper's ministers – Oda's overspending is just an especially egregious example of what I see as a fairly common tendency, and not just amongst Conservatives, ether.

The problem is: Harper promised to do better.  Canadians want him to do better.  He will, likely, pay a price for disappointing them.  Remember that Parson Manning came to Ottawa with much goodwill for promising to ”do politics differently” – that goodwill (and any hope for electoral gains in Ontario) evaporated when he could not pull it off.

 

[Reccesoldier]

I recognize that the Liberals and NDP, especially, are trying to back seat drive the legislative agenda but that's allowed in a minority parliament.  If Harper cannot endure that level of interference then he can engineer a general election.

It is the governments prerogative to appoint the chair of a committee. 

As much as the opposition is allowed to try to back seat drive, the Conservatives are allowed to take the keys and walk.  The prevalent attitude from the opposition, supported by the sycophantic media is that the Conservatives must take whatever the opposition tries to shove down its throat. 

Wrong. 

Of course if the opposition doesn't like the way the conservatives are governing they can force an election...  But they don't have the power, guts or popular position to start that do they? 

No, it is much easier to blame the conservatives for playing the game when they have been playing the same game all year.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It is the governments prerogative to appoint the chair of a committee. 
...

Actually, if I remember my lessons on parliamentary procedure, the government's prerogative is to nominate most committee chairs.  Committees are sovereign and they may elect whomever they wish - usually, by well established convention, the government's nominee, except in the case of the Public Accounts Committee where the binding convention is that the chair is elected from amongst the opposition members.  The committees can, as the Official Languages Committee just did, vote no confidence in the chair (which it elected); equally, the government can, as it is doing in the same committee, decline to nominate a replacement and, so long as well established convention is respected, the committee is paralyzed (and the consequences of not respecting it are nuclear for the management of parliament and would, most likely, do more long term damage than anyone is willing to risk (except, maybe, some BQ members).

 

[GAP]

If the governing party nominates the chairs, but the committee votes on the chairman, would that not mean that most committee's be composed of a majority of the ruling parties in order that the Conservative chair nominee be elected?

 

[Edward Campbell]

The situation in a minority parliament is that the combined strength of the opposition parties gives them effective control of each committee.

The convention that the committee elects its chair from the governing party is strong; and all parliamentary conventions are tied together - if one is not respected then none need be.  It is the fear of the consequences of discarding conventions (which work) that keeps the opposition parties from, for example, electing a Liberal to chair the Official Langages Committee.  If they toss aside one convention, which serves the government, then the government is likely to toss aside others which, by and large, serve the opposition.

Convention - parliamentary and constitutional, is a wonderful thing: an infinitely better tool for managing complex situations than any regulations can ever hope to be.  The more complex the situation the better convention serves because humans are, simply, too stupid to craft regulations suitable for high orders of complexity.