Worth all the sound and fury

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Months of vitriol, brinksmanship and even a constitutional showdown over the release of government documents came to a sedate, respectful and -- dare it be said -- intelligent conclusion Friday with an all-party agreement to do what could have been done from the beginning. Was all the sound and fury worth it? Well, yes. It was.

As the opposition parties were quick to point out Friday, the agreement was a victory for democracy. In recent months, and certainly in the recent weeks since Speaker Peter Milliken tabled his ruling on the matter, Canadians have been forcefully reminded of just how their parliamentary democracy actually works. They've been reminded that Parliament is superior to government, that the will of Parliament (as measured by a majority of MPs) is superior to the will of the executive (the prime minister and cabinet).

But they have also seen in this outcome that just because opposition parties can cobble together a majority of MPs, does not mean they should, or use it irresponsibly. The opposition majority, let's not forget, had been demanding that the government release uncensored all detainee-related documents. The government's position was that doing so would illegally threaten national security and put Canadians serving in Afghanistan at risk. This was taken as evidence that the government has something to hide -- and perhaps it does, we'll see soon enough. But choosing to play politics with the non-disclosure did not mean that national security and troop safety were not at risk.

The all-party agreement tabled Friday implicitly recognizes that both sides of this war of words have real merit. The agreement is that an all-party committee of four MPs -- one for each party in Parliament -- and four designates will be sworn to secrecy and given access to some 10,000 pages of documents. They will review them and decide which should be released to a parliamentary committee and which remain secret. Where disputes occur, disputed documents will be submitted to a panel of three jurists, to be agreed among the parties, who will then make a final decision.

The opposition, of course, could have demanded absolute control of the review and releases -- Jack Layton, in fact, blustered that he would settle for nothing less -- but they didn't. That they didn't was a sign that, more than anything, they didn't want to be seen as overplaying their hand and triggering an election that nobody wants.

It's easy to say that the agreement at the end could have been reached at the beginning. But it must be remembered that at the beginning the opposition was a rabble intent on embarrassing the government over the detainee issue. It eventually became more than that, a numeric Parliament that actually expressed a will, not just a whim. That in turn led to Speaker Milliken's high-minded ruling, one that reminded MPs -- but more importantly all Canadians -- of the duties and responsibilities of Canadian parliamentarians. The all-party agreement has served as a reminder that government, too, has duties and responsibilities and that the country is well served when those are respected.

As messy and mendacious as this process has been, it should not be forgotten that it riveted attention on how Canada's democracy fundamentally works in the real world, not how it might work in some imagined time and place.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 15, 2010 A16