CBC Global Header Navigation

 
CBCnews
EMAIL | PRINT | REPORT TYPO | SEND YOUR FEEDBACK | Bookmark and Share

Orders of the Day - Wednesday, November 18, 2009

According to this preview, it will be "a difficult story" that begins to unfold when the Afghanistan committee meets this afternoon to hear from Richard Colvin, the former Afghanistan-based diplomat turned whistleblower who, during his tenures in Kandahar and Kabul, sent a multitude of memos back to Ottawa on the "serious, imminent and alarming problems" with the treatment of detainees. 

Subpoenaed to appear before the military complaints commission investigating alleged prisoner abuse, his testimony was briefly blocked by government lawyers earlier this fall on the grounds that his story could run afoul of national security laws. But, as members were recently reminded by House Law Clerk Rob Walsh, parliamentary privilege puts the committee above that, and every other, law of the land; they have the right to ask whatever questions they want, and -- perhaps even more importantly, given the government's efforts to silence this particular witness -- to have those questions answered. Expect Walsh to be in attendance today on the not-actually-all-that-off chance that Colvin's appearance puts that rule to the test. 

(In a move that suggests that whoever is in charge of that sort of thing is well aware of the likely media draw of today's star witness, the committee has uprooted itself from its habitual East Block stomping grounds to meet in the more capacious, if less elegant 371 West Block.)

Meanwhile, over at Transport, what has been, up until now, a relatively low-profile review of NDP MP Jim Maloway's proposed airline passenger bill of rights -- another one of those little-private-members-bills-that-could -- is almost certainly going to garner a lot more attention after a series of CanWest scoops on the backroom machinations in which the government has engaged in its attempts to kill it off -- with the tacit support and active assistance of the airline industry, no less. That's something that just might just come up during this afternoon's meeting, particularly given the presence of the Air Transport Association of Canada and the Consumers' Association of Canada. 

Also on the committee agenda this afternoon: 

The Justice committee takes a short break from plowing through the eleventy-dozen crime-related bills on its to-do list to get to know a little bit more about Shirish Chotalia, the newly appointed chair of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal 

Natural Resources continues its study of C-20, which would raise the cap on liability for damages resulting from a nuclear meltdown from the charmingly anachronistic $75 million to $650 million, which is still nowhere near high enough, as far as the industry's critics are concerned

The rumpled but redoubtable Dr. Butler Jones, is back before the Health committee for yet another bearpit session with MPs on H1N1 preparedness and response

The Industry committee gets briefed on credit and debit card fees by the Competition Bureau


Tags: afghanistan committee, blackberry jungle, orders of the day, richard colvin