Time to Acton

A senior Canadian official has now made credible allegations (not proven, if they were proven they would not be allegations) that implicate senior Canadian officials, military and civilian and possibly ministers of the current government in activities that might reasonably be construed as war crimes.

That government's response has been multifaceted: to deny requests for documentation, to smear witnesses, to shut down the work of the committee investing these allegations and finally to threaten to prorogue Parliament for several months in the hope that a snap election will remove them from this jam.

What they are hiding from, however, is horrifically serious. And in hiding from it, this government has lost any moral credibility to continue to govern. What is particularly tragic is that it is a minority government that serves only at the pleasure of the opposition parties. And compounding this is the fact that the leader of the opposition is an academic with an international reputation in human rights issues.

In other words, no one has covered themselves in glory here. Indeed the one who knows better but permits evil is often the guiltier. This is not only a stain on the Harper government, however indelible that may be, but on the Canadian political system as a whole.