Canada has a base in Kuwait, a legacy of the counter-ISIS mission and part of a program having spots around the world facilitating potential operations. It got hit by Iranian missiles, and opposition parliamentarians are outraged that they were not told. Fun grandstanding, sure. But what's going on here?
Yes, the government may have chosen to hide the attack because they didn't want criticism of their crappy stance on Iran and that the US risked its allies without notifying/consulting them. But perhaps there may have been a reason to keep stuff classified--that telling the public about the attack also tells Iran how accurate their targeting was and maybe to try again.
In a mature democracy (or even one that is in rapid decline), there is a way out of this conundrum: that some members of the legislature, let's say the defence committee or the opposition leaders, have security clearances so that they can be informed when secret stuff happens. No, they can't then release that info to the public, but they can talk about the generalities so that the public can be informed of the basic idea.
See how Senator Chris Murphy does it:
I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public. I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are. 1/ Here's what I can share:
— Chris Murphy (@chrismurphyct.bsky.social) March 10, 2026 at 10:03 PM
And even if the stuff is so secret that the legislators can't talk about it, their ability to know can be a key constraint on government. Dave, Phil, and I wrote a fairly recent book about exactly this stuff. I initiated the project because I was stunned by the deliberate ignorance of Canadian members of parliament--that they would prefer to know less and talk more than know more and have to be responsible. Canadian MPs will say that this is way it is done in Westminster governments, and now Dave, Phil, and I have the receipts to say: bushwah. Nope, the Aussies and Brits have managed to find ways to actually engage in oversight (that is, they know what the military has done, not that they have a say in what they do, for those who interpret the word oversight differently).
But for MPs, it is more fun to blast the government for covering things up than actually knowing stuff. A long running story in Canadian politics has been that the opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, has refused to be cleared. My bluesky followers suspect that PP has skeletons that a clearance process would reveal, but the answer is more obvious and direct: he does not want the responsibility of knowing stuff. He'd rather be ignorant and wrong than have to be careful about his criticism of government. As Murphy shows above and plenty of opposition legislators around the world know quite well, you can be informed and still provide trenchant, on-target, critical criticisms of the government the day and yet not violate secrecy of the info one has received.
So, I have no sympathy for whiny Conservatives on this. I also think that the Liberals, like all Canadian parties in power, treat the public like kids and not adults. When pushed on this, Carney said: “I’m not the only spokesperson for the government, but I’ll just confirm that members of the Canadian Forces are all safe and sound,” said Carney.
Sorry, sir, but, yes, that actually is a key part of the job. The best way to fight disinformation is to be as transparent as possible. The best way to de-fang opposition criticisms is to be ahead of the story and tell the public as much as you can. Don't act like your job does not include informing the public. You are not a central banker anymore.
I post this because the Canadian public (and others, most democracies have largely ignorant legislatures) should know that the opposition MPs are playing a game, a dumb game that helps to reduce trust in government (abetting the far right populists), as they could know but choose not to.
No comments:
Post a Comment