Did anyone see the press conference Fri. Nov. 13/09 at the House of Commons in Ottawa regarding the Omar Khadr case being heard by the Supreme Court of Canada? This conference had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, M. Pierre Poilievre, being asked his general opinion about what might happen if the government of Canada loses it's argument in front of the Supreme Court not to ask for the repatriation of Mr. Khadr. If you didn't see it you didn't miss much except for the Parliamentary Secretary reiterating the government's position that it should only be the government's decision to repatriate one of it's citizens and no business of a court. The Parliamentary Press Corp then asked whether the government would disobey the court ruling to ask for Mr. Khadr back and were told "Any decision to ask for Mr., Khadr's return to Canada is a decision for the democratically elected government of Canada and not for the courts." Since that was a non-answer, the Press Corp asked the same question again. The Parliamentary Secretary simply repeated his last comment. This happened five times then he ended the press conference. By this point the press was getting frustrated and one of the journalists said I am going to take that answer as a yes, you are going to disobey the Suprement Court of Canada if you lose.
This is an interesting precedent. You have an MP basically saying to hell with the Supreme Court, we will do what we want. They can't really do that except if they use the not withstanding clause but they won't get enough support for that. If they try to disobey the court without the not withstanding clause, that will cause an interesting constitutional situation which will become very complicated, not to mention a PR disaster. Putting that aside for a second,
M. Poilievre is not a lawyer. As to why he would comment on such a matter, especially while it is in front of the Supreme Court, is unusual. In almost all other cases, any politician would say that they can not comment on the matter while in front of the courts. I don't understand why he bothered to comment at all. By training he is a communications consultant and based on that you would think he would know how to handle the press better than he did. But when the press cornered him and wouldn't let the question go, his instinct was to run. This doesn't look good in front of the press and was carried live on CBC News Network and CTV News. As a result of this screw up, the press is now assuming that their government is going tell the Supreme Court to take a hike if the decision doesn't go their way. As he was a communications specialist, I don't understand why he didn't refer comment to either the Ministry of Justice, the PMO's office, PMO Press Unit or the Supreme Court clerk instead.
He really backed himself and the government into a corner on that one. This is going to turn into one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations.
