Toews and Internet bill a toxic combo
OTTAWA— How badly does Stephen Harper want to resurrect his Internet surveillance bill?
The answer to that might be found in the fate of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.
Toews is — again — said to be headed to the Manitoba Court of Appeal as a judge, a story that could have been consigned to the category of summer rumour but for its remarkable persistence.
It is also not the first time Toews, a one-time provincial Crown attorney and former federal justice minister, has been expected to head home.
There is a vacancy, he is said to want the job, and he would appear to be qualified.
It is, of course, never that simple, but there are some developments that give this tale credence.
One is the snooping bill, a piece of legislation torpedoed by the minister himself with his ill-advised statement that opponents sided with child pornographers.
The ensuing fallout not only buried the bill in legislative deep freeze, it led to the leaking of the tawdry details of the minister’s divorce, the firing and subsequent rehiring of a Liberal staffer who posted the details on Twitter.
A debate about the private lives of politicians ensued, but there was no debate on the substance of the bill, blown away by fierce and speedy opposition.
But it’s not dead and is still a key piece of the law-and-order agenda of a Conservative government that has very little on its plate as the autumn session looms.
It needs a new salesman because it is so inextricably linked to Toews that he cannot sell it to a skeptical public.
The second factor is a change in tone about the mix of politics and the judiciary.
The Court of Appeal post is a federal appointment and Harper is believed to have told Toews that he would not appoint his minister directly to the bench. Instead, he would be expected to take a cooling-off period before any appointment to the bench. But Justice Minister Rob Nicholson delivered the exact opposite message when asked about Toews recently at the Canadian Bar Association. Without mentioning Toews by name, Nicholson said: “I’ve never gone out of my way to say that certain groups of individuals — people who have served, for instance, in political office — should be eliminated or sit out or anything else,” he told delegates. “On a hypothetical basis, I have never gotten into the business of eliminating any individuals or groups of individuals.’’ Toews’ office routinely denies the speculation and maintains it will take the Internet surveillance bill to a parliamentary committee for a major review. “Many journalists have said that the impending appointment of Minister Toews to the Manitoba Court of Appeal is the worst-kept secret in politics,’’ says his spokesperson, Julie Carmichael.
“If that’s the case, it’s surprising that he doesn’t know a thing about it. Every year these stories come up saying that Minister Toews is retiring from politics, and every year he returns to Parliament to continue working to keep Canadians safe.’’ She said Toews will be in his seat in the Commons in the fall, working for speedy passage of his bill to make the troubled RCMP more accountable and more responsive to the charges of sexual harassment it faces. Toews has publicly denied the Internet legislation is being iced. But there was more that just a problem in selling the legislation. The bill was fatally flawed, draw- ing criticism from federal and provincial privacy commissioners and Conservative MPs who saw the bill as a massive intrusion in personal privacy.
In its original form, it would have allowed police to track Internet users without their knowledge or consent.
Police would have been given the power to force providers to release IP addresses, without a warrant backing the order.
That provision would have to be dropped or overhauled.
A calmer, less combative, more rational salesperson would appear to be in order. Harper loves confounding. His much-anticipated summer cabinet shuffle turned out to be the departure of Bev Oda.
Conventional wisdom regularly dies at the Prime Minister’s office door.
But trying to bull ahead on this bill with Toews as its face would appear to be a losing proposition.
Either the Internet bill or the minister would have to go.
The pairing is toxic. Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca