What a MacMinister!

This Conservative government is certainly different. Peter MacKay brings out the revolutionary idea that there is no need for a parliamentary debate because how long Canadian soldiers are going to be in Afghanistan will be determined by the generals. Mr. MacKay is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the senior cabinet minister in charge of our relationship with other countries. It is Mr. MacKay’s responsibility, along with the PM, to determine whether they should ask parliament to send troops aboard. This is one of the fundamental principles of our political system. If the generals are going to determine our military’s stay overseas, what do we need MacKay for? Or, parliament, for that matter. Mackay is a smart guy, I assume, so it certainly looks like he and his government are creating plausible deniability. Should things continue to go badly in Afghanistan they can just put the blames on the generals—“they told us to do it!” He is setting the military up for the fall. For a party that likes to say they support the troops, this is particularly despicable.