Rex Murphy: For the sake of his integrity, Marco Mendicino should resign
Rex Murphy #RexMurphy
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Ministerial responsibility is but a dream in the Trudeau government
Publishing date:
Jun 10, 2022 • June 10, 2022 • 4 minute read • 561 Comments 
Public Safety Marco Mendicino is seen on Feb. 15, 2022, the day after it was announced the government was invoking the Emergencies Act to deal with the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. A parliamentary committee is now holding an inquiry into the use of the act. Photo by Blair Gable / Reuters Article content
I have today a grim and possibly, in the current moment, arcane subject: the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in the parliamentary system. It is possible, I suppose, to have chosen another topic even more leaden and esoteric, one guaranteed to drive readers away and usher them to the much superior enlightenments of Lord Black. Such as, for example, the CBC’s concept of comedy.
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But we all have our limits.
Here goes and be patient. Once upon a time there was a doctrine that when a government department “screwed up,” the minister, even if he or she was not the direct agent of the particular foul, would resign. Obviously, the doctrine no longer applies, as recent events in Canada have so splendidly illustrated. But it is still worth a visit, just as history, to the concept, if for nothing else but to remind people of when politics had some elements of honour.
I begin with a reference to the British House of Commons, still, if ever fading as such, the source and nursery of parliamentary tradition. And an episode which explains what the phrase — so unfamiliar today — “ministerial responsibility” used to mean. A key moment some 40 years ago, during the tenure as prime minister of the lioness, the Hon. Margaret Thatcher, illustrates it perfectly.
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It is worthwhile to remind people of when politics had some elements of honour
Bluntly stated, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The Brits were caught totally off guard. They had not so much as a whisper of anticipation of the event. Their fabled MI6 had been dumb on the point. And the foreign office in particular was caught, most spectacularly, with its pants down and the whole world gaping at its ineptitude.
It was a great diplomatic failure. The foreign secretary at the time was Lord Peter Carrington.
Do you, dear Reader, know what he did? Within three days, this minister stood in that House of Commons and … resigned.
Here was his reasoning. He took full responsibility for the failure of his department to foresee the invasion and, being minister of that department, saw that failure as his. He, personally, was not at fault. His department had messed up. And that was, on a point of honour and tradition sufficient reason, as he saw it, for his resignation. A man of conscience and dignity, obeying the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.
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There is another side to this. Here is what he did not do.
Rex Murphy: What the minister meant to say about suspending Canadians’ rights 
Rex Murphy: Please prove me wrong about this farce of an inquiry into the Emergencies Act He did not have his deputy minister go before a Parliamentary committee and (try to) explain to it that he, as minister, had really meant to keep an eye on Argentina and the Falklands, but relaxed his vigilance.
He did not slide into slippery talk about why he couldn’t possibly have guessed Argentinian intentions.
He did not claim he had “misspoken,” tried to wriggle off the hook, or send his deputy minister out to excuse “explain” the failure.
Not at all.
He said as minister it was his mess. And as it was his mess, his honour, and his respect for the principle of “ministerial responsibility” demanded he resign. He let go of his status, his perks, even some of his reputation. It was a matter of dignity and, most of all, respect for the system of parliamentary democracy.
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Now, let us change the scene.
Truckers convoy. Emergencies Act. Marco Mendicino.
Mendicino, the minister of public safety, testified many times that the police forces had requested him to bring in the Emergencies Act.
They did not.
By their own testimony.
Civil liberties and the Charter were nullified, the rights of citizens to protest suffocated, financial and personal privacy invaded, and the police (and possible spy) forces of the country were given unseen powers by the invocation of that act.
Civil liberties and the Charter were nullified
And the minister who put the act into motion, who halted the operations of Canadian democracy, has been proven — by his own words and those of his deputy — to have given a false account of why the government of Canada did what it did.
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And rather than explain matters himself, he has hidden behind the skirts of his underling.
The dignified and immensely more honourable Lord Carrington did not pluck someone from further down the chain to take the heat and bear the blame. Lord Carrington had honour. He effectively said: “I am the minister. If my department fails, it is because I have failed.”
This is what is, or was, called “ministerial responsibility.” Where, oh where has it gone?
In the Canadian case, it is the minister himself who has failed, who misrepresented the reason we had this deplorable overreach of the Emergencies Act, and instead of standing up to take the blame, he has tried to pass it all off as a slip of his too ambiguous tongue.
Ministerial responsibility is a dream in the Trudeau government. Or nightmare — pick your terms.
Mr. Mendicino should, for the sake of his own integrity, resign.
National Post
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