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Every time the Harper government crosses a line between what elected governments do and what they must never do, we have to wonder: How much longer can it get away with it? Is the law really just a weapon to be wielded by those with power — in order to hold on to that power? Is that all government is for now?

Whenever Prime Minister Stephen Harper finds himself in a corner, he digs himself out with whatever tools are available, ethical or otherwise. His methods are limited only by the degree of his desperation. So he shuts down Parliament when the questions get too close to the bone. He refuses to allow scientists to talk to Canadians about the research they’re paying for — the better to push arguments that fly in the face of science. He drafts a ‘fair’ election law designed to boost his chances of winning the next election.

So far, Harper has limited himself to offending democracy and the law. Now he’s re-writing history. Buried in his government’s latest omnibus budget bill is an amendment to the Access to Information Act which denies people the opportunity to make access to information requests for data from the defunct long gun registry.

Big deal, right? The data was destroyed months ago, when the Harper government repealed it. But this amendment is backdated to the day the government introduced the bill to kill the registry — not the day the bill became law. It also would protect the RCMP and other government officials from any lawsuits or prosecutions linked to the destruction of the registry data — retroactively.

Why would Harper do this? Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault alleges the RCMP destroyed registry records before the bill to destroy the long-gun registry became law, and after she told them to preserve the data while she investigated a complaint about a request for the information.

She did not mince words. “I think when this bill is being debated and when this bill is voted upon in Parliament,” she said, “each parliamentarian has to look at himself or herself in the mirror and decide whether their integrity allows them to vote for this bill.”

In other words, if this passes — which is highly likely — the government will be declaring by fiat that the RCMP did not break the law … even if it broke the law.

This is not about bringing back the gun registry, although the Conservatives’ talking points would like to convince you it is. This is about a government perverting the law for political purposes. This is not about bringing back the gun registry, although the Conservatives’ talking points would like to convince you it is. This is about a government perverting the law for political purposes.

Harper is dismissing this bit of legal ass-covering as the simple act of closing a “loophole”. It isn’t, and he’s not a lawyer — but surely to God someone in this government must have explained to him at some point that you don’t amend laws retroactively to make a crime not a crime, even when the actors in question were police officers obeying the will of a majority government. Harper tried the same thing once before, when he denied accelerated parole to offenders already serving their sentences — and the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional.

This is not about bringing back the gun registry, although the Conservatives’ talking points would like to convince you it is. This is about a government perverting the law for political purposes.

Stephen Harper is not a good loser — and he’s been losing a lot lately. The Supreme Court justices barely gave themselves time for a bathroom break last week before they came back and shot down the government’s argument that Omar Khadr deserved more time in a federal penitentiary — the third humiliating court defeat for the government on the Khadr file, if anyone’s counting.

Now that Harper thinks he’s perfected a legislative time machine, should Khadr be worried? Will the next “tough-on-crime” bill include an amendment to the Criminal Code to deny bail to any Canadian who confesses to a terrorist act after spending a decade in an illegal facility where he was tortured?

Will Harper amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to say that all teenagers who went to Afghanistan in 2005 and killed a U.S. soldier cannot be sentenced, even in another country, as a young offender? Could he amend his Life Means Life Act — which is not even close to being law yet — to retroactively apply to anyone named Omar Ahmed Khadr so he can never be released from prison unless Stephen Harper personally says it’s okay?

Forget party affiliation for a moment; Legault herself speculated about what the Liberals could have done a decade ago in order to eliminate the threat of the sponsorship scandal, had they been in a position to do what Harper is doing right now. “Because this could have been done, you know, to erase the authority of the auditor general in 2005 when she was investigating the sponsorship scandal,” she said.

In short, this is about whether Canada is going to be, from now on, a country under the rule of law, or one under an autocrat’s thumb. Because if Harper gets away with this, so will the next prime minister who tries it.

Harper told us we wouldn’t recognize this country when he was done with it. Was he right?

Steve Sullivan has been advocating for victims for almost 20 years, having served as the president of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and as the first federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. He has testified before parliamentary committees on victims’ rights, justice reform and public safety issues and has conducted training for provincial and federal victim services staff. He is the executive director of Ottawa Victim Services and a part time instructor at Algonquin College. His views are his own and do not represent any agency with which he is associated.

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