Now that we have just passed the anniversary of last year’s coalition crisis, one has to wonder how Canadians would be viewing their government had that one-year milestone occurred a couple of months back.

By the end of October, the government was revelling in its growing margin over the Liberals in the polls. The economy was showing signs of recovery. Stephen Harper had made his début as a singing sensation. And Canadians were actually showing signs of liking their prime minister personally enough to give him his elusive majority.

The Liberals were having a terrible autumn, what with their leader being the butt of much ridicule, the resignations and firings in the Office of the Opposition Leader, and a bland policy platform.

In all, it was a remarkable achievement for a prime minister who had to grovel to the Governor General to get Parliament suspended a year ago so that a short-lived coalition of the Opposition could not seize power.

But just as the Harper government — and the country — seemed to be moving to political stability after five years of minority governments, the Tories self-destructive gene kicked in and handed the Opposition an unnecessary advantage.

The Tories have spotted the Liberals a huge handicap with a widening scandal that is deflecting attention away from the Opposition’s troubles.

The current scandal over the torture of detainees in Afghanistan may not have enough traction to bring down the government; that’s because Canadians don’t actually care much about what happens to Taliban prisoners or even Afghans suspected of being Taliban.

It will, however, probably stop the Tories’ surge in the polls. On the current Canadian political landscape, it is tough enough at the best of times to win a majority government because of the strength of the Bloc Québécois. But the Tories might have been able to develop enough momentum to demonstrate that support from Quebec is not essential to form a majority government.

Now that the government intends to defy a vote of Parliament and withhold key documents in the torture affair and plunge the country into a constitutional crisis, we can only speculate on what might have been.

As has been often repeated, the root of political scandal doesn’t lie in the actual transgression. It lies in how a government behaved once it became aware of the wrongdoing.

Published reports had been leaking out of Afghanistan since 2007 that prisoners were being tortured after they were turned over to local authorities by the Canadian Forces. But Ottawa chose to ignore those reports, and even thwarted efforts by its own military complaint review panel to investigate.

Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin told a special committee of the House of Commons that he repeatedly tried to warn the government of the tortures in 2006 and 2007 in a string of emails.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay responded with blanket denial. Further, and perhaps almost as damaging, he has demonized Colvin as a Taliban dupe, effectively destroying the civil servant’s career.

In past scandals, such as the Cadmen affair, the government has been able to bully and stonewall its critics until public interest waned. But the stonewalling in this case fell apart when Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczk acknowledged that such prisoners have been tortured by Afghan jailers.

The government is risking a contempt of Parliament citation by withholding evidence. So, in exactly a year, the Harper government has gone from one crisis to another.

What would have happened if the government had simply said that as Canada was inexperienced in fighting wars, it was unable to prevent torture by Afghan authorities but continues to take steps to prevent it?

Sure, the government would have taken its lumps in the Commons for a couple of days. But by the time Parliament rose for the Christmas break, the Tories would have resumed their march toward a majority.

Recently, Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former Tory cabinet minister, made an interesting speech, in which he argued it is time that Canada focused on its future before a changing world order passes it by.

In a continuing minority government, he said, short-term tacticians rule and policy strategists take a distant back seat. But the brinksmanship is getting out of hand.

A minority government’s greatest preoccupation is the consolidation of enough voter support to win a majority. The current minority government is amply demonstrating this principle — so much so that the government’s preference for ugly tactics and gamesmanship over the Opposition may actually be working against its goal of securing a majority by alienating more and more voters.

In other words, the government has yet to make the full transition from being an Opposition party. This probably explains why the electorate continues to be ambivalent about all the parties in the Commons.

Perhaps the Tories would have a better chance at snapping what is now the longest minority streak in Canadian parliamentary history by demonstrating to Canadians that they know how to govern for the long term.

But this would mean leaving the bully tactics of Ontario’s former Mike Harris government behind for good and showing more respect for the basic principles of our democracy, as contained in our parliamentary traditions and the integrity of our public institutions. After all, it ultimately comes down to respect for Canadians themselves.

IE