Tories order aides not to testify in front of House committees

By David Akin, Canwest News Service May 23, 2010
OTTAWA — The federal government has ordered that Conservative political aides refuse to testify at House of Commons committees, a decree that sets Stephen Harper’s Conservatives on another collision course with Parliament. Jay Hill, the government House leader, will announce the new policy Tuesday morning in the House of Commons. “Ministers are the ones who are accountable and answer to Parliament,” Dimitri Soudas, Prime Minister Harper’s director of communications, said Sunday on CTV’s Question Period. Soudas said it was unfair that Conservative political aides who had been called to testify at Commons committees had been "humiliated and intimidated" by opposition MPs. The government is arguing that the parliamentary concept of ministerial responsibility trumps a House of Commons committee’s right to question any witness it wants and, if necessary, use the power of a parliamentary subpoena to compel testimony.