Doug Ford can't hide behind parliamentary privilege this time

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his former Solicitor-General Sylvia Jones are still refusing to testify at the commission examining the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act to break up the truckers' convention (the so-called "Freedom Convoy") this last February.

After initially repeatedly claiming that he hasn't been asked, Ford eventually admitted that, oh yes, he had been asked, at which point he changed tack. Now, he's claiming parliamentary privilege, a legal remedy designed to ensure that politicians are not constantly being called in to testify in court, supposedly so that they can get on with the business of day-to-day governing. It is not, however, designed to allow politicians to evade responsibility and avoid public questioning on potentially embarrassing policies and decisions. 

Ford is presumably going to be sitting in court pursuant to his claim of parliamentary immunity anyway, so he may as well be sitting at the commission for a few hours answering questions about why he was missing in action during the Freedom Convoy. It wouldn't have been anything to do with his sneaking admiration for a group of rebels taking on the Liberal government, would it?

When Doug Ford finally deigned to answer one of the many questions on the subject in parliamentary Question Time, he merely read a pre-prepared speech: "This is a federal inquiry into the federal government's use of the federal Emergencies Act. From day one, for Ontario, this was a policing matter, not a political matter." All this with a supercilious and painstaking emphasis on the "federal" and "policing", as though to say, "Can't the opposition understand this?" 

But, as so often, Dougie is missing the point, either deliberately or through ignorance. The commission has specifically asked for HIM to testify, on the grounds that the two lowly functionality he did provide to the commission were just not privy to many of the decisions that were made. Whether Ford himself thinks he should have been called or not is neither here nor there. 

It may be a federal inquiry, but Ford can still throw light on events over which the province had some responsibility, including why the province declined to participate in no less than three meetings with the federal government and the City of Ottawa, why the province did not invoke its own Emergencies Act, and whether or not there were political considerations in the province's response to the Windsor border blockade versus the protests in Ottawa.

The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that Ford and/or Jones have something important, or at least embarrassing, to hide in all this, something worse than all the negative attention his refusal to answer the commission's summons is creating. But that's not a reason to invoke parliamentary privilege. Justin Trudeau and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson managed to find the time, Ford should do so too.

UPDATE

Well, it turns out Doug Ford CAN in fact hide behind parliamentary privilege. A Federal Court judge ruled that, although Ford and Jones had important relevant evidence to contribute to the Emergencies Act inquiry, and could have done the right thing by volunteering to be cross-examined, they could technically invoke parliamentary privilege in order to avoid it. Doesn't make it smell any better, though.