Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken, ruled on Wednesday that International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda may have misled the House, and that the government withheld information from a committee of parliament. If another parliamentary committee agrees with him next week — and the House itself does the week after — a government and a cabinet minister will, for the first time in Canadian history, be guilty of contempt of Parliament. Opposition parties have lately seemed more and more inclined to defeat the government and force an election. They now appear to have something other than the budget to make the central issue of a potential campaign.
