As the furore over the nomination of Madeleine Meilleur for the position of Official Languages Commissioner enters into its third straight sitting week, we are reminded of the pattern that outrages follow in this parliament. The fact that this is playing out in rote fashion is starting to get mighty tiresome, and yet here we are, and it's like none of the parties can help themselves.
The pattern begins with the Liberals deciding that they've had enough consultation and making a move, whatever it may be, and it blowing up in their faces. It was with trying to get government business (and most especially the assisted dying bill) passed last spring with Motion 6, the Electoral Reform committee's composition and eventual report, Bardish Chagger's "discussion paper" on modernizing the practices of the House of Commons, and now Meilleur's nomination for the post. To an extent, it's also played itself out with other scandals-du-jour, like the allegations of so-called "cash for access" fundraisers (which really wasn't cash-for-access in any recognizable sense where it has been a legitimately abusive practice in many provinces). Usually these moves happen with some manner of ham-fistedness, such as not having actually had a legitimate conversation with the opposing parties about it, but rather deciding that whatever discussions had been done were enough and they were going to take action. That was certainly the case with Motion 6, or the way that the Liberals on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee decided to prioritize the discussion paper, or with Mélanie Joly not really consulting the party leaders opposite about the short list for a new Commissioner just asking them about Meilleur.
From there, we get the opposition outrage. The government spends weeks giving banal talking points about how great the idea is, and frustrating the issue without actually addressing any of the problems or perceived problems. They don't come up with some actual or effective responses until weeks into the outrage, by which point it's too late. The opposition meanwhile manages to torque all of the issues beyond all semblance of logic or reality, spinning vast conspiracy theories based on the most disjointed threads and coincidence that build the finest tinfoil hats that Parliament has ever seen. At the same time, they start in on the procedural rulebook with dilatory motions, interminable privilege debates, and play out the theatre of the absurd (recall Niki Ashton's complaints that Justin Trudeau created an unsafe working environment for women in the wake of The Elbowing that stemmed from juvenile gamesmanship around the Motion 6 debacle, or David Christopherson's concern trolling that the RCMP would hold MPs hostage in their offices in order to ensure that they missed votes, as articulated during the latest round of privilege debates made in protest of the discussion paper). Throughout it all, the particular hypocrisies of the Conservative positions are exposed, their own time in government having usually done far worse, but this is a parliament where irony has long-since died, and there is no shame on either side in how each and every imbroglio inevitably unfolds.
In the end, weeks of the sitting calendar are consumed, nothing gets done, and Parliament as a whole looks worse for it all. And the Liberals? They eventually climb down from their position after suffering through weeks of trying not to look weak on it.
Every. Single. Time.
So with this pattern now having firmly established itself in the 42nd Parliament, what strikes me is that the Liberals have consistently brought these issues on themselves. The fact that there is this constant need to try and bring these issues to fore in the most ham-fisted manner possible, whether it was either Dominic LeBlanc, Bardish Chagger, Maryam Monsef or Mélanie Joly at the centre of it, seems to imply that there's a bigger problem with the party's leadership that is driving these particular unforced errors.
A good part of the constant wailing and gnashing of teeth is the fact that there is a need to pounce on the Liberals' high-minded promise to "do politics differently." The reality, however, is that most of the changes any government can make are really at the margins. Because politics is partisan at its core, there is only so much that one can do to try and work around it, and the Liberals, for as much as they may try to show that they are doing things differently than Stephen Harper's Conservatives, are limited in just what they can do. That the opposition is cynically looking to "prove" that the Liberals aren't living up to the promise of doing things differently has nothing to do with the fact that they are being utter hypocrites in criticizing the very things that they themselves did the Liberals promised to be different and that's all that matters.
There is also an issue that Paul Wells raised last week over Twitter, which is that there is growing evidence the Liberals don't see other Liberals as partisans, so when they bully through an issue like Meilleur, this particular cognitive dissonance that they suffer from can help to explain why they are so tone-deaf to why there could be a problem in the first place. That they rationalize and prevaricate without actually acknowledging the concerns that are raised (before those concerns spin out into conspiracy theory territory) and their digging in their heels drives the whole situation into the same outrage cycle which they could stop at any time if they played their hands differently, but they don't. And while the politicization of Meilleur's nomination (by both sides, mind you) will taint the position of Language Commissioner and the "open, transparent, merit-based" appointment process, we will see whether they have their inevitable climb down when the tumult reaches toxic levels. Regardless, in a few weeks, we seem doomed to repeat this all over again with the next Liberal blunder, unless a grown-up somewhere can talk some sense into them. But I'm not holding my breath.