Samara Canada recently released another survey of MPs from the current parliament, asking their thoughts on the state of debates in the House of Commons.  It should be little surprise that many MPs are dissatisfied with the state of things, and are torn on how to fix things.  But as with so many of these kinds of discussions, so much of what MPs are dissatisfied with are things that are already within their control and that they simply either don't know that they have the power to change, or they simply choose not to while still grousing about it and blaming "the party" that they nevertheless act out of loyalty to.

What I found least surprising of all was the fact that MPs find private discussions the most meaningful.  This includes debate behind caucus doors, direct conversations with ministers and party leaders, and least meaningful were Question Period and debates in the House of Commons.  This shouldn't be surprising because public "debate" is now scripted and performative, and is orchestrated by the leaders' offices.  Virtually none of it is genuine but this is something that MPs absolutely have the power to change.  They could ask questions that they wrote on topics that they are interested in if they really pressed their leader on it.  They could contribute to debate on a bill by doing their own independent research and coming up with their own points, and by not reading a script if they really wanted to.  The problem is that most don't want to, and I've heard directly from some MPs that they have no incentive to it's not rewarded, and they would rather use the time and energy on something like committee work, which again, more MPs felt was more meaningful.  This is a Very Bad Thing for our democracy, and it's something we need to get MPs to care about but that also means restoring older rules in the Chamber around banning scripts and doing away with the time limits that are being used to fill time rather than make their points and sit down.

Added to this in the survey was a general unhappiness among MPs as to the time and resources that they have available for the scrutiny role that they play when it comes to legislation and finances, like the Estimates which is the existential purpose of our Parliament.  And while I can understand that there is some frustration, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this is the fault of MPs who have decided that they would rather spend their budgets and staff allocations on doing constituency work  which is not actually part of their constitutional role.  They created a crisis in terms of the amount of work that their offices take on, and for them to moan that they don't have the resources to do their actual jobs is a bit rich, or at the very least, lacking in some very basic self-awareness.

Not surprisingly, MPs were also unhappy with the state of collaboration across party lines, but this again goes back to some basic truths about MPs that they often don't wish to confront, which is that the vast majority of MPs don't believe that they are very partisan, but that everyone else around them is.  It's the same as MPs who insist that they don't heckle even if you point of when they do which they dismiss as one-offs.  MPs say they want greater collaboration, and yet engage in partisan gamesmanship and points-scoring at most available opportunities, and worse yet, when some MPs show a willingness to act collaboratively, more often than not they are taken advantage of by their opponents who will manipulate them into voting against their own interests, which only increases the cynicism and distrust across party lines.

The Samara report included surveys on several reforms, and while I'm glad that MPs were opposed to things like ensuring a supermajority vote for a prorogation (which is a boneheaded suggestion given that you can trigger a loss of confidence with a simple majority), and the creation of a second debating chamber, they were also not in favour of things that might be in their own interest, like letting the Speaker independently decide who gets to deliver a Members' Statement on any given day, or having MPs pick committee members by secret ballot, despite the fact that statement spots and committee assignments can be used as disciplinary tools.

As for reforms that MPs do favour, I'm less enthused by the list because some of them are blatantly self-serving like changing the lottery system that determines the order of precedence for private members' business while others are complicated by the fact that MPs themselves have created the system as it exists and haven't made any moves to change it like the rules around the cameras in the chamber focusing only on the person speaking while forbidding wide shots or reactions.  Likewise, favouring the elimination of Friday sittings was complicated by the fact that they couldn't decide on how to implement it, and trying to redistribute the sitting hours would mean having to sit later in the evening on the remaining days something MPs already opted to do away with in order to be more "family friendly."  Having committee chairs elected by secret ballot was about the only useful suggestion, for what it's worth.

As with most reform discussions, so many things sound better in theory without having to think about the consequences.  MPs like to complain about things that are within their power to change, but that they rarely act on because doing so would mean acting in a manner that may have their loyalty questioned, which is one of those dynamics that these kinds of discussions rarely capture.  MPs could act more independently, but have decided that being a team player is how they want to behave in Parliament, and until we can have that discussion in an earnest manner, most of these reform discussions are simply academic.