The Speech from the Throne contained many things, but one of them was a plea for greater cooperation in a hung parliament, starting with the droll truism that "Canadians have sent a clear message: from young people to seniors, they want their Parliamentarians to work together on the issues that matter most to them."  Taking from the cues in Speech, the Executive Director of the Samara Centre for Democracy penned an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen that call for specific reforms to "transform Parliament" by which they actually mean the House of Commons, but why should a group that prides itself on advancing civic literacy get this basic point right?

It's all well and good for parties to talk about greater cooperation and collaboration in politics, but what they usually wind up meaning is "do the things we want."  There is very little actual give-and-take in a hung parliament that is not done with electoral calculation in mind it is never magnanimous.  A prime example is when Jason Kenney, then-immigration minister in the Harper government, was forced to put water in his wine and accept opposition amendments to his proposed immigration reform bill.  It is still cited as an example of how Kenney was willing to work with others.  What is not mentioned is that as soon as Stephen Harper had secured a majority in the House of Commons, that he and Kenney rushed through changes that would negate those amendments to the immigration reforms he was forced to accept, so that his initial vision won out in the end.  There was no actual cooperation or collaboration it was a smokescreen for tactical gain.

And yet, Samara's Kendall Anderson writes that cross-party collaboration is needed, and that rules changes to accomplish it must include the Liberals' previously floated plan of doing away with speaking lists, electing committee chairs by the whole House of Commons, reducing the use of omnibus legislation, and allowing petitions to trigger debates.  And yet, amidst the dire warnings that Canadians are losing faith in democracy, absolutely none of these proposals will actually do anything to promote cooperation or collaboration.

"Abolishing whips' lists would be a modest change to reduce the scripted nature of parliamentary debates and make MPs freer to speak on behalf of their constituents and conscience," writes Anderson.  "It is an easy change to accomplish, given the apparent consensus that already exists, and would send a positive signal that this Parliament is capable of cross-partisan cooperation for a healthier democracy."

Amusingly, Anderson's proof that this would be an easy cross-partisan fix is because Trudeau proposed it in his election platform, and when Andrew Scheer was Speaker of the Commons, he allowed for some people not on the speaking lists to "catch his eye" and give them a chance to speak when their party leadership wouldn't.  Absent from Anderson's analysis, however, was the context behind why Scheer went on a limb for these MPs it was because they were the anti-abortion MPs that Harper was actively trying to keep a lid on so that they wouldn't cause headaches for the party when it came to an election.  He didn't want the clips of them spouting off about trying to limit or ban abortion to circulate, because he knew full well that the Liberals or the NDP would weaponize them, and Scheer, who sympathized with those MPs, gave them what Harper denied them.  That circumstance doesn't appear to be in play currently.

I've written before about how abolishing the speaking lists is a good and necessary thing, but it is only a half-measure.  So long as the rules still allow MPs to read from prepared scripts, merely abolishing the official speaking lists will simply allow the parties to carry on with an unofficial list based on the scripts that they have distributed to their MPs for the day.  Only in banning all prepared scripts (with the exceptions listed in the 1956 Speaker's Ruling, such as maiden speeches, the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, and the budget) can we get away from the broken culture in our House of Commons but that won't actually do anything meaningful about cross-party cooperation.  If the intention was that the mere act of banning the lists is the demonstration of cooperation, it's not going to produce any lasting change either.

The rest of the suggestions would also be of little use in promoting cooperation.  Electing committee chairs?  Good idea in theory, but limited in utility because chairs are supposed to act in a non-partisan manner and they don't vote, and we have seen evidence from the UK that doing this has only given licence for those committee chairs to make spectacles of themselves in the media, because they feel emboldened to do so.  I'm not sure how this breeds cooperation.  Reducing omnibus legislation?  Again, a good and necessary idea which has largely already been accomplished but it has nothing to do with ensuring collaboration, and abusive omnibus legislation has been the tool of governments who are looking to get things passed when there is little cooperation to be had.  And having petitions trigger debates?  Aside from the fact that this merely invites "Boaty McBoatface" debates, there is again nothing to demonstrate how this fosters cooperation.

I get that there is a desire for simple or quick fixes to mend what ails our democracy, but real life doesn't work like that.  Toxic partisanship or the centralization of power aren't the result of the Standing Orders they're deeper issues with the ways in which our parties have hollowed themselves out at the altar of presidentializing their leaders, particularly with our bastardized leadership selection processes.  The cure for these ills requires a much deeper and more meaningful re-engagement with our political system at the grassroots level, and will require a hell of a lot of organizing and agitation to pull these parties back from the brink, but Samara has consistently ignored these root problems in favour of simple tweaks.  These calls are no different.

Photo Credit: CBC News