As the House of Commons resumed this past week for the winter sitting, it was noticeably different from even the pandemic-ravaged attendance of the fall. Now, the Chamber is virtually empty. There aren't even enough MPs present to meet the constitutionally-required quorum of twenty, having adopted a cute little end-run around the requirement by way of a monster unanimous consent motion that allowed them to count online attendance as part of quorum (along with the allowances for hybrid sittings and the incoming adoption of their Abomination of a voting app). Even if the legality of this end-run is dubious at best, the wrong message is being sent to Canadians by conducting themselves in this manner, and that is that the government has given up.
What is especially galling about this move is that the Liberals have sent a single MP to the Chamber every day for Question Period with an occasionally second one who will either swap in or sit for part of the proceedings. Even with the opposition being slightly better represented, it's still bleak. There should be no excuse for not sending more than one MP in the Commons, particularly if you're not even meeting quorum. It's not even that hard to get MPs from the region who wouldn't need to travel and given that there are a couple of local ministers, it would be even better for them to be in the Chamber, because there should be someone from Cabinet in the Chamber at all times in order to answer. That's part of the point of Responsible Government so that someone from government can be there to be held to account.
It is even more maddening that the prime minister hasn't made an appearance, even for Wednesday's QP, where he has taken it upon himself to respond to (though not necessarily answer) all questions being put. This avoidance has the feel of a contemptuous attitude toward Parliament itself, and it certainly offends the dignity of the institution. There is tremendous symbolic weight to having the prime minister in the Chamber, because it sends a message of reassurance that the institution survives and is standing in the face of what is going on around it. To that same effect, the absence is a very loud signal that the government can't even be bothered to make that symbolic stand at a time of uncertainty and crisis.
We are at a precipitous moment in our history, where the threats to democracy are growing. The rise of authoritarianism in several democracies, including within the United States, should have us all worried (and no, Biden's victory does not change that, because the ecosystem that created Donald Trump's presidency remains largely intact). There is a very real sense that people are giving up on government, and that the social fabric is fraying, along with our faith in our institutions. That the government itself is not even showing up to Parliament looks an awful lot like them not having any faith in their own institutions, or in the value of symbolically asserting that those institutions are alive and in place during such a crisis.
I already know the retort to this, because I've been getting it from Liberals and their supporters all week that they feel they are setting a good example of working from home for the rest of Canadians, and there is an underlying self-satisfied smugness to this assertion. But this makes the underlying assumption that being an MP is some kind of nine-to-five office job, and that our elected representatives are little different from Tom in sales, or Karen from finance. (Well, not Karen From Finance, but you get the drift). We've already seen this attitude creeping in over the last few parliaments, such as when there were instances of sexual harassment between MPs and they wondered why they didn't have an HR department to complain to a mind-shattering concept considering that they are elected officials and not employees. And Parliament is not something that can be done remotely. For it to be effective, it must be as in-person as possible because its value is in the relationships that it forms on the margins of the official proceedings.
What is also concerning is the fact that just as I was warning that the hybrid and virtual voting measures being adopted for this pandemic were never going to be temporary if the Liberals had anything to say about it, they went ahead and proved my point that their attitude around parliament is one that is, frankly, insufficiently reverential to the institution and what it represents. They are setting up for themselves dangerous precedents, and frankly the fact that they are undermining processes, as with their too-cute-by-half end-run around the constitutional requirement for quorum, should be concerning.
Either you believe in our institutions or you don't, and the Liberals are sending a loud signal that they obviously don't, and that should be alarming to everyone. There are things worth spending money and political capital on to do in-person, to show that these sacrosanct institutions will stand in the face of whatever biological, psychological, or technological threat that faces the nation, for the sake of the psyche its people. Having a critical mass of our leaders and elected officials in the same place to hold the line is a visual of them doing just that holding the line. And believe it or not, there is a psychological cost when people don't believe that the government is holding firm.
An empty House of Commons, and the prime minister staying away, only appearing from home by video, is sending the message that Parliament doesn't matter, that it's not essential, and that the business of the country, both in setting policy and in holding the government to account for that policy, is optional. It's cheapening the symbolic weight that Parliament holds in the minds of the nation, and it's reinforcing the false notion that this is some kind of middle management office job. It's none of these things, and it is absolutely outrageous that the Liberals think this is somehow okay.
