Forty years ago a light-hearted moment in Parliament indicated darker days ahead.
In May 1985 the “
made up T-shirts and presented one to John Turner, the leader of the opposition. It was thought some innocent fun, a bit of brio for a deflated Liberal party. Even if it was fun then, it hasn’t been for a long time.
After the 1984 Mulroney landslide, the Liberals were in rough shape, reduced to only 40 MPs, only 10 more than the NDP, and wondering about their relevance. Into that vacuum stepped four MPs — young, brash and attention-seeking. They pilloried the Mulroney government in question period, especially in regard to patronage and assorted scandals. They brought energy to the dispirited, dreary Grits.
They got the nickname “Rat Pack” and revelled in it. Brian Tobin of Newfoundland was the senior “statesman” of the group, having been first elected in 1980. The other three were part of the 1984 intake: Sheila Copps of Hamilton, Ont., John Nunziata from Toronto and Don Boudria from east of Ottawa.
Parliament had only been broadcast since the late 1970s. Television was introduced to inform, but carried with it the potential to outrage. The Rat Pack brought the outrage in abundance. It made for good television, contemporary with salacious daytime talk shows and 15 years ahead of reality television.
The Rat Pack was politically effective. Turner encouraged them because they brought new vigour; Brian Mulroney’s cabinet — John Crosbie most of all — inveighed against them as they held it to account; the media loved them for generating easy-to-cover controversy; and the public rewarded the Rat Pack with the higher profiles that led to three of the four becoming cabinet ministers.
The proudly progressive Rat Pack would be loath to consider themselves progenitors of Trumpian politics, but the all-outrage-all-the-time, name-calling, hyper-partisan, attack-dog style is not a matter of liberal or conservative. It may be more compatible with populist politicians, but that it was perfected by the Liberal Rat Pack demonstrates that it is malleable packaging that can be wrapped around shifting content.
Parliament will resume sitting in 10 days with the genuine grace of having King Charles III read the Speech from the Throne. It was an inspired invitation from Prime Minister Mark Carney, and there is no doubt that His Majesty’s visit will inspire patriotism and pride in a sovereign Canada.
It will be the perfect occasion to restore the dignity of Parliament, especially question period in the House of Commons. For those who can bear to watch, the affair is marked by duelling ovations, each side leaping to its feet to feverishly applaud any and all utterances, no matter how banal, devoid of wit, or empty of substance. When not standing in a cacophonous uproar, they are seated, barracking in a never-ending orgy of argy-bargy.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Alberta showed the way some years ago, after Jason Kenney won the Progressive Conservative leadership in 2017. After witnessing the raucous spectacle of the legislature (before he had a seat), he
to do something about it if elected. When he entered the legislature in 2018 as leader of the United Conservative Party in opposition, he declared unilateral disarmament. His caucus would not applaud, heckle or thump their desks. In early 2019,
, if elected premier, the UCP would change the standing orders to demand decorum all around. He did, and Albertans could be proud of the MLAs on both sides. Regrettably, those reforms have not endured under his successor.
Childish behaviour in Parliament is a bit like the weather; everyone complains about it but nobody does anything to correct it. Someone always objects on the supposed grounds that proper behaviour would somehow be advantageous for the other side.
This month offers a rare opportunity where that should not apply. Both Pierre Poilievre and Andrew Scheer, who will the lead the Conservatives in the House of Commons, have amply demonstrated that they can successfully launch a full-throttle attack on the government. They have nothing to prove in that regard, but do have a partisan interest in showing their capacity to hold to account, to enquire, to propose alternatives in a less combative style — as Poilievre himself did toward the end of the election campaign. Constructive criticism is in the Conservative interest.
As for the prime minister, he concluded his campaign
to the late Mario Cuomo’s aphorism that political leaders “campaign in poetry, and govern in prose.”
“I campaigned in prose,” he said. “So I’m going to govern in econometrics.”
Not even this economist finds econometrics rhetorically engaging, but his point remains. Part of Carney’s political attraction is a sober, even sedate, presentation of substance. He could attempt the melodrama of Justin Trudeau, backed up by the murine squealing of his backbenchers, but he would not be good at it — and why would he want to be?
The propriety of Parliament, a bipartisan concurrence of interests, the public good, the King’s visit — the moment is there for the ceremonial seizing, like the mace that embodies the authority of the House of Commons.
The mischief of the Rat Pack was entertaining but destructive. Forty years is long past time to bury it.
National Post
