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Tag: parliament
The continued decline of our Parliament from a once serious and proud institution to a deeply unserious clown show accelerated at an alarming rate over the fall sitting, particularly in the House of Commons, thought the Senate has not been immune. As the world becomes an increasingly dangerous place, with the climate emergency now in full swing, the international rules-based order under assault by Russia and its allies, liberal democracy in the West under siege from far-right actors and the likes of Viktor Orbán as he tries to position himself as a leader in post-liberal politics, Canada is on a precipice. This should be a moment where our political class wakes up and realizes that we have a lot of challenges staring us in the face, and we should be serious adults in trying to address them. That is not what is happening, and the incentives are no longer there politically for this to happen.
Things began in late summer with a Cabinet shuffle and a Liberal caucus retreat that was about the party expressing their frustration in a leader who is getting long in the tooth, and whose staff have been creating problems for the caucus as a whole. It wound up with Trudeau surviving the day, and his caucus more or less coming together, but promised action on the housing crisis, which the federal government had finally woken up to, was still some weeks away. Meanwhile, trying to remind the government about their previous “deliverology” philosophy seemed to fall on deaf ears as they convinced themselves their plunging poll numbers was simply a matter of not communicating enough, rather than of not showing results.
Things seemed to pick up in late September when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Ottawa, and gave a speech to a joint session of Parliament, but the high of that event was quickly shattered in the days that followed when it became clear that the Speaker, Anthony Rota, had introduced a constituent in the gallery who had fought for a Nazi unit in the Second World War, and called him a “Canadian hero.” Rota epitomized the unseriousness that has beset our Parliament, more concerned with showing off and being everyone’s friend than he was in doing the serious work of being Speaker, and even after he spent a weekend being berated for his judgment in making that introduction in the Chamber, he still tried to hang onto his job before the House Leaders had to gang up on him and make it clear that it was untenable.
Once Rota resigned, and the process to elect his replacement got underway, MPs once again decided not to be serious about the task at hand. Rather than choose the woman who had been doing the job of assistant Deputy Speaker for years in competent fashion, and who had taken on non-partisan roles in the years leading up to this, they instead chose the much, much more partisan Greg Fergus, who while affable, had absolutely no experience in the role of being Speaker, and the Conservatives immediately tried to undermine him publicly. Fergus didn’t help himself as he started peacocking, and within weeks, found himself the subject of a privilege motion, and later a committee report recommending a fine and another apology, because he didn’t have enough foresight and judgment not to record a video for a provincial party friend while in his robes and in his official office. It remains to be seen if he can maintain his role with two opposition parties looking to remove him from the job.
The government, trying to recapture its economic credentials with the communications exercise of “Team Economy” press conferences every Tuesday morning, and some actually sound housing policies finally rolling out, stepped on yet another rake in announcing a “pause” on the carbon price for home heating oil nationally, but because Trudeau made the announcement with all of his Atlantic Canadian MPs behind him, it looked like he was trying to disproportionately benefit one region in order to salvage his polling numbers there. It also undermined the integrity of the carbon pricing regime, and set off a frenzy of demands for more carve-outs, for all home heating (never mind the price differential for heating oil versus other forms), and for on-farm fuels that aren’t already exempt, and this in turn led to some of the worst abuses of parliament in recent memory.
In the leadup to several votes making these demands, the Conservatives turned Question Period into a nihilistic exercise in clip-gathering, repeating the same scripts over and over again but changing the MP they are trying to single out for shitpost videos that would be triggers for their flying monkeys to harass and intimidate those MPs. This also got used against Senators who moved a routine procedural motion so that more senators could join the debate on a bill the Conservatives decided was a pressing wedge on the carbon price they could weaponized, and when a couple of Conservative senators also joined in with the intimidation tactics, one of them in person rather than simply online, things have become incredibly heated in that Chamber as well.
To cap off just how unserious this has all become, Pierre Poilievre spent the last couple of weeks shilling for a disinformation “documentary” on the housing crisis he produced, while engaging in some of the dumbest procedural tactics to try and force the government’s hand on carbon price carve-outs, with a vote marathon on the Estimates (which had nothing to do with the carbon price, and only served to punish the staff of the House of Commons who had to put in overtime to make this happen), and make empty threats to extend the sitting into the holidays, even though there is a fixed calendar and he couldn’t do that, plus it would actually benefit the government because they’d have additional time to push through their legislation. And in forcing the marathon, Poilievre seemed to actually unite the Liberal caucus, which had been grousing pretty hard over Trudeau in the weeks leading up to it.
The absolute decay in what is happening in Parliament was on full display, in large part because nobody is actually worrying about public policy any longer—nearly everything is now just about their comms strategies, and pushing it out over social media. Everything is just performance—substance has almost entirely left the building, and every party shares the blame in this. Canadians cannot afford for our political leaders to be taking their eye off the ball at such a critical juncture in history, and yet all we have to show for this are stupid games that are eroding our institutions. It’s time for all parliamentarians to grow up, before it’s too late.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
It was inevitable that hybrid sessions would be returning to the House of Commons after the Liberals and NDP both decided that they were necessary, but in trying to justify the decision, there was a combination of telling on themselves, as well as creating a new and impossible standard that they will one day come to regret. On top of that, they are continuing to set a precedent for ways in which ministers can avoid accountability both from the Commons itself as well as the media, which makes this government’s promises about openness and transparency even more hollow than they already were.
For starters, part of MPs telling on themselves is the fact that this decision is decisive proof that they do not care about the health and safety of the interpretation staff. MPs have been told repeatedly that seventy percent of interpreters have suffered either acoustic or cognitive injuries as a result of the hybrid sittings, and that they are being asked to put their health and safety on the line so that MPs can stay home. They have also been told that the finite number of freelancer interpreters in the country, who have been filling in for those interpreters who are unable to work, have not been afforded the same sick benefits that the full-time interpreters have been, meaning that they are even more at risk because they can’t take the time off when they suffer the same injuries. And MPs have proven that they do not care, and that these interpreters are essentially furniture to them.
The other way that MPs told on themselves was in some of the ways they tried to justify this move as being more than just for the pandemic. NDP MP Laurel Collins took her infant into the Chamber with her, and held her during her speech so that she could demonstrate why she needs hybrid sittings for instances where she can’t travel because of her daughter. Numerous other MPs, past and present, lined up over social media to praise Collins and to insist that this was about work-life balance for young parents – no matter that MPs already can design whatever accommodations they see fit to help them, unlike any other workplace in the country (which is fair, because Parliament is not like any other workplace) – but it proves that this is not about the pandemic. Liberals were trying to institute these hybrid sittings ever since 2015, and were being rebuffed by other parties, and they didn’t let the pandemic go to waste in proving the need for this change. They mean for these changes to be permanent, and that is deleterious to the health of our Parliament going forward.
But aside from this particular bout of telegraphing motives, the overt framing that the Liberals used was to try to kick at the Conservatives for the unknown number of MPs in their caucus who allegedly have “vaccine exemptions” of dubious merit given how statistically improbably any more than one exemption would be, and the fact that at least one MP who has claimed such an exemption – Dean Allison – has also been touting the benefits of ivermectin and has invited any “scientists” who want to dispute the merits of vaccination onto his local call-in show. The most irritating part of this, however, is that the Liberals kept trying to frame this as MPs feeling “unsafe” in the House of Commons as a result. They seem to have picked up this particular rhetorical device from certain segments of the online population who use the term of feeling “unsafe” in order to shut down any content they disagree with, and clearly that was what they were hoping to achieve.
Most concerning out of all of this was the fact that MPs have now set up an impossible standard of perfect attendance that never existed before, and which should not exist. There has been so much hyperbolic rhetoric about MPs not being able to raise the concerns of their constituents in debate or in being able to vote that they have literally just made their lives hell. Yes, representation matters, but there are other avenues than simply name-checking one’s riding during a prepared twenty-minute speech based on directions given to them by the House Leader’s office. Often that input is more seen and felt in the caucus room, which is behind closed doors but sometimes that’s where important work gets done without the need for public performance around it. There are more substantive ways to represent concerns than in giving speeches, which is why the concern is so overblown.
By creating this impossible standard around attendance, MPs have just ensured that their jobs, which are already essentially 24/7, even more demanding so that they can no longer take sick days or a leave of absence if it becomes necessary, as the expectation has been set that they must either attend virtually, or vote remotely. This is neither healthy nor responsible, and it also screws future parliaments because there are sometimes tactical absences necessary to prevent the government from falling on confidence votes when there is a much narrower divide in seats in a hung parliament, where one or two votes can make that difference. Those tactical absences are going to become impossible with this standard set, which could make for far more uncomfortable situations down the road.
This is just one more example of how fetishizing technology intended to solve certain problems only winds up creating other, more serious problems down the road. It’s not like they weren’t warned, or that some of the more forward-looking MPs could see this coming. It’s not like there aren’t voices who are telling them that this will only lead to MPs becoming further siloed, where they won’t be able to interact outside of the Chamber and see each other as human beings, who know that this will only further suffocate collegiality and decorum. MPs will come to regret this move before too long, but by then it will be too late, and all for the sake of trying to score points against the Conservatives.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
