Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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A pretty good day for the NDP

by Paul Wells on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 4:29pm - 111 Comments

One of the most widely-read and respected Liberal bloggers in the history of that vitally important medium is none too pleased that the NDP have “outflanked the sloth-like Liberals.”

UPDATE: Nothing slothlike about this. Michael Ignatieff is going to smite the Conservatives by holding a town hall on his Facebook page. I am officially forbidden by the Pundits’ Guild to make fun of Facebook-related political action, so… draw your own conclusions.

Tags: ideas come in handy, making parliament work more gooder

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Anon Liberal

I understand SteveV's frustration but the problem isn't prorogation, it's the abuse of prorogation to try and get out of political hot water.

There are circumstances where prorogation would be perfectly appropriate (i.e. when a govt has largely finished up its legislative agenda or if a party in power changes leaders). The main difference between the Liberals and the NDP is that the Liberals always have to think in a more serious way about what the real life implications would be before adopting a position.

tobyornottoby

"… think in a more serious way"

Do you mean they have to be careful not to support or oppose something that they might later be responsible for in government, like the FTA or the GST?

Or do you mean they stroke their long white beards and say "hear hear" after they propose a policy?

Why is that? You mean like on FTA? Or the GST? Do they stroke their long beards while making policy?

Anon Liberal

Yes I was referring to beard stroking toby.

The GST is a good example of short-term thinking coming back to hurt the Liberals. They were luckier on the Free Trade where they got away with playing both sides (although both major parties had a long history of flip-flopping on that issue).

Orson Bean

There's certainly some truth to what you say. I don't mean to be unduly negative, but an example of what you're talking about came out the other day when a couple of journos wrote these hagiographic articles about NDP MP Peter Stoffer. I think Stoffer is fundamentally a decent, thoughtful guy. There's a lot to like and praise about him. But the (utterly uncritical) upshot of these articles (and the hoovering letters to the editor that followed) was that all MPs from all parties should be like Peter Stoffer. Bear in mind that Stoffer is like the lifetime home-run king when it comes to private member's bills. Essentially, it's the idealistic wish-list approach to government. And in PRACTICAL terms, if every MP behaved like Stoffer, we would be choking to death in private member's bills. And if we passed all those bills, we would have so many bloody statutes on our books that it would be something truly insane and dystopic, like something out of Orwell or Huxley in its absurdity. There would probably be a law governing what colour shirt I wear.

Anon Liberal

I think it's good to have protest parties that essentially serve to push forward a certain ideological agenda without serious hopes of attaining power…unless they end up siphoning enough votes away that they help elect reactionary governments.

I'm all for a few Peter Stoffers and Elizabeth Mays, but you're right, too many would make the country ungovernable.

I understand why people get frustrated with brokerage politics and brokerage parties but real change almost always comes incrementally. It makes a difference long-term if you're tilting in one direction as opposed to another.

Orson Bean

I forgot to add, although I find the quality of Simpson's columns these days varies from excellent to forgettable, his column yesterday on this general topic was excellent. Especially his theory about the LPC spending too much time operating in fear of the Tory attack machine, fear of offending etc.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/ther…
http://intensedebate.com/people/medererobert medererobert

Hey, it could have been worse… he could have hosted a twitter town hall.
DPT

yes, it would be truth.
shouldIsellyourwheat

Isn't prorogation a power of the monarch/governor general. Thus, doesn't it need unanimous provincial and parliamentary consent to amend the Constitution to take this power away from the Governor General and assign it to Parliament like the NDP suggests?

orval

The power to summon, dismiss and prorogue the House of Commons is one of the royal prerogatives and as such is not part of the Consitution (beyond the constitutional requirement that Parliament is in session at least once per year). Tradition dictates that a session of Parliament is prorogued by the GG upon the advice of the Prime Minister.

It would only become a constitutional "crisis" if the GG did NOT follow the PM's advice as happened in the 1926 King-Byng affair.

A piece of legislation as proposed by the NDP if passed would not impact the royal prerogative, i.e. the GG does not require the consent of the House of Commons to assent to the advice of the Prime Minister to prorogue a session of Parliament. This is similar in principle to the argument that the PM broke the fixed election law in 2008. The fixed election law does not bind the royal prerogative to summon, dismiss or prorogue a Parliament or Parliamentary session.