Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'Kangaroo court'

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, March 10, 2011 10:09am - 41 Comments

During debate yesterday following the Speaker’s ruling, Conservative Tom Lukiwski, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, expressed his reverence for our parliamentary system.

On his first point, does the member believe that bringing the question before this House would have a fair and judicial response? Of course not. This would be nothing more than a kangaroo court.

Tags: Bev Oda, house of commons, KAIROS, Parliament, privilege, Tom Lukiwski

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Joe Sixpack

Lukwiski reminds me of a salesman trying to sell me the protective undercoating for a pre owned 1996 Pontiac Sunfire.
John D

That guy's still around?
Stewart_Smith

Lukiwski represents an important demographic for the Conservative party, which quite rightly has concerns about the legitimacy of the HoC. After all it is well known that in some ridings the public has made the irresponsible decision to democratically elect representatives with dirty fingernails.

Loraine Lamontagne

One of them has become minister of justice.

CAPS

Justice? Really? I hadn't heard about that one before. I mean there is the obvious Government member who in Mr. Lukiwski's opinion would definitely be a "B".
tedbetts

De facto Deputy Premier, Government House Leader and Bev Oda Spokesman, perhaps, but I don't think the Minister of Justice. Haven't heard any rumours about Nicholson before. And I'm sure that would be a surprise to his wife and three kids.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Ottawa_Centrist Ottawa_Centrist

Treating the House as a kangaroo court does not make it so, Mr. Lukiwski. Only if everyone shared your disdain would the House be demoted.
madeyoulook

This is looking better and better for the opposition, IF they can be trusted to stay on the high road. Question Period over the last several weeks does not offer one much hope. But let's see how the committee handles the charges, the evidence, and the MPs' answers to the charges.

CPC MPs will want this to turn into a circus of disruption and mudslinging, desperately hoping opposition MPs sink to the same depths. It has obviously started already. How well the opposition MPs skate away from these dropped gloves will be easy enough for Canadians to see over the next days and weeks.

tedbetts

They will filibuster just enough to delay any report or vote until after the budget.
WDM

Excellent point. The Conservatives are vulnerable when they're flying off the handle. Opposition would be smart to avoid doing the same thing. The government has shown in the past they're perfectly willing to accept the revenue neutral verdict of all the parties being hated equally.

madeyoulook

Unsolicited advice to opposition parties:

If the Speaker won't instantly disallow questions on the two matters in QP anyways, STOP any chirping about it there yourselves. Do NOT whore yourselves before any willing camera or microphone, beyond the no-comment type of quote ("Well, yes, these are very serious charges that go to the heart of how Canadians govern themselves, so I am delighted that this committee of peers from all parties will study the evidence, and I am even more delighted that the MPs in question will have a full opportunity to confront the evidence and answer to these charges. While the matter is being studied there as carefully as possible, I choose to say nothing more here. Let's just see where a proper study of the charges takes us."). Inside the committee, be polite, tough-but-fair, even slightly bend-over-backwards fair (e.g. "This can't be easy for you, so I just want to make sure: is there anything more you want to say now to support your case?"). Avoid ANY party literature or advertising that seeks to exploit this matter while feigning dispassionate impartiality inside the committee room.

John_Edgar

I completely agree with this, and I would look favourably on the opposition parties if they behaved in this way. Unfortunately I'd be really surprised if they did.

gottabesaid

Lukiwski knows very well this is not a kangaroo court. As Warner Bros. cartoons have illustrated for years, if this were a kangaroo court, a kangaroo would have spun him on its feet like a ball and launched him into the gallery a long time ago. Just ask Sylvester the Cat. So, enough hyperbole, thank you.
Leo

Hmmm…the rest of that quote from Lukiwski "If we brought the question before this House, of course it would be, with the attitude of the opposition on this question."

This is the Bev Oda "NOT" issue – still sparing over McKay should have had a follow-up question when she said she did not know who wrote the NOT.

The amount of sarcasm between all parties makes me wonder how any of them can use the term 'honourable'.

Jaffer comments on committee process: "This group of parliamentarians has undermined the committee process, by abusing their power and turning this whole episode into a circus." http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-b…

Loraine Lamontagne

I don't find the attitude of the opposition different than it was when the conservative was in the opposition.

Leo

Not disagreeing with you on that. Minority governments seem to bring out the worst in all of them!!!

Reverend_Blair

Lukiwski and the rest of his party have no respect for our democratic institutions whatsoever.
Turd_Ferguson

The HoC is the Celebrity Jeopardy of politics.

Alot of people trying to get some face time saying idiotic things.

Does anyone take it seriously anymore?
Mike T.

If it worked for Ezra, why not for another disingenuous right wing slimeball?
Loraine Lamontagne

Another Conservative MP, Palliser I believe was his name, used to call it a court of public opinion. What's good for the goose….
tedbetts

So now it is the Speaker of the House of Commons who is biased and out to get the Conservatives, eh? The one that the Conservatives have not complained about before and, if memory serves, at least many of them voted for.

And he is to be added to:

Elections Canada whose head was appointed by Harper

The Public Prosecutors Office which was created and of which all appointees were made by Harper

The Court of Appeal

Well, heck, as he said in 2006, all of the courts including the Supreme Court

All civil servants (at least those who have not been pushed out for doing their job)

The Media, of course

Business groups, religious groups, charitable groups, community groups, municipalities, provincial governments, NGOs, advocacy groups, statisticians, universities (on the census at least)

Canadian voters (since, despite using every tool in the government's tool box and being told over and over and over again – with our own money, natch – the vast majority of us still don't like Harper or support his government)

Have we left anyone out? Is there anyone left who doesn't have a bias against the Conservatives?
SanDiegoDave

My biggest fear in all this is that the Conservative Party has now set the bar so low that no other parties will have any real motivation to change things. My gut tells me that the rest of the parties are just itching to get into power and behave the exact same way as the current government- control, secrecy, contempt for public institutions.

On that note, my biggest disappointment with the Conservatives is how they so quickly came to act like their predecessors, and on Day 1 no less.

There is a massive disconnect between our current political parties and good government and I don't have a clue how it's going to get fixed.
Lucky Luke

hmmm….the UN?
http://twitter.com/TheHarperGov TheHarperGov

Have we left anyone out? Is there anyone left who doesn't have a bias against the Conservatives?

We're still not sure about Oda, Gary Bettman, and the kids who play 'Billy Elliot'.
Not Stephen Colbert

Have we left anyone out?

Stephen Harper himself. How else can you explain all those rabidly anti-Conservative appointments?
SanDiegoDave

That guy! Yeah, THAT guy right there!

No, not YOU!. HIM!

Yeah THAT guy! He's biased against the Conservatives.

(Isn't that how a partisan always picks his/her opponents?)
tedbetts

Forgot all about Kevin Paige and the whole Budget Office, also all Harper appointees
PeteTong

It's still not quite as shocking as the time he said "Let me put it to you this way — there's As and Bs. The As are guys like me. The Bs are homosexual f****ts with dirt under their fingernails that transmit diseases.''
Dave

On the contrary, Parliament IS a kangaroo court, at least to the Speaker's right.
John D

That didn't even make sense. Homosexuals are known to take good care of their fingernails.
Loraine Lamontagne

The House of Commons is definitely not a kangaroo court, but it is not a court of law.

What happens in a court of law is done in the name of the Queen, or the Crown.

What happens in the House of Commons is done in the name of the people of Canada who govern themselves. The government of Canada is accountable to the people of Canada via their representative of the HoC. If Lukiwski wants to call Canadians a bunch of kangaroos, that the people of Canada is a sham, or second-rate doughnut-eating idiots, he's totally free to do so without fear of reprisal in the HoC.
Loraine Lamontagne

Treating the House of Commons as a kangaroo court is treating the notion that Canadian govern themselves as a sham. Lukiwski is in fact telling us that we need a dictator.
burlivespipe

Explains why their leader stole an Aussie leader's script…
Guest

That is the most accurate thing i have read here in a while!

But the "your side is worse than my side" crowd will carry on as usual. If they spent as much energy trying to fix their own party as they do pointing at the other they might have a product they could sell to the public.
Thwim

How we get it fixed is simple. We send this government a message from hell.. "We're tired of your shenanigans, none of you are going to be rewarded for this."

NO INCUMBENTS!

I initially posted it as a joke.. I'm increasingly starting to wonder if it should be made serious.
John_Edgar

"If they spent as much energy trying to fix their own party as they do pointing at the other they might have a product they could sell to the public."

I would love to see this so much, but you only have to read the responses on these forums to realize that it just isn't going to happen.
LdKitchenersOwn

I like this. Strategic voting across the board, but where everyone in the country votes for the candidate most likely to defeat whoever is the incumbent in their riding, regardless of the party.
Loraine Lamontagne

Please forgive my poor memory, but it was the chair of the Public Account Committee, John Williams, who described committee hearings as a court of public opinion, in the heated days of the sponsorship program. I thought he was quite right.
danR

.
Speakers, and their rulings, are a waste of time. Send them to Gitmo if they don't like our Harper Government.

Regulators, whistleblowers, regulators; away with them. North Korea doesn't even have an opposition party, and Kim Jong-Il is STILL going strong!

Economize, trim, cut, streamline. We need efficiency.
.
Mike T.

You're only saying that because you can predict the result!
LdKitchenersOwn

Well, can't EVERYONE predict the result pretty easily if voters actually stuck to the plan?

Are you saying that you think I'd like the result in a partisan sense? 'Cause if so I'd note that in my riding anyway, this plan would likely having me voting for a Tory. and while that goes against my better judgment, I'd actually do it if I truly believed that the vast majority of Canadians were onside with the plan!