For your consideration: Denise Savoie

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 5:26 PM - 0 Comments

Following Lee Richardson and Bruce Stanton, here are responses from Denise Savoie, the MP for Victoria, to our questions for the prospective speakers. Continue…

For your consideration: Bruce Stanton

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 6 Comments

Ahead of the election of a new Speaker on June 2, I’ve sent each of the candidates a set of questions about the job and promised to post here all responses in their entirety. First up, this morning, was Lee Richardson. Here now is Bruce Stanton, the MP for Simcoe North. Continue…

Opto Civitas

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 12:12 PM - 38 Comments

The NDP is apparently keen to be a civil official opposition.

Moments after leader Jack Layton publicly addressed his caucus for the first time since a record 103 New Democrats were elected, self-proclaimed “loudmouth” Pat Martin pulled out a set of colourful buttons bearing the words “Opto Civitas.” ”I choose civility. That’s the new me,” he proclaimed.

He apparently made 300 of them in various party colours. There’s even one for Green Party leader Elizabeth May. He plans to hand them out when Parliament resumes June 2 … [Layton] later noted that the “heckling” that’s become commonplace during question period over the course of several minority governments, needs to stop and that it’s time for “respectful discussions” that don’t drive school groups out the door in shame.

The decorum question

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 8:52 AM - 7 Comments

Andrew Scheer sounds ready to be a tough(er) Speaker.

“In some ways Canada’s debate in the House of Commons has slipped,” he said, noting he would “call a tighter game” so that those who spend question period “hooting and hollering” while others are trying to speak, for example, are barred from getting up to ask their own questions. ”I think if a Speaker were to establish that type of tone early on in a parliamentary session, then the MPs would adapt. They’d understand ‘O.K., this Speaker’s not going to tolerate behaviour like that’ and I think they will adjust their behaviour accordingly.

'I think Canadians are fed up'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 12:24 PM - 17 Comments

Jack Layton promises a measured opposition.

The NDP will ask “tough” questions but will not resort to “antics.” “That certainly is my commitment. Our party didn’t have a reputation of being mad dogs in the House of Commons. We tended to be, I think, pretty well-controlled when it comes to the heckling that goes on. I feel that it is vitally important that the whole tone of Parliament change. I think Canadians are fed up with the kind of juvenile behaviour that we were seeing.”

Presumably this means no more puppet shows.

The precise nature of the problem

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 11, 2011 at 3:03 PM - 7 Comments

Glen Pearson notes the misdirection inherent in fretting about decorum.

I’m all for more decorum – been fighting for it for four years – but it’s useless if the Parliament of Canada can’t discover compromise and move ahead progressively with legislation. My friend had only taken a placebo and was imagining the rest. The true test of professional political behaviour is whether representatives can find accommodations on the vital issues of the country. That is not happening in Ottawa.

Play us out, musical tie guy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 21, 2011 at 5:50 PM - 8 Comments

Whatever the moaning about how much more civilized and mannered and eloquent is the British House, we can at least say that our Houses is free of musical neckwear.

A plea for decency

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 5:06 PM - 13 Comments

I wasn’t in the House this afternoon on account of other commitments, but I’m told that shortly after Question Period, Speaker Peter Milliken rose to rule on a point of order previously raised by Liberal Derek Lee. Mr. Lee complained last month that a statement by Conservative MP Phil McColeman should have been ruled out of order as a personal attack on Liberal Mark Holland. That the time allotted for statements by members—15 minutes each day normally reserved for noting charitable causes, the accomplishments of constituents and such—was being used to launch partisan attacks was identified as a problem last March by Speaker Milliken, a problem he attempted to addresses with limited success.

The prepared text of Mr. Milliken’s ruling today follows. Coincidentally, in an essay for the current issue of Canadian Parliamentary Review, former government House leader Jay Hill calls for the Speaker to more strictly enforce order upon the proceedings. Continue…

Necessary partisanship

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 3:56 PM - 21 Comments

Christopher Beam picks apart the No Labels movement. His argument that it’s the incentives that have to change could be copy-and-pasted to the present situation in Ottawa.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of No Labels is to show why labels exist in the first place. They’re so busy talking about what they’re not—not Republican, not Independent, not conservative, not liberal—you never get a handle on what they are. Labels are a useful shortcut for voters who want to know what a group is all about. The lack of a positive mission beyond bipartisanship and civility (which both Republicans and Democrats also call for) makes it hard to know what they really want.

Democracy's not dead

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:25 AM - 50 Comments

I don’t agree with everything Andrew Potter says here—I think there are legitimate complaints to be made about how our system presently functions and a serious discussion about solutions that should be had—but I have found the recently fashionable hand-wringing over partisanship and decorum to be both over-wrought and shallow.

Why is everyone so convinced our democracy is ruined? There are at least two reasons. The first is the widespread tendency to mistake the work environment for the institution. That is, a lot of the hand-wringing over our democracy is actually just a dislike for the nasty tone of Question Period, or the partisanship of committees. But a lack of decorum is not the same as institutional dysfunction. Our members of Parliament treat one another with disrespect. So what? Why should that bother anyone off the Hill? If MPs want to run their workplace like it’s always last call on Friday night at YukYuks, that’s their business.

'I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 6, 2010 at 11:19 AM - 7 Comments

Peter Wehner notes the difference between civility and weakness.

Civility is not a synonym for lack of principles or lack of passion. They are entirely separate categories. Civility has to do with basic good manners and courtesy, the respect we owe others as fellow citizens and fellow human beings. It is both an animating spirit and a mode of discourse. It establishes limits so we don’t treat opponents as enemies. And it helps inoculate us against one of the unrelenting temptations in politics (and in life more broadly), which is to demonize and dehumanize those who hold views different from our own.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 8, 2010 at 3:03 PM - 0 Comments

Shortly before Question Period this morning, the NDP’s Bruce Hyer proposed a game of musical chairs.

Mr. Speaker, I am dismayed and embarrassed by MPs heckling and catcalling here in the House. Canadians do not like it. It does not have to be this way.

In Scandinavia I have observed firsthand the way in which proportional representation leads to rational discussion and debate, mutual respect, workable compromises and much better governance than we have here. Our constituents are looking to us for statesmanship, leadership and effective government that represents not just regions and factions but all Canadians.

I have an idea that could help us achieve some of that mutual respect and co-operation that is needed to desperately right now. We could choose to change our seating charts and abandon the hockey bench blocks of seating in the House by party. We could randomize seating here in the House. Some time spent in the House next to members from other parties will lead to recognition of us all as people with whom we can share ideas with more mutual respect.

Our constituents want better. They deserve better. Let us act now to improve our system and our behaviour.

A backbencher gets his due

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 12:49 PM - 0 Comments

The national wire service takes note of LaVar Payne’s contribution to our democracy.

Monday was LaVar Payne’s day to shine. You may have never heard of the Conservative backbencher from Medicine Hat, Alta. — but if you tuned into question period, you likely heard him. Payne, a first-term MP elected in 2008, carried on a running stream of abuse from the back row Monday, the cupped hand at the side of his mouth helping project his nasal whine into the farthest reaches of the Commons.

“Is that from American, professor?” he taunted Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. “You signed on to that as an American, professor!”

When Jack Layton rose for a question, Payne lit into him — “You never co-operate, Jack!” — causing the NDP leader to break stride and offer an aside. Layton dryly noted that the new focus on decorum “is working out well on the government side.”

In fairness, this is nothing unusual for Mr. Payne. Indeed, from the back row of the government side he has distinguished himself as perhaps his team’s most insistent and consistent heckler, often repeating the same banality over and over on the off chance the other members of the House did not hear him the first dozen times. Few are as demonstrably and tirelessly engaged. The people of Medicine Hat should be very proud.

On the question of cameras in the House of Commons

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 9:15 AM - 0 Comments

Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities John Baird is seen on the screen of a video camera THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Back, very belatedly, to this. Some months ago, Max Fawcett resurrected the suggestion that the key to civility in the House of Commons is the television camera—specifically that Question Period would benefit from a complete lack of cameras.

The theory goes that our current mess can be traced back to the introduction of television cameras in the late 1970s. That since then the urge to play for the cameras has reduced our democracy to professional wrestling. That before that it was somehow better.

Almost all pining for simpler times is misguided, but even if we accept that this is at least somewhat true—that the presence of cameras has contributed significantly to our present incivility—that we would do away with the cameras has always struck me as a terrible idea and the worst kind of solution. Continue…

You can't say that in Parliament

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 12:10 PM - 13 Comments

For those of you keeping track, you can no longer refer to another MP as a “token Quebecer”—or a “token” anything for that matter.

In the current circumstances, the use of the term in question has clearly led to some disorder and considerable offence, and I would therefore urge hon. members to refrain from using it and any others that tend to lead to disorder.

As I suggested when this matter was first raised, members may bring questions about the use of this term, and perhaps even more broadly, questions related to unparliamentary language, to the attention of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I would also like to take the opportunity to remind the House in the strongest terms possible that all members are legitimate and duly elected members of the House who have rightfully taken their seats. As rightfully noted by the member for Crowfoot, none of them are token in any sense of the word and to suggest otherwise would diminish the importance of our parliamentary system, our electoral system and the decisions of the very electors who sent them, indeed all of us, here.

This actually happened

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 41 Comments

Still sorting out some thoughts in response to Mark Kingwell’s essay on political civility. In the meantime, here is the CP dispatch from yesterday’s meeting of the foreign affairs committee.

Suzanne Trepanier has requested permission to appear at the Foreign Affairs committee to defend her husband’s record and provide her version of events that she believes contributed to Beauregard’s fatal heart attack in January following an agency board meeting.

But Tory MP Jim Abbott’s hour-long filibuster Thursday ran out the clock on a committee decision, and Abbott made of point of reminding the committee chairman that he holds the floor when the group next meets. Abbott told the committee that hearing from Beauregard’s widow “would be an emotional reaction to a situation over which this committee has absolutely no control.”

According to the Toronto Star’s account, Abbott used the committee’s obviously precious time to discuss “CBC radio, bank regulations and the Export Development Canada.”

The software of democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 15, 2010 at 12:01 PM - 17 Comments

Mark Kingwell’s essay on political civility, to which I referred last week, is now online.

It is sometimes said that literacy is the software of democracy. Let’s be more accurate, and more demanding. The real software of democracy is not bare literacy, which permits and even enjoys all manner of rhetorical nonsense and short-sighted demagoguery. It is political literacy, the ability to engage in critical dialogue with ideas both agreeable and disagreeable, interests that align with ours and those that do not. We need to learn this skill, run it, and revise it constantly by repeated engagements. We must be prepared to sacrifice something we value, for the sake of the larger good. That is, finally, the only thing I or anyone could mean by “civility.”

This actually happened

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 3:31 PM - 38 Comments

Mark Kingwell has an essay about political civility in the new issue of the Walrus that I encourage you all to read—though it doesn’t appear to be online yet—and which I’m going to write about next week. In the meantime, here is Marlene Jennings’ supplementary question yesterday.

Hon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the calls for public accountability from the Minister of State for the Status of Women and Rahim Jaffer are growing louder everyday. They are being called the Bonnie and Clyde of the Conservative Party. they are young, Conservative and above the law. Members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle like Kory Teneycke are saying that the minister owes an explanation and an apology and that Rahim owes the same. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he sang “I get by with a little help from my friends, oh, I get high with a little help from my friends” a few months ago?

This is perhaps getting personal (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 7:23 PM - 25 Comments

Oh good, now there’s video.

Heartening for sure to see Mr. Del Mastro championing the cause of common human decency after last year’s use of the word “traitor” and subsequent refusal to apologize for same.

Audible Noises of the Day

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 5:50 PM - 1 Comment

Government members audibly hissed as Liberal Yasmin Ratansi asked a question about various allegations concerning the Natural Resources Minister.

Later, a Liberal member made kissy noises as Conservative Peter Kent remarked on how “eloquently and firmly” the Minister of Defence has urged the Afghan government to deal with corruption.

Old Tyme Heckle of the Day

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 4:58 PM - 13 Comments

Ralph Goodale, expressing his displeasure with something or other Pierre Poilievre said.

Horse feathers!

Disturbance in the House

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 9, 2009 at 12:44 PM - 8 Comments

In the autumn issue of Canadian Parliamentary Review, Evan Sotiropoulos applies a little qualitative and quantitative analysis to the spectacle that now is the 15 minutes before Question Period reserved for statements by members.

My extensive review of parliamentary transcripts showed that unparliamentary or partisan discourse is on the rise during Members’ Statements in the House of Commons. Policy differences and their expression in a democratic society should not be used as cover for mean spirited attacks. All Members, regardless of party affiliation, should strive to arrest this decline in political discourse and help to cultivate a political environment conducive to cooperation.

The Speaker has the power required to sanction those parliamentarians who violate Standing Order 31. Throughout the 38th and 39th Parliaments, however, many examples can be found of violations of the spirit of the rule. It is no wonder then that when Speaker Milliken issued his warning to House Leaders, most Members simply ignored his advice and continued to follow the pattern set over the past five years.

Elsewhere in the CPR, an expansive attempt to rethink Question Period. More on that once I’ve read it all.

The audacity of youth

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 6, 2009 at 4:22 PM - 13 Comments

A pair of young journalists led Jack Layton’s scrum yesterday with questions about heckling in the House. They would seem to have followed up with a couple other MPs, similar exchanges showing up in the scrum transcripts. The last question posed to Jim Flaherty surely demonstrates a degree of chutzpah that bodes well for the future of this industry. Continue…

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 3:47 PM - 12 Comments

Liberal stagehand John Mraz suggests a legislated end to heckling.

Ironically, Parliament ought to legislate itself into silence. Just as an alcoholic has lost the right to that first drink, our politicians have the lost the right to heckle.  They clearly can’t handle the responsibility.  A private member’s bill banning heckling outright should be drafted, introduced and passed by unanimous assent — and then enforced.  No doubt some traditionalists and rabid free-speechers would be aghast.  But I challenge any MP to declare that they believe they should have the right to shout at work.   Because aside from rock stars, floor traders and a few other crazed specialists, 99% of civilized society does not.