Members of the three federal opposition parties say that — prorogation or not — they plan to gather in Ottawa on Jan. 25 and go about the normal business of Members of Parliament.
They are to be commended for that. MPs should be doing their job every day, whether or not Parliament is in session. After all, they’re getting paid one way or another, so why shouldn’t they be at their posts?
What is unusual in this case, however, is that MPs are suggesting their presence in the capital will represent a protest of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to suspend Parliament until March, when a new budget will be brought down. Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale suggests the Conservatives’ move “borders on despotic behaviour,” and the Liberals will be on hand to make that case to anyone willing to listen. There is talk of “unofficial” committee meetings, even though witnesses could not be compelled to attend and would not enjoy the same level of legal protection.
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Are taxpayers to wonder “who’s running the place?” Or have the 62 Percenters “taken over” from the duly elected albeit minority government?
Solution? Election, something that even the 62 Percenters have said “Canadians” don’t want. Well, this voter is asking “which Canadians”? The coalition supporting ones, you know the ones who thought that since they didn’t like the election results a year or so ago, thought that they’d just move right in and take over? Or the ones who think that the Conservatives despite their pecadillos, aren’t doing such a bad job and likely better than an in-fighting group of 62 Percenters appear to be doing , sitting as opposition?
If it was such a serious issue for the 62 Percenters, where are their leaders, on vacation. Gilles is nowhere to be seen. Strange, I’d thunk that he would be stumping Quebec’s take on the dysfunctioning of Parliament. More likely he’s been told to keep a low profile, for better optics on another run by the 62 Percenters to subvert a democratic vote.
And what is with the howling on prorogation anyway? It doesn’t ake effect until January 25, after the Christmas break and for the duration of the Olympics, give or take a few days. Big Deal! Chretien, if memeory serves me prorogued 125 days on one of the four occations that he did the dirty deed, while enjoying a majority government.
Parliament is prorogued for 22 sitting days, and that gives us a holiday of 22 days of no QP and ranting/raging liberals-that is worth it.
I doubt if all mps offices in Ottawa are in lock down, so nothing stops them from working.
Call every mps office, see if the staff is there. Bet they are.
What this faux outrage has done is made it impossible for any liberal PM to prorogue the House in the future, with or without a majority. And how would the 62%ers handle it, could they agree to shut things down. And the media better watch how they would handle that situation. Today the people are much more aware of what is going on than they were when Chretein shut things down.
I wonder how many of those 113,000 fb members would think, if they had been around when Chretein did it, plus shutting down forever the Somali inquiry. Too bad history is not taught in University anymore.
Also, to the originators of the page, and the protests. They are very young and might want to run for office in the future, or apply for an important position. Maybe want to move to another country.
This page will be on their record forever. Could be construed as spreading hate and ban them from even holidaying in the US, or getting on a plane flying over the USA.
Heres a good link for the history of prorogations in Canadian Parliament. (not alot of info out there on this)
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/Sittings.aspx?Language=E&Parliament=
I beleive there have been 105 prorogations of Parliament, so prorogation is hardly without precedent – in fact it looks to be the norm in Canadian Parliament.
Nothing historically unusual here, yet the media is trying to create a controversy here (surprise surprise.)
What was without precedent was the attempt by opposition parites to overthrow a duly elected minority government (just weeks after it had been duly elected) with the intent of intstalling itself into power without consultation of the electorate.
And in this case the same media went out of their way to illustrate why this was in no way unprecendented (it’s comparisons to the King Byng affair are intellectually dishonest), that it was legal, and hey even a good thing.
Were the media to be honest about this, I think there might be mention of the fact that for the 105th time, Canadian Parliament has been prorogued, which would add some much needed perspective.
#2 – I agree that QP is a national disgrace, but to put the blame on “ranting/raging liberals” leads one to suspect you have not been watching the parliamentary channel these past few months. Whenever I have steeled myself to watch QP, all I have seen is a group of men and women behaving like fools. Every question — good or not — asked of the government elicits a sarcastic response (warranted or not), leading to yet another nasty exchange.
Andrew Coyne has an interesting piece in this week’s Maclean’s. Tongue-in-cheek he might well be in arguing that Parliament should be shut down permanently, but his observations are worth thinking about. As a country, we are very ill-served by our political class.
#4, when the sitting government gets a silly question, it demands a silly answer.
Just wondering how many children have starved to death because of no EI.
And how many body bags were needed on reserves for H1N1 victims.
Oh, I forgot, Bennett is on another non issue, the protection of women’s health by using better and safer sex toys.
Cuncator:
I remember when the Reformers first came to Parliament – right up to about the time the right united, there was an effort to conduct themselves (overall) in a fashion befitting of a Parliamentarian.
That got them nowhere, and the Libs absolutely used this lack of desire to drop the gloves to bulldoze them. There was never any pressure by the media back then for the Libs to clean up their act, so the Conservatives had to resort to the pithy one liners, snotty comebacks and sound bite quotes that the Liberals were using to such great effect (and media adoration).
#6 – I think that it is fair to say that Reform was far more effective than its opponents and the media would like to admit. Issues like immigration, debt reduction and fiscal responsibility, and defence were all raised to the fore by Reform (after decades of neglect by the Libs and the PCs), and they have stayed in the public eye since then — even if the current government has forgotten its own roots!
Reform was often bulldozed by its refusal to play the game, that is true, but also by the behaviour of its own members. While many were serious-minded parliamentarians, some were (to be frank) little more than jackasses. Party discipline was also very relaxed, almost notional, with MPs free to conduct themselves as they saw fit. That left them vulnerable when the jackasses made it into the public eye.
#5 – Many questions that the government, or any government for that matter, treats as silly are simply embarrassing or diverting. When Reform/Alliance/Conservative MPs were in opposition, many of its questions were identified by the Liberal hovernments as silly, jejeune, thoughtless and naive. Were they? Obviously not in many cases.
And by the way, I really doubt anyone has starved to death because of QP.
#8, did you miss the day Codere spouted off that children would starve to death in Quebec. Nice to know he was exaggerating while trying to be serious in QP.
Cuncator, I largely agree with your #7, but I did not say reform was not effective. That was largley due to their common sense policies that Canada required at that time. Lucky for the Liberals they had someone to push them the direction they needed to go, but that did not make them effective at using Parliament as theatre.
As for Jackasses in the Reform, I would agree that there may have been some who were not slick careerist pols, but I think even those had their hearts in the right place.
Libs or any other party did not have any fewer “jackasses” in them, and I would argue they they had many more.
Which jackasses came to mind?
Are the Harper Tories drifting way from conservative principles?
This conservative seems to think so:
http://josephbenami.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Item-34
The fact that a batch of Blocistas are allowed to sit in the House of Commons and ask questions should be of grave concern to any taxpaying Canadian. The leader of the Blocheads is a Communist and the party represents one province _ Quebec! If Quebec sends people to the Federal parliament to work for the separation of Quebec from Canada, then why should the ROC allow these traitors to vote? Why is Quebec allowed to have a Provincial assembly? Why have all of the rest of us allowed this to happen? This is the way nations are destroyed from the inside out.
The Blocheads are not Federal M.P.’s – there should be a page where people vote on pay cheques (or not) for M.P. s who’ s only concern in the nation’s capital is to separate from the nation.
Do the people squawking at the website accept members who vote for the Blocistas? If the site does accept such members then they have put themselves in the same pigeonhole as the people in Quebec who vote Blochead. They have no business in Canada. They have no role in Canadian politics.
As much as I agree with you on this subject Jema54, obviously HM PM Harper doesnt as he and all of the federal parties continue to court Quebec.
Quebec is NOT the Blocheads, UV. There are Federal M.P. s, from Quebec, who are not Blocheads. My concern is Blocking the Bloc.