Tragedy in the Commons (15 page)

“I am embarrassed by it,” Wilson said. “It’s all about the sound bites. The success of Question Period is based upon, ‘Did you get your twenty seconds on the eleven o’clock news?’ … So, even though this is what everybody sees, this is not what government is all about.”

Wilson spoke highly of his fellow MPs’ intentions. They were in Ottawa with similar goals of making Canada the best
place in the world to live. “We have got to figure out the systems you need to put in place that will achieve those goals,” Wilson said. “Question Period does not achieve those goals.”

Our interviewed MPs also professed to dislike how the party leadership and staff “staged” Question Period. Here we see a difference from the British Parliament, which doesn’t actually have enough seats in its legislative chamber to accommodate all of Britain’s 650 MPs—an intentional choice that reflects the reality that not all MPs choose to be in the Chamber at the same time. On TV, the British Parliament’s smaller capacity makes the place look crowded with only a fraction of its complete assembly. Canada’s House of Commons is different—although currently it has only about half the number of Britain’s MPs, our House is designed to accommodate all the MPs simultaneously, each with his or her own desk. So, making it appear crowded during parliamentary debate requires a fair bit of seat-switching. Bloc MP Odina Desrochers characterized MPs in Question Period as “potted plants,” moved around for decoration, because leaders and whips want their MPs present in Parliament to gather around an MP asking a question—to ensure that the proceedings look more vibrant for television and to give the appearance that MPs had all shown up for work to support their leader. However, the staging also made some MPs feel less than essential to their party’s effectiveness in Parliament. “If all you do is show up at Question Period and clap when it’s necessary, you can get pretty frustrated,” said Russ Powers, a Liberal MP. Colleen Beaumier, another Liberal, echoed the complaint: “How much time did I need to stand there and clap like a trained seal?”

There’s a perception among some MPs, the media and the population at large that Question Period represents the most problematic aspect of Ottawa. “Question Period isn’t the root of what ails our politics,” wrote Paul Wells in a
Maclean’s
column that neatly sums up this sentiment. “But it is most certainly the hub, the swamp, the KICK ME HERE sign where everything we hate converges every day. The half-truths, the confected fury, the mayfly attention span, the ritual humiliation of the thoughtful or eccentric. And above all, the waste: of time, energy, hope.

“Question Period is broken,” Wells concludes. “It poisons the rest of the day and our democracy with it. We’re not protecting accountability by preserving this charade. We’re mocking it.”

Most of the MPs we consulted were of the same opinion. In fact, so many criticized Question Period and distanced themselves from what happens there that we found it disingenuous—it seems likely that the very same MPs who criticized Question Period had, at one time or another, participated in the personal attacks and desk-thumping theatrics that ultimately strain the public’s perception of our politics and those who practise it.

We should acknowledge that some MPs lauded Question Period’s role in holding the government to account; the fact that most of the positive depictions of Question Period came from Liberals may involve the timing of our interviews, which occurred just after the Liberals had lost power and had switched to functioning as the Official Opposition. “It’s important to democracy,” said former Thunder Bay–Rainy River Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff. “Of course it produces acting and grandstanding, but it also produces accountability.”

“I love the forum of Question Period,” said former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra. “I know there is heckling and all that stuff, but I really think that is superficial. Just imagine, it’s the only democracy in the world where the executive comes to a session not knowing what questions they are going to be asked. They are being asked in public, so it is quite a vital and important instrument in our democracy—I like Question Period and the role that it serves.”

“Most people think Question Period is just a big circus with a bunch of idiots screaming at one another,” said Liberal MP Bill Graham. “I was a participant in Question Period. I loved it. It was great fun. I preferred it when I was the minister answering [rather] than when I was the leader having to ask.… I say with pride that we have one of the few parliamentary democracies left in the world where the prime minister is in the House two or three days a week for Question Period. The British prime minister comes once a month.… The Canadian system is still the one where the prime minister is personally standing there and I think that is a wonderful thing.”

A few Conservatives admitted having fun in Question Period as well. “I liked Question Period,” said Jeremy Harrison. “When you could get up, and you knew you delivered a good question and you knew you scored some points. That was a good feeling. I enjoyed that.”

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
is more than just the hour a day devoted to Question Period and Members’ Statements. In fact, only about 10 percent of the words spoken in the House are uttered during Question Period, which comprises only
forty-five minutes of what’s typically a seven-hour day. About 60 percent of the House’s time is spent in Government Business, where the agenda is set largely by the government. During this time, bills proposed by ministers are debated, and the budget and supporting estimates that outline the government’s expenditures are put forward for parliamentary approval. The major exceptions are the twenty-two days each year in which the government must allow the opposition to determine the topic of debate.

An hour each day is dedicated to debating bills and motions proposed by individual MPs who are not parliamentary secretaries or in Cabinet. Typically, one proposal is debated during the one-hour period. (The order is established at the very beginning of a session by a random draw among MPs’ names, meaning not all proposals will be debated.) Another category of business in the House is known as Routine Proceedings, which provide members and ministers with an opportunity to bring a variety of matters to the attention of the House, including citizen petitions and House Committee reports. The amount of time allotted to Routine Proceedings varies from day to day according to the agenda.

Most Canadians don’t witness the full range of this debate, and frankly neither do most MPs. Apart from Question Period, most are present only when they’re on House Duty—a few hours each week assigned by their whips when MPs are required to attend debates in the House and represent their party’s positions. Given the overall poor attendance, and the fact that the parties and the media focus nearly all their attention on Question Period, most MPs we spoke to viewed House Duty as monotonous and generally a waste of time.

“Outside of Question Period, it was dead in the House,” said Jeremy Harrison, capturing the sentiment of many of his colleagues. “There were twenty to thirty people there. They’re on their computer, catching up on correspondence. They’re there because they have to be. There are very few members who are there because they want to be.”

“You don’t attend the House except for your [assigned] duty day,” said Liberal MP David Anderson. “So a speech is made to a House of twenty, maybe forty, people. The media do not report them, or if they report anything, they report from the written records.”

MPs or their leaders did little to alter this state of affairs. For example, several MPs said they were told to make speeches on subjects they knew nothing about. One newly elected Bloc MP, Alain Boire, recalled receiving twenty minutes’ notice before having to debate the issue of the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia. “Okay, but what’s the deal with the mountain pine beetle? I have no idea. I’ve got to improvise for twenty minutes. And when you’re new, it’s not so funny,” he said.

A handful of MPs, however, relished speaking in the House. “I was the pinch hitter. If [my party] needed someone to make a speech at the last minute, I was always ready. I loved it,” said Bloc MP Odina Desrochers.

DESPITE THESE OCCASIONALLY
positive sentiments, the former MPs expressed great antipathy for partisan melodramatics and were deeply concerned at how the public perceives politicians in Canada. “Citizens … have the impression that politicians are clowns. So they are disaffected, and they lack confidence in their representatives,” said Bloc MP Stéphane Bergeron.

“The real sad thing is, at one time, not that many years ago, being a federal Member of Parliament was one of the highest positions you could aspire to,” said Conservative MP Jim Gouk. “Now it’s right down with lawyers and used-car salesmen.… It’s interesting because on a personal level I was highly respected in my riding, but in the general sense it’s ‘You’re a politician? Oh my God. Quick! I’m going to hang on to my wallet.’ ”

Most MPs claimed to regret the partisanship. Discussing personal attacks he made against Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion, Quebec City Bloc MP Roger Clavet told us: “That man has kids. He has a wife that loves him. When I was in politics, I told myself that I would never stoop so low as to attack him. But I did. I hated him! But today I say, ‘My God, his service to this country cost him so much.’ ”

Our exit interviews suggest that politicians seem to deplore their own public behaviour. They fear it’s turning people away from politics. So why not change? If they regretted it so much, why didn’t they stop? This disconnect is one aspect of the interviews we found particularly frustrating. MPs rarely took responsibility for their own participation in the behaviour they complained about. If MPs in Question Period demonstrate a behavioural maturity similar to that of a kindergartner, then MPs outside Question Period also exhibit another kindergarten tactic when talking about Question Period: a propensity for finger-pointing and tattle-tale behaviour that puts the onus for solutions on “those guys.” Considering this, we’re reminded of Jay Hill’s succinct advice to his fellow Conservative MPs: “The only way we will ever get that to stop is [if] enough of you refuse. It’s
your
Members’ Statement.” Or Question Period answer. Or question. Or whatever.

For the MPs we interviewed, as with the farmers whose sheep grazed freely on the commons in Garret Hardin’s essay, few incentives existed to motivate them to change the political culture they criticized—and many incentives were in place to prevent them from changing. Individual MPs who take a stand face real political costs: from being demoted or removed from committee assignments, to receiving few, if any, opportunities to speak in the House, or being ousted from caucus—or worse. Finally, parties—and particularly the leaders’ offices—hold a trump card to guarantee discipline among their ranks: a leader must sign an MP’s candidacy papers should he or she wish to run for re-election.

The ugly behaviour is self-perpetuating. The first party to step away from the acrimony takes a risk. Reform tried to stand above the fray in Parliament after the 1993 election—providing questions to the government in advance so they could prepare thoughtful responses, and rotating seating so their leader, Preston Manning, wasn’t always front and centre. It didn’t work—they were frequently mocked, and media coverage left them looking undisciplined and unsophisticated. Today, Reform’s descendant party, the Conservative Party of Canada, employs tactics to direct and manage MPs’ communication as strict as those of any party in Canadian history.

Moving away from insults and ad hominem attacks is something that would work best if all parties moved simultaneously—a near-to-impossible task to coordinate, and a change that no one party is motivated to initiate. So the entrenched partisanship persists, despite the damage it does
to the politics, and to the wider public good. It’s another example of Hardin’s tragedy of the commons.

Finally, the MPs also, inevitably, blamed the media. “For [Question Period] to change sufficiently, to be more of a service to democracy, the media has to change,” said Hill. “The media likes it the way it is. There will be columnists who write columns and there will even be reporters who do a short story on what happened in Question Period and how disgusting it is. But the media likes it the way it is because it provides theatre, action, controversy, sells newspapers and it keeps people on that channel on television at night. If it’s a boring newscast people are going to flip to a football game or something. So if you want to keep the interest of people, you feel that you have to have some excitement in the House of Commons; people need to be hollering and carrying on like a bunch of imbeciles because it provides good theatre.… I think that they are failing Canadians in focusing on ratings and selling newspapers.

“If it is going to change, [the media must] want it to change,” Hill continued. “So that if someone is being disruptive and the Speaker—whoever he or she is—tries to do his or her job and reprimands them, the media has to do
its
job; for example, they need … to say, ‘Pat Martin [Winnipeg NDP MP] was way out of line tonight,’ and they have to be on television criticizing his [behaviour], instead of holding him up as some renegade. They have to actually hold him to account.”

One thing’s certain. Change is necessary because the partisan spiral into which Parliament is descending leads to an increasingly polarized political discourse—which in turn leads to a situation where critical disagreement is marginalized by
yelling, and differences of opinion are usurped by drive-by slurs or personal attacks.

Small initial steps could help matters. Take the suggestion of Paul Wells, among others, to make Question Period happen earlier in the day. The logic? Preparation for the partisan battle currently begins once staffers read the morning papers, and continues until the proceedings start at 2:15 p.m. Moving the session up, a few hours, say, so that the proceedings begin every day at 10:00 a.m., has the potential to free up three hours for other, potentially more productive business.

Several MPs looked to the British Parliament for a cure to what ails Canada’s Question Period. For example, Montreal Liberal MP Pierre Pettigrew recommended importing the British approach of assigning Cabinet ministers and the prime minister particular days on which they are responsible for answering questions, in hopes that rotation would produce a more substantial exchange. “In Canada, we monopolize the whole government every day. You have thirty minutes, with thirty ministers held hostage five days a week. It’s ridiculous,” he said.