Tragedy in the Commons (28 page)

The information on the election of independent candidates came from William Cross, “Candidate Nominations in Canada’s Political Parties,” chapter seven in Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan, eds., 2006,
The Canadian Federal Election of 2006
, Toronto: Dundurn, 2006. The paper alone is posted online at:
http://paperroom.ipsa.org/app/webroot/papers/paper_5470.pdf
.

Information on the history of political parties was found in “Registration of Federal Political Parties,” Elections Canada, and available at:
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&dir=pol/bck&document=index&lang=e
.

The information on leader-appointed candidates was found in Royce Koop and Amanda Bittner’s paper “Parachuted into Parliament: Candidate Nomination, Appointed Candidates, and Legislative Roles in Canada,” published in the
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties
21, no. 4, 2001, pages 431–52.

CHAPTER THREE

Information on the outcome of Gary Merasty’s 2006 election was found in the article “Harrison concedes northern riding to Merasty,” published in the
StarPhoenix
(Saskatoon), February 22, 2006.

The information on the popularity of the book
How to Be An MP
was found in Matthew Holehouse’s article “How To Be An MP is the most borrowed book in Parliament,” published in the
Telegraph
on February 12, 2013.

Barry Campbell’s essay “Politics as Unusual: Darkness Visible” was published in the
Walrus
, April 2008.

The information on MPs’ work-life balance was found in Royce Koop, James Farney and Alison Loat’s article “Balancing Family and Work: Challenges Facing Canadian
MPs,” published in the
Canadian Parliamentary Review
, spring 2013, pages 37–42. The book mentioned later, on the same point, is Steve Paikin’s
The Dark Side: The Personal Price of a Political Life
, Toronto: Viking Canada, 2003.

Paul Szabo graciously provided us with a copy of his advice letter to new MPs.

Information on the government’s handling of the apology to those in residential schools came from the following sources:

Bill Curry and Karen Howlett, “Natives died in droves as Ottawa ignored warnings,” the
Globe and Mail
, April 24, 2007. According to this story, the last residential school closed in 1996.

“A Timeline of Residential Schools, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” CBC News Canada, May 16, 2008, available at:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2008/05/16/f-timeline-residential-schools.html
.

Canada, House of Commons Debates, 39
^th
Parliament, 1
^st
Session, Nov. 7, 2006 (Gary Merasty, Liberal), available at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/housepublications/publication.aspx?docid=2484588
.

Additional information on Gary Merasty’s retirement from politics was found in Jane Taber, “Dion loses a fifth Liberal MP,” published in the
Globe and Mail
, July 12, 2007.

CHAPTER FOUR

For more context on the role of an MP, see the Parliament of Canada, “On the Job with a Member of Parliament,”
http://www.parl.gc.ca/about/parliament/onthejobmp/index-e.asp
. Also see Jack Stillborn, “The Roles of the Members of Parliament in Canada: Are They Changing?” (Ottawa: Library of Parliament, 2002).

Additional source material for this chapter was drawn from “Briefing Notes for New MPs,”
Parliamentary Government
(February 2006), pages 17-20, and available at:
http://www.parlcent.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/articles_and_papersParliamentary_Government_SpecialEditionFeb2006_EN.pdf
.

Suzanne Dovi’s article, “Political Representation,” is from
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(winter 2011 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), and is available at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/political-representation
.

John Godfrey’s interview with
The Current
, CBC Radio, was held on September 14, 2011, and is available at:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/09/14/constituent-services/index.html
.

CHAPTER FIVE

Members’ Statements were taken from Hansard, 40
^th
Parliament, 2
^nd
Session, May 29, 2009, and are available at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3936180
.

Paul Wells’s comments on Question Period were taken from “Stop the Madness,”
Maclean’s
, June 5, 2009, and are available at:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/05/stop-the-madness/
.

The analysis of the discussion in the House of Commons comes from the Samara report “Lost in Translation, or Just Lost? Canadians’ Priorities and the House of Commons,” published by Samara on February 4, 2013, and available at:
http://www.samaracanada.com/docs/default-document-library/samara_lostintranslation-pdf
.

Andrew Coyne’s suggestions for political advertisements were drawn from his column “Attack ads are political deathstars but their target is democracy,” published in the
National Post
, April 17, 2013.

CHAPTER SIX

Information on the size of Canada’s federal debt in 1995 came from Niels Veldhuis’s report “Budget Blueprint: How Lessons from Canada’s 1995 Budget Can Be Applied Today,”
Studies in Budget & Tax Policy
(February 2011), Fraser Institute, page 11, and available at:
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/BudgetBlueprint.pdf
.

The cost of debt servicing came from Paul Martin’s book
Hell or High Water: My Life in and out of Politics
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008).

The editorial in the
Wall Street Journal
was titled “Bankrupt Canada?” and was published on January 12, 1995, and reprinted in the
Globe and Mail
on January 13, 1995, on page A21.

The impact of the 1995 budget on the size and spending of government was found in Anthony Wilson-Smith’s article “Martin’s 1995 Budget,” originally published in
Maclean’s
on March 13, 1995, and posted in
The Canadian Encyclopedia
:
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/macleans/martins-1995-budget
.

Public opinion on the budget was taken from Peter Cook’s article “The budget Canada needs, it also wants,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on March 6, 1995, page B2.

Information on the finance committee recommendations came from John Geddes’s article “Committee urges selected tax hikes,” published in the
Financial Post
on December 9, 1994, page 3.

The
Wall Street Journal
’s reaction to Canada’s 1995 budget was written in an unsigned editorial entitled “Canada Makes Right Turn,” published on March 1, 1995, page A14.

The
La Presse
editorial cited was excerpted in André Picard’s article “Quebecois Voices: The Answer Is Yes. What’s the question? Commentators scoff at the PQ’s referendum two-step,”
published in the
Globe and Mail
on March 2, 1995, page A23.

The
Globe and Mail
’s budget response was taken from the unsigned editorial “Budget-making politics,” published on March 9, 1995, page A28.

The Fraser Institute’s reaction to the budget was found in the report “Budget Blueprint: How Lessons from Canada’s 1995 Budget Can Be Applied Today,” cited above.

Information on House of Commons committees was taken from “Committees,” from the
Compendium of House of Commons Procedure Online
, and available at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/House/Compendium/web-content/c_g_committees-e.htm
.

The impact of federal-provincial transfer cuts on education was found in Roger Martin’s article “Who Killed Canada’s Education Advantage?,” published in the
Walrus
on November 2009.

Jeffrey Simpson’s assessment of Jean Chrétien came from Simpson’s article “What He Leaves Behind,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on November 1, 2003, page F10.

This chapter mentions two MPs who were not part of the exit interviews: John English and Alex Shephard.

CHAPTER SEVEN

An illuminating look at the tainted-blood controversy was found in Anne McIlroy and Edward Greenspon’s article
“Blood crisis is Rock’s test of fire: Golden boy of politics called heartless, cruel,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on May 2, 1998, page A1.

The quote on Joe Comuzzi’s commitment to the “traditional definition of marriage” came from Tim Naumetz’s article “158 to 133: MPs approve gay marriage,” published in the
Ottawa Citizen
on June 29, 2005, page A1.

Paul Martin’s reaction to Joe Comuzzi’s decision came from Terry Weber’s article “Liberal steps down over same-sex bill,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on June 28, 2005.

Bruce Garvey’s quote on Joe Comuzzi’s resignation came from Garvey’s article “A hero among duds,” published in the
National Post
on June 30, 2005, page A20.

James Travers’s quote came from his article “At last, a brave politician acts with honour,” published in the
Toronto Star
on June 30, 2005, page A31.

Information on the rarity of freshman MPs elected as Independents is found on page 3 of William Cross, “Candidate Nomination in Canada’s Political Parties,” a chapter in Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan, eds.
The Canadian Federal Election of 2006
(Toronto: Dundurn, 2006).

The quotes from Leslie Seidle and Richard Simeon, as well as the comparison of Canadian and American party discipline, came from Gloria Galloway’s article “Is Canada’s party
discipline the strictest in the world?,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on February 7, 2013.

Academic research on the impact of a local candidate on vote choice can be found in the article “Does the Local Candidate Matter? Candidate Effects in the Canadian Election of 2000,” by André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, Agnieszka Dobrzynska, Neil Nevitte and Richard Nadeau and published in the
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique
, vol. 36, no. 3, July-August 2003, pages 657-664.

All poutine-related quotes and statistics were found in Peter Nowak’s article “Poutine Wars: Cheese curds and gravy have gone mass market,” published in the
Globe and Mail, Small Business
magazine on April 25, 2012, page 24.

Information on the “franchise bargain” of Canadian politics is available in the article by Roland Kenneth Carty, “The Politics of Tecumseh Corners: Canadian Political Parties as Franchise Organizations,” published in the
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique
, vol. 35, no. 4, December 2002, pages 723–45.

Information on the Elections Act and the public financing of political parties came from the following two articles, both published in
Money, Politics and Democracy: Canada’s Party Finance Reforms
, edited by Lisa Young and Harold J. Jansen, and published by UBC Press in 2011:

Harold J. Jansen and Lisa Young, “Cartels, Syndicates, and Coalitions.” (chapter 1)

F. Leslie Seidle, “Public Funding of Political Parties.” (chapter 3).

Information on the survey undertaken by William Cross and Lisa Young is available in the article “Are Canadian Political Parties Empty Vessels? Membership, Engagement and Policy Capacity,” published in
IRPP Choices
, June 2006, vol. 12, no. 4; and in the article “Policy Attitudes of Party Members in Canada: Evidence of Ideological Politics,” published in the
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique
, vol. 35, no. 4, December 2002, pages 859-80. The survey was conducted in 2000.

Kenneth Carty’s quote on Canadians’ views on political parties was found in Carty’s article “The Shifting Place of Political Parties In Canadian Public Life,” published in
IRPP/ Choices
, June 2006, vol. 12, no. 4., page 5.

Information on Joe Comuzzi’s decision to support the Conservative government’s budget bill came from Gloria Galloway’s article “Harper welcomes dissident Grit into the fold,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on June 26, 2007.

Joe Comuzzi’s comments on his departure from the Liberal caucus were found in Jane Taber’s article “Dion drops Liberal MP for backing Tory budget,” published in the
Globe and Mail
on March 22, 2007.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The cost of settling the defamation lawsuit against Stockwell Day came from Sheldon Alberts’s article “ ‘Leadership has exercised consistently bad judgment’: MPs prepared to pay for breaking away from rank and file,” published in the
National Post
on May 16, 2001, page A1.

Information on the undercover investigator hired to look into the affairs of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came from Bob Remington and Joel-Denis Bellavance’s article “Hold vote on leadership, analyst says: Day can’t go on with disasters every week, professor says,” published in the
National Post
on April 24, 2001, page A6.

Val Meredith’s criticisms of Stockwell Day were quoted from Sheldon Alberts and Robert Fife’s article “Day accuses rebels of betrayal,” published in the
National Post
on May 15, 2001, page A1.