Pat Martin Pennant Nominee: Kevin Lamoureux

You might not be aware of this, but yesterday the House was debating a private member’s bill, number C-306. This bill would force a sitting MP who was changing party affiliations to either sit as an independent or go through a by-election.

I don’t propose to go through the merits of this bill (or lack thereof), but I would like to point out a heckling incident — specifically, by the Liberal MP for Winnipeg North, interrupting a New Democrat colleague.

Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): I have heard some highfalutin stuff in the House from the third party in particular that I think is utter nonsense.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: That’s what we think of what you’re saying.

Mr. Don Davies: It suggests that people do not vote for the parties in this country—

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: People vote for people too, you know.

Mr. Don Davies: Madam Speaker, can I have some quiet, please, from the hon. member behind me? I listened carefully when he was talking. The member should respect democracy. I have the floor.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Indeed, the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway will continue.

Mr. Don Davies: Madam Speaker, it is hard to concentrate when I have a yapper two desks behind me who wanted everyone to be silent in this House.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, all members are honourable members in the chamber. Sometimes when we get emotional in a speech, as the member is starting to do in his speech, someone will heckle, even within our own political parties. It was nothing that was meant to be disruptive. As to whether or not it is unparliamentary, it is the manner in which one puts it.

The member was expressing himself passionately on an issue. Yes, I did say one or two words. They were not meant to be rude. I apologize if the member felt that it was not appropriate for me to have said so.

Having said that, I do not believe it was appropriate for him to take his cheap shots either.

I’m afraid my sympathies are with Mr. Davies here. Appropriate or not, Mr. Lamoureux did say things in the middle of Mr. Davies trying to make his remarks, which is definitely discourteous, full stop. And using the conditional “if” renders the apology insincere.

Nope, Mr. Lamoureux has done the Third Party no favours here, which is why he gets listed for the Pat Martin Pennant, that parliamentary disconduct award for remarks that insult everyone’s intelligence.

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When Will Canada Get A Real Official Opposition?

Of course many Blogging Tories do get a kick out of mocking various members of the Opposition for their inanities, and from them you might get the impression that the Harper government could go on governing in perpetuity and it would be just fine with the rest of us.

The thing is, your impression would be wrong.

One of the greatest premiers of B.C., W.A.C. “Wacky” Bennett, had a saying: in order to fly high, you need to have the wind against you. What he meant was that a truly effective government needs a truly great opposition. And unfortunately for Canada, a great opposition is something we’ve not really had for a very, very long time.

Now, the pieces are certainly there. You have one party with an ideological spine, and a junior party wedded to pragmatism. And, if Jack Layton were still around, you’d have something that would make the government pause in its tracks, if only for a little bit.

But Mr. Layton isn’t around anymore, and the best that these inexperienced hyperpartisans are coming up with these days is a general riff on “the Harper government is evil, you voters must throw them out and put us in charge ’cause we’re the only real alternative.”

Seriously. Have you heard any of the current NDP leadership candidates give a speech that would make you say, “Yes, I can see this person as Prime Minister of Canada”? Oh, you there? Okay, then, do you work for any of the candidates? Uh-huh, that’s what I thought. Sit down, then, because you’re the one who really needs to hear this.

It’s a simple truth: Stephen Harper needs a good, effective Opposition. He needs it because it will make him a better leader.

The job of the Official Opposition is threefold:

  1. It holds the government to account.

    The current lot might think they’re doing that, but they’re not; they’re just calling Tory policies nasty names. “Holding to account” means you challenge policies based on things like (a) the assumptions that make the policy necessary, (b) how the policy’s supposed to work, (c) the expected outcome, and (d) what should happen if (and when) something goes wrong. Pension reform is a good case in point: you should be challenging the government on whether (a) is reform needed, (b) why increasing the age of eligibility for OAS is a good idea or not, (c) what kind of savings or efficiencies should be expected, and (d) what if reform turns out to be more expensive than projected.

    Does the government need this? Yes. Because one of the things that public debate is supposed to do is expose a public position, both strengths as well as weaknesses. If the Opposition can force the government to address a weakness, then the result will most likely be a better policy.

  2. It actively points out problems and challenges the government to resolve them.

    This is, unfortunately, something that the Opposition has ceded to mainstream and social media, usually preferring to follow the news lead in Question Period, if they do so at all. It’s unfortunate because it usually means they’re suborning their own judgement of what’s wrong with government to editors and broadcasters looking for eyes to see a shocking headline (as well as the associated ad space). This can lead to political capital being expended on trivia (i.e. the PM handling a communion wafer) at the expense of truly important problems (the management of on-reserve First Nations), and it’s the sort of judgement that the Opposition needs to take back.

    We all know that no administration, no managerial entity likes to admit that something it’s done has gone wrong. And as a result of this attitude, it’s going to be very reluctant to acknowledge that a problem actually exists. The job of an Opposition is not only to show the public that problems exist, but to highlight it in such a way that the government has little choice but to resolve it, in order to remove it from the public agenda.

  3. It presents alternatives the the present situation.

    This is, truly, where our current Opposition have really fallen down. Insulting government proposals is all well and good, but unless there is a genuine will to unite behind a well-reasoned, well-expressed alternative, people will regard the Opposition insults as mere noise.

    And it’s especially true that the current government needs to see this. It needs a constant reminder that alternatives exist, some of which are more electorally attractive than what they currently have, or will have, to offer. That in turn makes government more responsive to what it perceives as the public will, which is exactly the type of accountability the Opposition exists to foster.

So why is our Opposition doing so badly? Ironically, part of the problem is a certain amount of (ahem) conservatism: few members are willing to proactively take a position or advocate a policy, and risk exposure to attack. The New Democrats, in particular, are unwilling to come out of their shell; when, after all, was the last time a leadership candidate stood up in Question Period? Did Ms. Turmel and her House leader not realize that, in denying those candidates the opportunity to speak, they were denying the New Democrats a stage to make a stronger impression overall?

And the excuse they have is that, well, they’re in a state of flux, relying on interim leaders for at least the next couple of months. I’m not entirely certain that I buy that. Yes, an interim leader shouldn’t want to trap her successor into a position that causes hampering. But so long as she holds the position, then she needs to do as much as she can to get her party up to the forefront, filling in the functions that an Opposition is supposed to do. (Perhaps Ms. Turmel could observe Mr. Bob Rae and understand his work. She does, after all, have the advantage of not having his history.)

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Posted in Libranos, No DiPsticks, Parliament | 5 Comments

Blogging Tories Challenge: Should The Tories Try To Take Toronto-Danforth?

There’s one thing that bothers me about this Ottawa Citizen story about the riding of Toronto-Danforth, held by the late Jack Layton and now awaiting the call for a by-election. It’s this second-to-last paragraph:

The Conservatives, who have placed a distant third or fourth in the riding in the last four elections, have not yet chosen a candidate.

For your information, the Tories ran the following people in previous general elections:

  • 2011 – Katarina Von Koenig – 14.2 percent of the vote
  • 2008 – Christina Perreault – 11.7 percent of the vote
  • 2006 – Kren Clausen – 9.9 percent of the vote
  • 2004 – Loftus Cuddy – 6.2 percent of the vote

Before 2004, Toronto-Danforth was part of the riding of Broadview-Greenwood. It was also held by Liberal Dennis Mills, which is why the federal Liberals think they have a good chance to turn this orange district into a red one.

However, if you look at the election trending, you’ll have noticed that the overall vote for the Conservatives is on a rise, while the one for the Liberals is declining. In 2011, the difference in popular vote between the Liberals and the Conservatives was around 1600 votes.

What that suggests to me is that this riding could be taken by the Tories if they feel up to expending some political capital. There are, of course, a couple of reasons why they might not want to do so.

For example, by-elections are almost always a judgement on the government in power, and as a result the trend is that governing parties don’t win them. Because the riding has been held either by the Liberals or the NDP since 1979 (when it was held by Bob Rae, yet another reason why the Liberals think it’s winnable), to the Tories any expended effort here is going to be seen as wasted effort, in an unwinnable riding. Running anything stronger than a token candidate and campaign will be interpreted as a major blow to the Tories in the event of a Liberal or NDP win.

Now that’s the strategy of “win where you can.” On the other hand, there’s the “go all out” strategy, in which the party treats each and every riding as a potential winner and expends effort accordingly. You might think that the Tories, being the biggest party with the biggest budget and donor base, would love to follow this strategy. I’m not entirely sure that they see things that way.

But you might have a different opinion. Hence this poll. Comments, as always, are welcome.


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Posted in Blogging Tory Challenges, Can Cons, Libranos, No DiPsticks, T.O. | 3 Comments

Return Of A Blogging Tory Challenge, National Citizens Coalition Edition

As the original post has been lost, I’m now republishing a Blogging Tories Challenge to do with the National Citizens Coalition. (Apparently PollDaddy doesn’t like it if you use two polls in the same post.)


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Return of A Blogging Tory Challenge, Future Prime Minister Edition

Since the original posts are now considered “lost,” I’m putting here two of the Blogging Tories Challenge polls that I put up earlier this month. I’m also extending their entry deadline by one more week. This one is to do with a potential non-Tory Prime Minister to come after Stephen Harper.


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Posted in Blogging Tory Challenges, Libranos, No DiPsticks | 7 Comments