The story lines bounced between the random actions of a few rogue MPs to open caucus revolt, and a fairly consistent condemnation of anything seen to constrain the freedom of MPs to speak their minds. This sounds like fairly serious stuff, but in all things political, I would suggest that you take none of this at face value.
Let’s start with a deconstruction of the technical issues around the question of privilege and then examine the strategy implications of the goings-on, as that is the lens that the parties are viewing this.
The privileges afforded Members of Parliament are rooted in the notion that in order to perform their duties within the confines of Parliament, they need to be allowed to speak and to act with a certain amount of freedom. When MPs feel that their privileges have been somehow restricted, they must immediately bring this to the attention of the House Speaker in writing and the House of Commons must deal with it at the exclusion of all other business.
The vast majority of questions of privilege turn out to be simple complaints, random musings, or items of debate, but MPs have learned that this is a great way to get attention. The House Speaker will generally try to dismiss the issue as soon as possible, or will take it under advisement in order to prepare a more detailed response to the House. In this particular case, the earned media generated around the issue will more than make up for the eventual procedural beat down.
In terms of the issue in question, a government Member of Parliament raised a question of privilege claiming his rights had been infringed because his party leadership had made a decision to not allow that MP to make a statement, referred to as a Standing Order 31, because they disagreed with the content. A number of additional Tory MPs also added anecdotal evidence of similar restrictive action being taken against them, and then the various party House leaders waded in with arguments.
Quite frankly, at the risk of letting the hot air out of the suspense balloon, I don’t think this is going anywhere on technical grounds. As soon as you start to fall back on the “rules” of Parliament you are confronted with a bit of a procedural conundrum and they are precious few.
Unlike most legal processes in this country, that have clearly-defined and developed regulatory frameworks, the authorities of the Canadian Parliament have evolved over time as a combination of practice, precedents, and statutory definition. In other words: this gets complicated in a hurry as you can’t simply look something up and get a clear and definitive ruling. A good chunk of what goes on is based on voluntary adherence to precedent, in some cases precedent from other international jurisdictions.
Before we wipe the froth from our mouths and set about to right this glaring wrong, it would be wise to consider the fact that this system has served us well for a very long time. Given the nature of what is actually going on the Chamber, a certain amount of flexibility is always a useful thing.
The effective operation of Parliament requires honourable people acting in honourable ways and I don’t think defaulting to a strictly rules-based system gets us anywhere, at least anywhere near where we want to be.
Another slight misconception is the role of the House Speaker in all of this. The House Speaker wears a nice black gown, not a striped shirt with a whistle. It is for the MPs to decide on the operation of the Chamber and the House Speaker’s job is to reflect this.
To make your climb a bit steeper, and at the risk of exposing one of the dark secrets of House procedure, Question Period has even more stringent control. The idea that the House Speaker glances around the Chamber looking for that eager Parliamentarian who looks like they are in the best intellectual position to make the most immediate impact on democracy and recognizes that MP to ask their—up until this point—unknown and unheard question, has long ago gone the way of the dodo.
An MP must submit a request to the House Leader’s Office to ask a question and, in some cases, not only submit the question for approval, but may be required to actually physically rehearse the question. In other cases, the actual question is written by the party apparatus and sent to the MP’s office, to be repeated verbatim at the allotted time. Before Question Period begins, the House Speaker is provided with a list of not only the S.O. 31 speakers, but the MPs who will be asking questions as well. The only exception is Independent MPs, who will generally get about one time slot a month. So if one of the key supervisory authorities of Parliament, Question Period, is controlled and scripted to Cirque du Soleil standards, S.O. 31s are secondary and irrelevant.
And if enough MPs feel that the allocation of S.O. 31s, or any other procedural matter, is not being handled properly they can begin the process of amending the Standing Orders to address it. Good luck with that!
In terms of the strategies in play, this is actually a pretty interesting item. To begin with, I can’t figure out why the opposition MPs who serve on the Procedure and House Affairs Subcommittee of Private Members’ Business would not have allowed this motion to be debatable and force the government to air some dirty laundry in public. The only explanation I can come up with is that all parties would have potentially had MPs support it and would have had to deal with the political consequences.
The interventions from the opposition House leaders were also great fun. On the one hand, they did not want to pass up the opportunity to rub a little salt into the wounds of dissention growing right before their eyes and, on the other hand, they had to balance this with the fact that they probably had a very similar process in place within their own party and did not want to risk unleashing the beast that sits behind them.
Finally the intervention by the government House leader summed it up fairly well, politics is a team activity. You are nominated for a party, you run as member of that party and you are expected to operate within the policy parameters laid down by that party. Our system in not based on 308 individual legislators, our system is based on the government proposing legislation and Parliament subsequently disposing of that proposed legislation.
It is interesting to note that the expanded role of private members’ business was one of the contributing factors to this kerfuffle and illustrates the need to carefully consider the impacts and consequences of making changes to the Standing Orders based on a specific grievance.
In this case, the Prime Minister made a clear and unequivocal statement to Canadians, during a federal campaign, concerning the issue being addressed in the S.O. 31 in question, and any government MPs who disagree with that stated policy have limited options.
The first would be to put this issue in to whatever internal policy pipe exists and have the party examine the issue and potentially direct the party leadership to adjust the public stance. This would take time, and, quite frankly, I am not sure that the support within the party would be there. Regardless, it would be critically important to be sensitive to the political consequences, both real and perceived, of this approach. The party faithful likes having the levers and it is understood that compromise is always required, if you start looking like you are peeing in the hot tub you should be able to figure out how that will end.
The second option is much simpler. If you are so diametrically opposed to the position of your party on an issue of fundamental importance to you, then apply your own personal confidence convention and sit as an independent Member of Parliament.
At least that way you should get one unfettered S.O. 31 every month!
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: JOE JORDAN
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