Canadians aren’t cringing at an adversarial system, they’re cringing at a failed one. If question period led to substantive answers to the questions of the day that would be great but all to often metaphorically speaking the opposition asks the government to chose a number between 1 and 10 and the government responds that they like butter tarts. This is not productive, and the adversarial nature of the useless exchange does not make it productive. It’s also worth noting that we are the only country that is unserious enough that a substantial portion of the population will not only accept this nonsense but celebrate it as a properly working democracy. Even the UK speaker will kick out an MP for not substantively answering a question. Even the US which is mocked by everyone, I can still watch congressional testimony from CEOs or high ranking bureaucrats and have an understanding that two sides are communicating in a comprehensible way. In Canada? Forget it, politicians here take pride in one upping each other with gibberish.
m_Pony on
If policy benefits taxpayers, then good: I couldn’t give a monkey’s who voted for the bill. This is not about “civility and comfort as the highest goals” as the author states. There’s far more rhetoric than necessary and not enough work being done. Things that are within the government’s power to fix, or influence, need attention. Things that the government can’t influence, or fix, only get mentioned for cheap points. If I got taxed a dollar every time someone said “Mister Speaker” I’d be everyone in this country.
[deleted] on
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green_tory on
>The prime minister and cabinet sit in the Commons and stay in office only as long as they hold the confidence of a majority of MPs.
This is half of it. The other half is that they stay in office so long as the majority of MPs do not believe they will be well-served by an election; this is why majority governments hold early elections: not because they’ve lost the confidence of the House, but because they think it will serve them well to hold an election.
>But if we treat civility and comfort as the highest goals, we will grind down the very tools that make a Westminster Parliament work.
Civility can be maintained as a goal *without* comfort, and I’m not sure why the author is pairing the two.
It is possible to be critical, even bitingly critical, without being uncivil. But it typically doesn’t make for viral TikTok reels and syndicated news quotes. Being an uncivil blaggard does.
4 Comments
Canadians aren’t cringing at an adversarial system, they’re cringing at a failed one. If question period led to substantive answers to the questions of the day that would be great but all to often metaphorically speaking the opposition asks the government to chose a number between 1 and 10 and the government responds that they like butter tarts. This is not productive, and the adversarial nature of the useless exchange does not make it productive. It’s also worth noting that we are the only country that is unserious enough that a substantial portion of the population will not only accept this nonsense but celebrate it as a properly working democracy. Even the UK speaker will kick out an MP for not substantively answering a question. Even the US which is mocked by everyone, I can still watch congressional testimony from CEOs or high ranking bureaucrats and have an understanding that two sides are communicating in a comprehensible way. In Canada? Forget it, politicians here take pride in one upping each other with gibberish.
If policy benefits taxpayers, then good: I couldn’t give a monkey’s who voted for the bill. This is not about “civility and comfort as the highest goals” as the author states. There’s far more rhetoric than necessary and not enough work being done. Things that are within the government’s power to fix, or influence, need attention. Things that the government can’t influence, or fix, only get mentioned for cheap points. If I got taxed a dollar every time someone said “Mister Speaker” I’d be everyone in this country.
[removed]
>The prime minister and cabinet sit in the Commons and stay in office only as long as they hold the confidence of a majority of MPs.
This is half of it. The other half is that they stay in office so long as the majority of MPs do not believe they will be well-served by an election; this is why majority governments hold early elections: not because they’ve lost the confidence of the House, but because they think it will serve them well to hold an election.
>But if we treat civility and comfort as the highest goals, we will grind down the very tools that make a Westminster Parliament work.
Civility can be maintained as a goal *without* comfort, and I’m not sure why the author is pairing the two.
It is possible to be critical, even bitingly critical, without being uncivil. But it typically doesn’t make for viral TikTok reels and syndicated news quotes. Being an uncivil blaggard does.