It didn’t take long for the new NDP Opposition to assert itself after the May 2 federal election. Only a few weeks later, it seemed it was handed an opportunity by the Canadian postal workers union, which had gone on strike after negotiations over pay differences between new and established workers ended in a lockout.
The Conservative government’s allegedly heavy-handed proposed back-to-work legislation, combined with the NDP’s support of the union’s argument that the possible settlement would be damaging to new and future postal workers, gave Jack Layton and his new, larger team the chance to show Canadians what kind of opposition they’d elected. The NDP set about filibustering the legislation — a move they argued gave the postal workers and Canada Post time to get back to the bargaining table and negotiate further. It resulted in days of debate, and allowed the NDP to show off some of the new faces it had acquired during its assault on the electoral map.
But only six months later, the NDP choosing to filibuster the debate on the back-to-work legislation already seems like a move from a bygone era — a time when the NDP didn’t look like a farm team lobbing easy, grab-bag attacks across the aisle, but instead took a principled course of action and offered the image of a real alternative to the government. The filibuster did little, in the end, to sway the government’s planned course of action, but the NDP made a successful bid to show that, at some level, it was worth doing, even if the result was ultimately the same.
Of course, things are different now, and that image conjured up by the NDP during the filibuster seems more like a mirage than a look into the future — not that it’s entirely their fault.
Though the government has introduced equally contentious legislation of late, there has been little by way of serious, lengthy debate. Instead, the Conservatives have introduced time allocation — more frequently than any government before them — to hurry bills along. Two justifications are normally given for this: that the House has already debated the legislation at length when many of the bills were first introduced, before the election in May; and second, that Canadians gave the government a mandate to [fill the blank with the requisite action being taken by the bill at hand], and so they intend to do it.
The Conservatives have recently taken to adding a third reason, reminding the House that too much debate — and all the talking and arguing that often comes with it — is what is at the heart of things like the European financial crisis. So, the implication being, Canada’s government will take action, rather than stand around and chat.
“If we look at the United States or at Europe, one of the problems is political gridlock. Decisions cannot get made,” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told the House on the final day of the fall session. “We will allow debate to occur, but we will not allow the political gridlock that the other parties want to see put in place here.”
Already, the government is being pilloried in the press, with any number of columnists pointing out that, well, first of all, the MPs who debated the legislation prior to the last election were, y’know, a different bunch entirely and therefore such an argument probably can’t logically stand; second, an election doesn’t mean the pulse of the people is never taken again until the next one, and a majority government does not a diktat make; and finally, the crisis in Europe has much less to do with discussion and debate than it does any number of historic grievances and nationalist tendencies that run much deeper than the current issues — and the only way any of those have ever been solved apart from going to war, has been for everyone to sit around and talk it out.
Yet, with all of that readily available to point out, the NDP has mostly failed to do so. Its most notable objection to the Conservatives in the last session came not from any proposed amendments to government bills (that came from the Liberals’ amendments on the omnibus crime bill), but from a profane outburst on Twitter. Pat Martin’s screed which included the charge that the government was enacting “jackboot shit” was surely the result of a building and legitimate annoyance at the Conservative’s continued use of time allocation to limit debate. But, for it to have already come to that point — Twitter used as a release valve, rather than the Commons — does not bode well for Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.
Looking back, there were two things the filibuster did aside from allowing the NDP to briefly declare its presence in the House.
First, it has given the Conservative government a tangible instance to which it can point each and every time it feels it needs to remind Canadians what debate can come to. Of course, it is the extreme, but within a repeated, non-contextual argument that debate slows the democratic process, the filibuster from last spring could begin to take on an aura of normalcy — that, in fact, every debate in the House could lead to such stagnation.
Second, the filibuster has ultimately given the Conservatives the basis on which to continue to pile the accusations that the NDP is completely in the pocket of the big labour unions. Since the fall session began, that charge has been leveled again and again (including toward some NDP leadership candidates), along with the added allegation that the NDP actively lobbies against Canadian jobs.
At the moment, it appears as though the NDP have no response to any of it. In the House, the NDP MPs do, at times, give substantive arguments for their side, but often fall back to loud denouncements of government action that sometimes escalates into a torrent of feigned indignation. As loud and as strong an arrival as they made into the House in May, the NDP benches now appear replete with seething frustration. And it may continue for some time.
Original Article
Source: iPolitico
The Conservative government’s allegedly heavy-handed proposed back-to-work legislation, combined with the NDP’s support of the union’s argument that the possible settlement would be damaging to new and future postal workers, gave Jack Layton and his new, larger team the chance to show Canadians what kind of opposition they’d elected. The NDP set about filibustering the legislation — a move they argued gave the postal workers and Canada Post time to get back to the bargaining table and negotiate further. It resulted in days of debate, and allowed the NDP to show off some of the new faces it had acquired during its assault on the electoral map.
But only six months later, the NDP choosing to filibuster the debate on the back-to-work legislation already seems like a move from a bygone era — a time when the NDP didn’t look like a farm team lobbing easy, grab-bag attacks across the aisle, but instead took a principled course of action and offered the image of a real alternative to the government. The filibuster did little, in the end, to sway the government’s planned course of action, but the NDP made a successful bid to show that, at some level, it was worth doing, even if the result was ultimately the same.
Of course, things are different now, and that image conjured up by the NDP during the filibuster seems more like a mirage than a look into the future — not that it’s entirely their fault.
Though the government has introduced equally contentious legislation of late, there has been little by way of serious, lengthy debate. Instead, the Conservatives have introduced time allocation — more frequently than any government before them — to hurry bills along. Two justifications are normally given for this: that the House has already debated the legislation at length when many of the bills were first introduced, before the election in May; and second, that Canadians gave the government a mandate to [fill the blank with the requisite action being taken by the bill at hand], and so they intend to do it.
The Conservatives have recently taken to adding a third reason, reminding the House that too much debate — and all the talking and arguing that often comes with it — is what is at the heart of things like the European financial crisis. So, the implication being, Canada’s government will take action, rather than stand around and chat.
“If we look at the United States or at Europe, one of the problems is political gridlock. Decisions cannot get made,” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told the House on the final day of the fall session. “We will allow debate to occur, but we will not allow the political gridlock that the other parties want to see put in place here.”
Already, the government is being pilloried in the press, with any number of columnists pointing out that, well, first of all, the MPs who debated the legislation prior to the last election were, y’know, a different bunch entirely and therefore such an argument probably can’t logically stand; second, an election doesn’t mean the pulse of the people is never taken again until the next one, and a majority government does not a diktat make; and finally, the crisis in Europe has much less to do with discussion and debate than it does any number of historic grievances and nationalist tendencies that run much deeper than the current issues — and the only way any of those have ever been solved apart from going to war, has been for everyone to sit around and talk it out.
Yet, with all of that readily available to point out, the NDP has mostly failed to do so. Its most notable objection to the Conservatives in the last session came not from any proposed amendments to government bills (that came from the Liberals’ amendments on the omnibus crime bill), but from a profane outburst on Twitter. Pat Martin’s screed which included the charge that the government was enacting “jackboot shit” was surely the result of a building and legitimate annoyance at the Conservative’s continued use of time allocation to limit debate. But, for it to have already come to that point — Twitter used as a release valve, rather than the Commons — does not bode well for Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.
Looking back, there were two things the filibuster did aside from allowing the NDP to briefly declare its presence in the House.
First, it has given the Conservative government a tangible instance to which it can point each and every time it feels it needs to remind Canadians what debate can come to. Of course, it is the extreme, but within a repeated, non-contextual argument that debate slows the democratic process, the filibuster from last spring could begin to take on an aura of normalcy — that, in fact, every debate in the House could lead to such stagnation.
Second, the filibuster has ultimately given the Conservatives the basis on which to continue to pile the accusations that the NDP is completely in the pocket of the big labour unions. Since the fall session began, that charge has been leveled again and again (including toward some NDP leadership candidates), along with the added allegation that the NDP actively lobbies against Canadian jobs.
At the moment, it appears as though the NDP have no response to any of it. In the House, the NDP MPs do, at times, give substantive arguments for their side, but often fall back to loud denouncements of government action that sometimes escalates into a torrent of feigned indignation. As loud and as strong an arrival as they made into the House in May, the NDP benches now appear replete with seething frustration. And it may continue for some time.
Original Article
Source: iPolitico
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