Scheer made the comments Thursday in an exclusive interview with Postmedia News in his wood-panelled Parliament Hill office overlooking the Ottawa River.
As he reviewed the past year, Scheer was candid in his assessment of why fierce political debate in the Commons sometimes erupts, and why it's important to nip improper conduct in the bud before it gets out of control.
"I think it's better when MPs are debating ideas and policies more than just hurling attacks," said Scheer, a 33-year-old who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2004.
"You've got 307 very, very passionate people. You've got ideas that are very sensitive. Ideas on policies that really do impact people's lives. So people get emotional about it."
"The challenge for me is to make sure the debate is following the rules. But also sometimes recognizing that a little bit of steam needs to come out of the valve."
Scheer admits that when he first came to Parliament eight years ago, he was one of the hecklers and that there was a "steady din, a rowdiness" in the chamber.
More recently, he said, there has been a "renewed commitment" from both the government and opposition parties to improve the tone of debate and stop using unparliamentary language.
There are still occasional bad days that might leave a negative impression on Canadians, he said.
"But I'm the House every day. I watch question period every day. I can definitely say that it is better and it continues to improve."
Problems occur when healthy debate crosses the line, becoming personal and nasty. The intensity sometimes comes from both sides of the aisle — government and opposition — in the form of heckling and shouting.
The opposition NDP is calling for improvements to decorum, and its house leader, Nathan Cullen, said he is impressed by Scheer's genuine efforts to improve the tone in the chamber.
"I find him a very open Speaker, absolutely non-partisan. We just want there to be some responsibility taken by the parties and by the members. I find the Speaker is a good partner in that."
Cullen revealed that in one instance when Tory MPs were shouting down NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair as he tried to ask a question, Scheer punished the government caucus for disrupting the question period by taking away a backbench Conservative MP's scheduled question.
Scheer confirmed the incident.
"I have tried to deal with some of those disruptions by showing members that there has to be consequences when there are repeated incidents," he said. "In that particular occasion, I felt there had been fair warning that it had been repeated. So the time that was lost to disruptions had to come from somewhere.
"Those are the types of things that happen quietly. I don't make a statement in the House when I do it. It just very quietly happens, and then there is a recognition after the fact that the caucus leadership in every party sees."
Scheer was the youngest person ever to be named Speaker in the Commons by his fellow MPs. After six secret ballots, politicians in the newly-formed majority Parliament placed their trust in Scheer to elevate the tarnished decorum in the House.
The tone of debate in the Commons seemed to have deteriorated steadily over the years of the recent Liberal and Conservative minority governments.
Scheer was hardly a household name to most Canadians. Since then, they have seen him on their TV screens daily — trying to keep order in Parliament.
On Thursday, after a full year in the chair, Scheer said his technique has largely been to defuse problems.
"I have often had the opportunity to prevent a situation from becoming worse by having members in my office and saying 'Listen, you should not do that again.'
"That goes unnoticed. It goes unreported. All of the other members wouldn't even know that that happened."
Another approach he said he learned from the "wise counsel" of his predecessor, Peter Milliken, is to deny an MP who acts up the publicity they are seeking.
"Sometimes the best thing to do is just ignore somebody. Or say to somebody that unless you withdraw or apologize, you are just going to be ignored. And then they do it quietly. They get up. They don't have to do it again. And the debate moves on."
The alternative, he said, might be to use another tool in his kit as Speaker which is much more "interventionist" — kicking the MP out of the chamber for the day, where they would instantly be surrounded by the media in the foyer.
"That's a delicate balance, because sometimes the worst thing you can do for a politician is give him more attention. Because in some way it's almost a benefit to doing something inappropriate because the spotlight is on him."
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mark Kennedy
No comments:
Post a Comment