Conservatives at risk of losing more than just deadwood

Whether driven by pensions, premonition, or panic, Harper’s ministers and MPs are heading for the exits in droves – or seeking new political homes.

A group of Conservatives nearly as large as the entire Liberal caucus will not be re-offering in the next federal election. That includes five cabinet ministers now that Industry minister James Moore has decided on a career-path change. And the number is still likely to grow as the summer wears on.

Michael Chong: 'We Have A Moral Obligation To Conserve Our Environment'

Conservative MP Michael Chong is calling on the federal government to take action in the wake of a startling new report on climate change.

Chong, a prominent member of an all-party, non-partisan "climate caucus," rose in the House Monday to respond to the fifth assessment report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report concludes that, if left unchecked, climate change "will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems."

Michael Chong's revised reform bill would do little to boost backbench power

When Conservative MP Michael Chong launched his bid to rebalance the power between MPs and party leaders, it was seen as a noble, if doomed, endeavour — a quixotic campaign to restore a modicum of dignity to beleaguered backbenchers that would almost certainly be squelched by the front benches at the earliest possible opportunity.

Nearly one year later, Chong is about to see his bill receive a second-reading stamp of approval from the House of Commons — with the full blessing of the government.

Usual naysaying, hysterics greet MP Michael Chong’s bid to reform Parliament

Can’t be done. Too risky. Goes too far. Doesn’t go far enough. Whenever and wherever someone actually makes some concrete proposal to repair our damaged democracy, the forces of inertia almost instantly gather to ensure it never happens. Of course, everyone agrees that something should be done. Just not, you know, this.

So it is with the Reform Act, on which Conservative MP Michael Chong has been toiling for most of the past 15 years. Before the bill was unveiled Tuesday, a flourish of pundits had written its epitaph — even as they complained of others “rushing to judgment” in advance of a final text.

Conservatives to vote behind closed doors at caucus on Chong’s bill to empower MPs

PARLIAMENT HILL—The first Conservative vote on a radical bill from government backbench MP Michael Chong, proposing Elections Act amendments that would allow only a handful of federal MPs to spark a review and a possible overthrow of a party leader, will take place in secret during a closed-door meeting of the Conservative caucus, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s designated caucus spokesmen said Tuesday.

The private members’ bill, which generated a storm of interest from MPs in all parties after Mr. Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) held a nationally-televised press conference on Tuesday morning and introduced it in the Commons, will also first be reviewed by a Conservative caucus legislative committee chaired by Mr. Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary in the House, Conservative MP Paul Calandra (Oak Ridges-Markham, Ont.), The Hill Times has learned.

Who is Michael Chong? And what does he want to do with our Parliament?

Ahead of tomorrow’s release of “An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms)”—recently dubbed “The Reform Act”—a brief guide to what could be a minor revolution in our parliamentary governance.

Who is Michael Chong?

Mr. Chong is the Conservative MP for Wellington-Halton Hills.

Don’t I remember him from somewhere?

Probably. For awhile after the Conservatives formed government in 2006, Mr. Chong was the Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, but he quit cabinet in November 2006 because he could not support the Prime Minister’s motion that the Québécois formed a nation within a united Canada. He has been a backbencher ever since. In May 2010, he proposed a series of reforms to Question Period, which generated a great deal of discussion, but which have so far failed to be implemented.