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If you can't even sit together, how can you run the country?

By: Mia Rabson

Posted: 02/13/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette

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Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette (CNS)

Senator Irving Gerstein

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Senator Irving Gerstein (CP)

OTTAWA -- It has been a complaint for years that the partisanship in Ottawa is out of control.

Last week, evidence of that came at a Senate committee meeting, which some likened more to a spat one would expect from six-year-olds than from people we're all supposed to call "honourable."

Last Wednesday, Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein, the newly elected chairman of the Senate banking committee, didn't want to sit next to the vice-chairwoman, Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette.

Gerstein asked her to sit somewhere else.

When she wouldn't move, he called for a vote, and, with a majority on the committee, the Conservatives gave Hervieux-Payette the boot.

Gerstein would give no explanation for it when asked last week.

"This was just a procedural matter that was dealt with by the committee. Thank you very much."

Hervieux-Payette said she found the whole thing a little bit "indecent."

At the very least, it's more than a little bit childish.

If you can't set aside your partisan blinders to the point that you can't even sit at the same table with someone from another party, you have lost perspective on your reason for being in Ottawa.

How Gerstein's ability to do his job as the chairman was affected by having the Liberal vice-chairwoman sit next to him is hard to imagine. It's not like she would be privy to any private conversations with the prime minister or something.

It really appeared as if Gerstein simply couldn't stomach sitting next to a Liberal.

It's not the first time this has happened. Last fall, when a Conservative MP was invited to attend the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner, she initially accepted. But when she later learned that she would be sitting at a table with an NDP MP, she changed her mind. Now, at least in that instance the MP -- who I am choosing not to name because she didn't kick up a public fuss -- didn't call for the House of Commons to vote on it.

But it still says a lot about why this Parliament is the way it is when even the idea of having to breathe the same air as someone from a different party is too much to bear.

It's not to say everyone is like that. There are still some MPs on both sides who can set aside their party colours occasionally and socialize with the other side.

But the partisan chasms that have developed in this town grow deeper by the day.

It shows in every aspect of the government -- from the tone and level of debate to the inability of any party to ever admit someone else might have a good idea.

It wasn't always that way.

Last week, the debate about whether the government should force the food industry to get rid of trans fats came up again after it became public that Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq had shelved a plan to do so. Aglukkaq and the government prefer to keep the limits voluntary.

But the issue of limiting trans fats began in 2004 when Manitoba NDP MP Pat Martin and Conservative MP Steven Fletcher hashed out an idea on a plane trip to Ottawa from Winnipeg. Martin and Fletcher don't agree on a lot. But they agreed there was too much of the artery-clogging fat in Canadian food products and wanted to do something about it.

A motion to lower trans fats was introduced and passed as a result of their collaboration. It helped bring the issue to the forefront in the minds of both the public and the government. In response, industry began to address the issue even before the government started asking them to do so voluntarily in 2007.

There is still a ways to go. Without forced regulations, certain sectors of the food industry haven't taken the time or money to find alternatives to the trans-fat-laden hydrogenated oils keeping products tasty and fresh on the shelves for months. Public pressure hasn't been enough to do so either.

But there has been progress, particularly in the fast-food industry.

It may never have happened had either Martin or Fletcher complained to the airline about having to sit next to someone with different political stripes.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 13, 2012 A8

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