A time to clear the air

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(DALE CUMMINGS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

As Speaker Peter Milliken confirmed in a ruling last May, Parliament is superior to government and the will of Parliament (the majority of MPs) is superior to the will of the executive branch. That is the splendid idea at the heart of our democracy -- that power vested in government should not trump the strength of the people vested in their representatives. But it is an idea that is abused when it is reduced from the sublime -- the will of the majority of MPs acting freely and in good conscience to check executive action -- to the ridiculous -- the tyranny of a majority of MPs who see electoral advantage in flexing numeric muscle against the will of the majority of voters who see no need for another $400-million election, the fourth in seven years.

But such was the case Friday when the opposition parties united to defeat the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, charging the government is contemptuous of democracy and no longer enjoys the confidence of (numeric) Parliament. At issue was the opposition's determination the government had not adequately disclosed the eventual costs of its crime bills or new fighter jets and that a minister had not explained how a "not" had come to be inserted in an approval of grant money for an NGO and was therefore in "contempt" of the will of the (numeric) Parliament.

That governments are seldom forthright in their disclosures is not to excuse these transgressions, but it is to say perspective is wanting in this instance. And that perspective does not become more focused when the opposition charges these are only the most recent of a long list of offensive actions and scandalous outrages perpetrated by the Harper government.

Any government, after all, will accumulate skeletons in closets over five years in office and no government in memory has more offended the idea of Parliament than the previous government did when it directed taxpayer money into Liberal coffers in the name of national unity.

To be sure, Mr. Harper has a mean streak he exercises in ultra-partisan ways. Some call him a thug, but then it was Jean Chrétien who relished the monicker street-fighter and made jokes about pepper-sprayed protesters.

Personality certainly is an important component in the mix that makes a politician attractive or not. But as certainly, the flaws of politicians are judged through the prism of whether the flaws are manifest in one of "ours" or one of "theirs."

These tendencies to partisanship -- to make too much or too little of ours and theirs, what we do as opposed to what they do -- has been magnified over the last seven years of minority Liberal and then Conservative governments. In opposition, Conservative, New Democrat and Bloc MPs railed as fiercely against the Liberals as the Liberals, NDP and Bloc now rail against the Conservatives.

It might be said those who live by the sword die by the sword. But more accurately, it would appear minority government over such a long period of time has not been good for the Canadian polity.

To be sure, a great deal more has been accomplished over the last five years than might have been expected. But the lack of certainty on government and opposition benches has created a dynamic of brinksmanship and a poisonous atmosphere of partisan acrimony and lack of civility that many fear explains why Canadians are turned off by politicians and are tuning out public-policy issues of great consequence to themselves and their nation at the wrong time -- a bad time.

So while the sublime idea of Parliament has been abused in recent years and most certainly was on Friday, the election that starts today optimistically offers an opportunity to clear the air, to focus minds on what matters to Canadians and Canada. The election also is an opportunity to elect a majority government and, if not, then at least an opportunity to start fresh with a new dynamic fuelled by the many new faces that will appear.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 26, 2011 A18