Many people are turned off by MP's turning sessions of Parliament into mudslinging contests. Of course, this is nothing new. However, we have heard time and again how it is the Conservatives who have supposedly dragged down decorum in the House of Commons.
Out of interest, I thought I would go to the Government of Canada's Hansard to see exactly how quickly the decorum of the House of Commons started to go downhill and who got the ball rolling. The first day of the session was Monday, April 3rd 2006 which basically boiled down to everybody congratulating each other and the choosing of the Speaker of the House.
The second day -- Tuesday, April 4th -- was the first day getting down to business. The opening of Parliament and Oaths of Office were fairly standard. Then came the Speech from the Throne which outlined the government's agenda and the address in reply. All very straightforward.
But the question remains... at what point did decorum break down? Was it halfway through the question period? Three quarters of the way?
Try the very first question by a member of the Opposition!
And of course it was courtesy of everybody's favourite, the member of Mississauga South, Mr. Paul Szabo wherein he brings up the proposed cut to the GST calling it "unholy".
I'm wondering if there are any Liberals out there who might be able to explain the word "unholy" as being procedural or technical.
So, the next time anybody says that it is the Conservative Party of Canada that lowered the decorum of the House of Commons when it took office, kindly point out that the party who took the first shot was the Liberal Party and the man who pulled the trigger was Paul Szabo on the very first question.
Oh, how we'll miss him.
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3 comments:
You started looking for the loss of decorum in 2006? Hahaha... try WAY back before that. (I have no idea who started it, by the way -- just that this isn't exactly a surprise development).
Keith Beardsley, Harper's old adviser, has an interesting post up saying they took new staffers into a simulation of the Commons once and gave them preprinted questions and answers to read out. All of them going in said they had no idea how things could get so uncivil. By the end they were all screaming at each other.
Did I say that up until the Conservatives took power it was a chamber of rainbows and unicorns? Hardly.
Seems your attention span wasn't long enough to get to the last paragraph.
Try checking out the British parliament some time - 'lack of decorum' doesn't even begin to describe it!
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