Is Canada's Government Really Functional?
...is a question that needs to be asked, in light of this absurd, fruitless meeting (more reporting on this can be found at the CBC website).
The blame might seem as if it should be nearly equally equally distributed amongst both parties (Chairman Colin Kenny makes himself look like an inflexible, pompous ass. However, it is the newly appointed Conservative Senators who really take the cake. The "Honourable" Fabian Manning starts talking trash and treats the Senate Committee room like a neighbourhood pub...and Pamela Wallin (the quite Right-wing, sometime journalist for CBC's The Journal and CBC Newsworld - and CBC has not been known for being Right-wing)...leaves me speechless: She lies about what happened, two seconds after it happened! She claims there was no vote, when, quite clearly, as viewers can see, there was a vote!
Incredible! This brings me to my next point: Is Canadian politics imitating the behaviour on the hockey rink, which so many Canadians (the local machos and politicians and media, as least) idolize?
It certainly begs the question. There is great deal of the identical thuggery and incivility (the hockey player who says he can't believe he actually shook the opposing players' hand is a case in point).
You might say, again that Colin Kenney was pompous. I agree. But he was following the rules. And he was being fast and efficient. And he never lowered himself to name calling, shouting, lying, or similar thuggery that you see from the Conservative Senators. In addition, I get the feeling that the Conservative Senators are resorting to this everyday, to make life unbearable for the Chairman. How would you feel if you were Colin Kenney, having to deal with this everyday? I would want to quit that job too. It would give me anxiety attacks, and maybe eventually, ulcers!
Incidentally, I was once at a meeting like this, as an observer. It was a General Meeting for the Concordia University Student Council. The Council (supposedly left-wing, at the time, and constantly obsessed with the Middle East problem, and not so much with University politics), wanted to stifled the freedom of the press of The Link, the Concordia University. The tactics the Council used was absurd. However, they did seem to have more of an inkling of Robert's rules than the Senate Committee, or, for that matter, the poor, hapless members of the student press!
posted by Thoth Harris at 4:27:00 PM
2 Comments:
How long are the taxpayers going to continue to stuck with these useless freeloading parasites. Time to close the senate, its only another free ride for political toadies of both parties.
Jay
Maybe, when, like Honduras, the Canadian military stages a coup and ousts our self-arrogated leader (whoever it is at the time - and now, it is Stephen Harper).
Not that I am in favour of military coups. I am just saying.
The thing is, no party that is in power wants to give up the seductive possibility of picking someone from their own pack and ideological spectrum to reside in the senate long after the government is ousted from power by the electorate. In the past, the Senate was consider the seat of "sober" second thought. Many people, particularly Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party and mentor to the current PM Harper, thought of the Senate as patronage. Many Canadians thought of Senators (who were mostly very old) as dinosaurs, who fell asleep at meetings. Perhaps that is preferable to the non-stop, pointless bickering that we see in these videos. But perhaps we should so away with the senate altogether.
But the idea of checks and balances in a government is much more attractive to me. How about if the Prime MInister of an outgoing government picks candidates from all parties, including his/her own to run for Senate. That way, we have someone who is appointed, and is also supported by the public. That way, as well, we have the benefit of both wisdom and choice. That is just one possibility among many!
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home