Stop Heckling

Banning heckling would push hard-working, well-briefed MPs into the limelight and make more shallow and excessively partisan MPs irrelevant.

How can we improve the state of public debate in Canada? First, and most important, we can promote respect for our parliamentary institutions by returning a modicum of professionalism and civility to Question Period.

Banning parliamentary heckling – and imposing punitive fines on both individual violators of the ban and the parties they represent – would effect a series of changes in parliamentary culture, and by extension in perceptions of the role of Parliament and MPs.

First, it would serve as a public commitment to address the immature, petty, and embarrassing way that the majority of Canada’s federal representatives conduct themselves on the most prominent of our political stages.

Second, by taking away the option of brushing aside tough questions with obnoxious rhetoric, a ban on heckling would encourage MPs to discuss real matters of policy.

Without the ability to heckle, some of today’s ‘star’ MPs, known around Ottawa for their quick and excessively partisan wit, but not much more, would be reduced to irrelevancy.

In contrast, hard-working, well-briefed members who see politics not as a game, but rather as a means of making Canada a better country, would have the opportunity to shine more brightly on national television.

Banning heckling is hardly a cure-all for today’s political malaise. But it is an easy first step that would undoubtedly make a difference.