Unparliamentary Behaviour

Canadian parliamentarians need to woo an apathetic public tired of personal politics. Step one: ban heckling.

Federal Speaker of the House Peter Milliken caused a small stir last month when he cut off three government MPs for making personal attacks on the leader of the opposition during the 15 minutes allocated for members’ statements.

To some, Milliken’s determination to take a stand after years of lax enforcement of civil decorum in the House of Commons was welcome. Parliament needed to shed its image as, in one former prime minister’s words, a stage for “contrived indignation and cheap shots and phony questions and unserious answers.”

Others were less impressed. Pierre Poilievre, the MP for Nepean-Carleton, was quick to defend the right of his colleagues to speak their minds, noting that if members of the public believed that MPs were behaving inappropriately, they could respond through the ballot box. To some, it seems, politics is a blood sport. As Kory Teneycke of the Prime Minister’s Office explained, “If you’re going to step into the ring, you’ve got to be able to take the punch.”

It is hard to believe that the Canadian public agrees. Rather than punishing individual MPs for their misbehaviour, however, Canadians have targeted their anger, frustration, and disappointment at the political class as a whole.

The percentage of Canadians who voted in the last federal election was below 60 per cent for the first time ever, and turn-out at recent provincial and municipal votes has been even worse. Recent polls suggest that only one quarter of all Canadians still have respect for their MPs.

The disillusionment among the country’s youth is particularly disheartening, yet it is hard to fault their exasperation. Last year, Liberal Robert Thibault called Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton an idiot and advised her to go back to making tea for Brian Mulroney. Not long before that, a House of Commons debate about the impact of pollution degenerated into allegations that Peter MacKay had referred to Belinda Stronach as his dog.

Efforts to improve political behaviour have been largely ineffective. Offenders inevitably apologize for their misconduct but most are quick to reoffend without any appearance of contrition or regret. Indeed, the three MPs sanctioned last month have already found a way around Milliken’s discipline by reframing their criticisms as concerns about “the leadership of the Liberal Party” rather than attacks against Michael Ignatieff personally.

Declining standards of parliamentary behaviour in Canada are a collective problem with far-reaching ramifications. When members are promoted to cabinet because of their ability to embarrass the opposition, the level of government competency suffers. When the best and the brightest of the next generation eschew politics in disgust, the system stagnates.

In order to work, efforts to reinvigorate parliament, re-engage the country’s youth, and restore public faith in democracy must target the system as a whole. An ideal first step, one that should resonate politically and publicly, would be to ban heckling, in all its forms, from parliamentary discourse.

A Harper government resolution to this effect could only improve the Conservatives’ popular standing. Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals, who are attempting to position themselves as a party of principle, would have no choice but to offer full-fledged support.

Sanctions in the traditional sense could be replaced by reducing the offending party’s right to participate during Question Period and by fining that same party as a whole. Caucus leaders could determine whether an MP would be personally responsible for the indiscretion or whether the money would be drawn from the party’s operating budget.

Less heckling would inevitably lead to more thoughtful discussion, and would eventually restore a degree of dignity to a parliamentary process that has become a stale public relations exercise instead of a platform for reasoned debate. A collective penalty would force MPs to police themselves and would turn rogue representatives who refuse to behave civilly into party outcasts.

At a time in which the president of the United States is making a real effort at bipartisanship and a global economic crisis has made the Canadian public more demanding of cooperation among their own political elite, Ottawa must seize the opportunity to rectify a national embarrassment.

Banning heckling is only a small step, but it is an easy one, and it could be done immediately. Let us hope that Canada’s leaders have the courage and integrity to try it.