It's Not Parliament, It's You

Canadians are too ignorant to realize that Parliament's working just fine.

Jeffrey Simpson joins his Globe and Mail colleague John Ibbitson in bemoaning the lack of action on Bill C-12, which would give Ontario 18 more seats in the House of Commons, B.C. seven more, and Alberta five more to reflect the growing urban populations of those provinces. Because of special deals cut decades ago with Québec and the Atlantic provinces, Simpson says that Parliament’s “electoral composition already mocks contemporary Canada” and unless Bill C-12 is passed it’s only going to get worse. The political stumbling block is Québec, which would see its electoral power diminish if seats were added elsewhere. Before you go blaming la belle province however, save some ire for all the federal parties, who Simpson says have repeatedly subjected what should be the “technical, straightforward matter” of apportioning seats to political “fiddling.” So far Globe columnists are the only ones who seemed concerned about this issue, but hopefully it will gain traction elsewhere soon because political meddling in such a fundamental element of our democracy is certainly troubling.

Despite the “constant honking din of whinging about the disgrace of question period, the decline of Parliament, excessive partisanship, party discipline, the unelected Senate, and, worst of all, our obsolete and unrepresentative electoral system,” Andrew Potter writes in the Ottawa Citizen that in its primary duty of holding government to account “our parliamentary system works exceedingly well.” The problem is that Canadians are too ignorant to realize it, and mistake partisan bickering as dysfunction. Potter may be right that most Canadians don’t fully understand what Parliament does, but he concedes that according to exit interviews with 65 retiring MPS, even politicians aren’t sure what their duties are. For some reason, Potter does not see this as a major institutionalized problem. He also fails to address the lack of action on Bill C-12 that means a vote in PEI continues to be worth twice as much as one in Toronto. As such, he should probably forgive ignorant Canadians if we need more convincing that everything’s fine on Parliament Hill.