MPs on Holiday as Posties Back to Work

With the postal debate over, does this mean we actually have to talk about Senate reform ALL summer?

The first sitting of the 41st Parliament wrapped up with a 58-hour filibuster on the Conservative government's decision to force Canada Post employees back to work. Don Newman, writing for iPolitics, heralds the shortened session as an indication of what to expect for the next four years, with the Tories not hesitating to use their emboldened mandate, the NDP inching toward the centre (notably by supporting an extended Libya mission) while shoring up their traditional bases, and the Liberals just sort of sitting there. Newman figures the debate dispels, for now, the “conventional wisdom ... that both the Conservatives and the NDP will moderate and migrate toward the political centre in order to consolidate their recent electoral gains.”

The Toronto Star's Tim Harper elaborates on that notion, deadpanning that “something extraordinary” happened over the weekend: “Real debate broke out in the House of Commons.” With labour strife becoming “the first defining issue for the re-elected Harper government,” Parliament could be in store for a term's worth of arguments over ideological issues, thanks in part to the dynamics of a majority government. “[The NDP] stood on principle, without having to factor in the minority mindset about what this might do to them in a campaign that could break out at any time,” says Harper. Going forward, the fresh-faced opposition will certainly have to pick its battles wisely, though – it's not every day it'll get to practice debating over labour relations, and especially not at a time of the year when people are more concerned about heading to the cottage than a slumber party on the Hill.

The whole exercise ought to serve notice that while the Tories can essentially pass whatever legislation they want to, they don't have “carte blanche” to do so, says Geoffrey Stevens in The Record. “The universe, to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau, is not unfolding precisely as Harper thought it should,” says Stevens. The strike had barely registered on voters' minds before the back-to-work bill was introduced. Seventy per cent of Canadians might have supported the move, but the Tories surely weren't expecting to go through a marathon procedural rigamarole just as summer break was about to begin. The end result – the posties going back to work for less than their employer offered – is clearly what the Tories wanted. But the pains it took to get there could mean many more nights spent sleeping on Parliament's well appointed couches.