Yesterday I watched QP in the Commons. April 15th. Have you ever done this? This has now become an exercise in being insulted. Pierre Poilievre, a Parliament Assistant, was appointed by the Harper government to answer a question on the ethics of Peter Panashue now running in the Labrador by-election in spite of having betrayed the trust of voters in the last election.
Watching this government directed theatre produced in me a feeling of being profoundly insulted, contemned, and defrauded. Three times in a row, Poilievre rose to repeat, word for word the same memorized defence of the resigned Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada. This defence could not should not be termed a “Speaking Note.” It was a memorized evasion of the question, pre-learned, unresponsive to the question, and repeated in imitation of a robotic, programmed phone message prepared by a corporate advertiser, only less human sounding. The effect of this was to reveal the depth of contempt for Parliament that characterizes this majority robo government.
And yet, day after day, the Opposition parties sit in total frustration and can do nothing but ask questions to which they know they will receive only robotic answers. How do they bear this? What else can they do? I know that I would be quite unable to stand it. I know that as an Opposition MP I would soon be thrown out of the House, if not charged with something. Long ago the Parties I support might have been willing to be thrown out one by one, so that every day someone would join the exiled growing group of outraged M.Ps who would then gain press interviews. But that was in the days when Canada came before personal ambition and money.
I seriously implore the two Opposition Parties to talk to each other at least about a rebellion in the House. At the first sign of a Robocall response from the Harper benches, and led by their Leaders, would you please do this for me, the voter: file out of the House to restore some dignity to our House of Commons and restore our belief in protest and resistance. You need be absent for that day only and return the next day, when once again, rather than be insulted again on our behalf, you would leave at the first hint of a robo reply to a real question. Since the House is obviously dysfuctional why delude the world that Canada is conducting democratic business as usual. It is not. At best we are keeping up appearances. It is broken. Those soldiers positioned on the roof of the Foreign Legion fortress as though to defend it are only a sham, they are dead. Reveal it is broken and stop lending credibility to the Harper regime by asking questions of human beings programmed to act as not human. Please wake up, we voted for you to defend our processes. Do not lend them credibility. You cannot debate with the Borg.
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