Evidence of meeting #13 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prorogation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
I just want to make sure you're talking about the informal coalition that took place between the NDP and the Conservative Party back in the fall of 2005 to bring down a minority Liberal government?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
No, Ms. Jennings, you are.
We'll carry on with Mr. Christopherson.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes, this really impresses our young visitors.
I could try again to ask a simple question.
Do you believe the Canadian people are educated enough that if we get into that kind of scenario again, the notion that somehow there's something illegitimate going on will be known by Canadians as not illegitimate and that the issue is a political debate, not whether or not some coup has taken place?
As an Individual
I don't know. I certainly am disappointed as to what happened last year over the coalition, the fact that it is brought up occasionally when you read Hansard, and you see “unholy alliance” mentioned a few times. But you see scare tactics from all sides, especially around elections, so it's inevitable that whoever's in power or whoever's in opposition will try to scare Canadians into voting for them.
It would be great if we could have politicians motivate people by hope alone, yet fear is a much more primal emotion and it gets to people a lot more easily than promoting good ideas. But it is quite interesting that there is confusion in Canada as to whether we elect governments or the Prime Minister, which we don't. We elect a legislative assembly of representatives, who among them choose the Prime Minister.
The last time I was in town I was speaking with Elizabeth May, and she had people asking her if we could impeach the Prime Minister, if that's not how our system works. There does seem to be a lot of confusion with the American system of government. Very likely that's because people spend a lot more time.... It's a much bigger country. Everybody knows who Barack Obama's wife is, but no one knows who Stephen Harper is married to. I think that's very interesting, very telling. I'm not saying we need to, but it just shows the level of interest.
Am I done?
As an Individual
Okay. I'm sorry I didn't quite have time. There was too much to get to, and maybe I'll get there.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
We are going to get probably a little small round in.
Laureen Harper, by the way, is a very nice person.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Madam Jennings, let's try two minutes, because it looks like that's about right, if we had a round of about two minutes going around.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Thank you.
I want to continue on a point from my colleague David Christopherson. Very briefly, it was the issue of people having claimed that the coalition government agreement between the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party of Canada was unholy, was illegal, was unconstitutional, etc., and that many Canadians, not knowing what our constitutional parliamentary democracy is and how it actually operates, actually bought into that.
We have elections that are taking place in another parliamentary democracy today, in the U.K., and for weeks now there have been discussions that have been seen as perfectly legitimate that the Liberal Democrats might form a coalition with the Labour Party or with the Conservative Party, and there has been absolutely no discussion that such discussions or even the possibility of it materializing is unholy, unconstitutional.
So I would like to know if CAPP has in any way used that over the past couple of weeks, and maybe going into the future, to bring that kind of education to both its members and anyone else who may go on the site to look at it and then visit it.
As an Individual
Again, I honestly have not been too active on the CAPP forum lately, and certainly the idea is to just to keep people discussing. We don't want to be putting out the idea of a coalition with the intent of hopefully propping up any parties or anything like that.
But I think it is quite interesting that we have sort of this confusion and that some people would perhaps try to exploit that. I think what's going on in Britain right now is quite interesting and the fact that they are seriously considering it. We copied and pasted their system of government, right, so if they can make it work, then there's the possibility that we can as well.
Again, I would hate to see any government try to confuse Canadians as to the legitimacy of different ways of governing. I mean, all political parties by their nature are coalitions of some sort, played out very obviously with the merger of the two Conservative parties. In the nineties there was kind of a split going on in the NDP, and there are always the different factions within the Liberal Party as well. So parties themselves are coalitions.
Parliament itself in order to pass anything requires some form of consensus. I am certainly not alone in thinking that we are all kind of headed down this road of continual minority governments. So coalitions, whether they are formal or informal—we have seen the NDP support the current government, we have seen the Liberal support in some ways by abstaining and what not—are going to continue, and we need to really understand and educate Canadians about that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Excellent.
Mr. Lukiwski, two minutes, and yes, we went a little long there. Go ahead.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thanks very much.
Thanks very much, Mr. White, for coming here.
I also want to tell you that I liked your line that you were practising, that you're not applying for the Supreme Court. I might with your permission use that from time to time.
To follow up with some of the general conversation that is going on, I'll just comment, I guess, first on the coalition. The difference, I believe, between the discussion that's happening right now in the U.K. election and the last time coalition was discussed here in Canada following the 2008 election was exactly that, that the coalition came to light following the election as opposed to it being discussed in the lead-up to the campaign. I think that's maybe why there's a different attitude in the U.K., because people are anticipating what might happen. If they have objections to it they can voice them prior to the election as opposed to having something perhaps sprung on them afterwards.
I guess that leads me into the question I really wanted to ask. How much of an educational mode did your group have? In other words, I got from your comments and your presentation that many, if not most, of the people who joined your Facebook group really didn't consider themselves to be politically active prior to joining.
So I would think that the learning curve must have been reasonably steep if you got into discussions like constitutional amendments. I'm just wondering how much of a role did you or did other members of your group actually play in educating or informing those members who were not previously politically active or knowledgeable about what might be entailed to curtail or to stop or control prorogation.
Conservative
As an Individual
It's quite interesting. I was the moderator. I would try to keep the discussion civil and that sort of thing, but in terms of actually educating.... It was basically that anybody who had a question could bring it forward, and people would give answers. Sometimes they were wrong answers. Sometimes people were misinformed, for different reasons, whether intentionally or not. It was that sort of thing, but what was interesting about it was that it was quite organic, that there wasn't really some sort of central force guiding the discussion.
I can't really say how the information came, other than that. It just came up, and people became informed that way.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Were you happy with the level of education? You said some of them might have been ill-informed, but do you think at the end of the day that mainly people were well informed?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Yes, Mr. Lukiwski. That was a very good attempt to get another question in, and perhaps we'll get a bit of an answer to it during Mr. Ménard's time.
Monsieur Ménard, we're very happy to have you here today. You have two minutes, please.
Bloc
As an Individual
Yes, but...
I'll go in English. It's just easier for me; I won't start stammering.
I was someone who followed politics. I was very interested in reading about it, but I had never been particularly engaged. I was a bit more interested in my undergraduate time, but I became disenchanted for various reasons. That was more at the provincial and campus levels, that sort of thing. This was my first time really getting involved politically.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Your rapid success in politics reminds of Corneille's words: “Our trial strokes are masterstrokes, you see.” Corneille was a great tragedian.
