Aforementioned cabinet ministers are off doing ministerial stuff, important stuff, and being treated importantly, being on TV, being talked about, and being the focus of Question Period. It goes a long way to helping get you re-elected when you have all that extra attention for being a big shot.
To be an MP is to be a big shot, but it's a much bigger shot to be a cabinet minister, and the Prime Minister...? Well, I don't think he's too worried about your plight over here, because he's down in New York rubbing elbows with the Secretary General of the United Nations. I'm sure that no muscles are getting sore and that there's no dirt under his fingernails. He's doing just fine, thank you. He's taking care of international business, being the Prime Minister, and doing the selfies—all the stuff that he does. He probably has a good chance of being re-elected in his riding, too, all politics being local. It doesn't do you any good to be a big-shot cabinet minister if you don't have a seat under you anymore. You're no longer a big-shot anything.
They're all fine, but some of the backbenchers on other committees are starting to get a little concerned, especially the ones who've been around for a while. I won't say anything more, other than to just take a look at who's sitting close to the action and who's sitting as far away from the action as he can get and still be declared a member of the committee. There these members sit: sitting ducks come to mind.
You ought to be awfully worried. You really, really should be. That's not everybody. Some of you got elected on your own name, but let's face a lot of the votes that went into that ballot box and had an X beside your name were there because of the brand that Justin Trudeau presented the Liberals as. As both the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail pointed out, that part of what they offered, at the very least, is not on display here now, today.
To the best of my knowledge, there are still no talks going on with the House leaders. Sometimes they happen quietly and quickly, so I'm not saying with 100% certainty that they aren't, but I am saying that in most cases, if there were any movement like that, Tyler and I would at least be given a heads-up, so that we would know in the back of our minds as we are going through this that there's something at play there, we should keep it in mind, and things could change quickly as a result. I don't have such notice.
Have you been notified of any meeting, Tyler?
No. Tyler is telling me he has not been notified of any meetings. It would seem the government is just going about its business, leaving the Liberal MPs to their own destiny.
I will continue with the excellent contribution of Mr. Coyne to this discussion:
The only limit on the government's power to prorogue the House, which Stephen Harper notoriously used to get out of tight political situations, would be a requirement for the government to explain its reasons for proroguing. (In fairness, the Liberals did not promise to limit this power, only that they would not abuse it.)
There is not a lot of evidence that we do not need to keep a standing watch on that one. He continues:
More encouraging is a proposal to give the Speaker the power to break up omnibus bills into separate parts, with separate votes on each.
Taken as a whole, however, there is much in the document that might legitimately alarm the opposition.
Do ya think...? I will say it again:
Taken as a whole, however, there is much in the document that might legitimately alarm the opposition.
He continues:
As if to rub the opposition's noses in it, on the same day the “discussion paper” was unveiled, a motion was put before the relevant House committee (on Procedure and House Affairs), ostensibly on the initiative of a Liberal member, demanding it report back with recommendations for changes to the House Standing Orders by June 2. The government has offered no explanation for the unseemly rush; neither has it indicated a readiness to entertain any opposition amendments, on a matter that plainly affects the balance of powers within the House. It is not unreasonable to call this Motion Six Redux.
I've already gone on about how vicious motion six was, and how rapidly the government backtracked when it became clear that just because they were the ones doing it, it would be no less odious or undemocratic. That's an argument that we've been making for some time, which is that this is like motion six all over again, even the part where you're going to ram it down our throats.
To continue with Mr. Coyne:
If all this sounds unduly suspicious, recall that there is a context to this. After the prime minister's insouciant refusal to admit fault in the matter of the cash-for-access fundraisers, after the charade of “open nominations” in ridings that had clearly been fixed to suit the prime minister's preferences, after the elaborate fraud that was Senate reform, after all the broken promises on everything from the combat mission against ISIL to the open bidding on the CF-18 replacement to—sigh—electoral reform, the Trudeau government has earned no benefit of the doubt.