Worrisome trend found in Parliament sitting less, expert says
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/913008--worrisome-trend-found...
Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA—Canada’s MPs are spending less time at work in the House of Commons — only 119 days this year — and passing ever fewer bills.
It’s a trend that at least one parliamentary procedure expert finds worrying.
“In terms of the last 40 years, our Parliament is sitting a lot less and doing a lot less,” says Queen’s University political scientist Ned Franks.
Franks says governments have compensated for prolonged parliamentary timeouts by increasingly cramming all manner of unrelated legislation into massive omnibus bills, which allow for little individual scrutiny of the various measures.
They’ve also resorted more frequently to passing general enabling legislation, giving the government broad discretion to act in future without going back to Parliament for approval.
The upshot is that the government evades scrutiny and Canadians are left in the dark about what their federal politicians are up to.
“I think there’s a problem there,” Franks said.
“I think in the long term government itself suffers because the bills that get through haven’t stood the test of parliamentary scrutiny . . . And so, we’re governed in ignorance.”
The problem predates the ascension of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006 or even the advent of successive, unstable, minority governments in 2004.
Franks, who keeps detailed statistical records of Parliament’s performance, says the number of parliamentary working days in Canada peaked during the 1969-74 period at an annual average of 163 days — on par with the yearly average put in by the mother of all parliaments in Britain.
Other than the odd blip, it’s “just gone down steadily” since then, bottoming out at an average of 105 days a year from 2004-08.
The past two, non-election, years marked a bit of an improvement on that score. Parliament sat for 130 days in 2009 and 119 this year, still well short of bygone eras and shy of the 135 days Parliament had been scheduled to sit.
“It’s not impressive,” said Franks.
In terms of productivity, Parliament has reached a new low. According to Franks, only 45 per cent of the bills introduced by the Harper government thus far have actually made it through the entire legislative process to royal assent.
And that can’t all be blamed on the tribulations of running a minority government. Franks’ records show the minority government of Lester Pearson during the 1960s managed to see 86 per cent of its bills through to royal assent.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the Harper government is legislating less. Franks said the government pushed about half of a normal year’s legislation through in a single bill — this year’s massive budget implementation bill that included varied measures dealing with all manner of subjects from environmental assessments to the post office to the future of Canada’s atomic energy industry.
Franks finds the trend to omnibus bills particularly worrisome since it short-circuits the whole point of parliamentary scrutiny in a healthy democracy.
“I think that what a government forgets when they play this sort of game is that part of the legislative process is to mobilize consent for your platform and if it gets examined in committees and all the interest groups express their views and they’re accommodated and the bill that comes out is refined in the legislative process, you have consent for it,” he said.
“What they’ve done is in this (budget implementation bill) is just whop, whop, whop, whop, whop, a whole bunch (of measures),” he said.
“The country didn’t even know what happened.”
I agree that our MP's get too much time off. I keep up with American politics pretty closely, and whenever I tune in, their representatives are often working much closer to the Holidays than ours are.
Why do our MP's get to go away for a month and a half during this time of year? The members of the U.S. Congress next door don't do that.
It also allows the PM/Harper to get away with a lot of things in the meantime while the Parliament is away.
When Harper was elected we didn't see parliament till april of 2006(3 months of nothing) then the summer hiadus in early june toll late september then off in december. And that doesn't inlcude the fact they only work till thursday for many MPs.
The trend towards "omnibus bills" should be a concern for all, and the Opposition parties should all be condemning these loud and clear, and agree amongst themselves not to pass omnibus legislation unless they are broken down into individual bills. Let the government gnash their teeth - these omnibus bills subvert democracy.
The trend towards "omnibus bills" should be a concern for all, and the Opposition parties should all be condemning these loud and clear.
And they need to be willing to fight an election on this issue-- be willing to force a vote when there is somethign in a package they don't like and fight on the principle that they do not need to be introduced this way.
In the US which has this practice, many legislators say they are often unaware of half of what is in the bills they vote for-- no time for consideration. It is a rollback from responsible government.
Perhaps it's worth recalling the phrase:
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session"
before we start asking for longer sessions.
We should all bring this up the next time anyone mentions low "productivity" among canadian workers. We get next to no holidays or days off, no pensions, no paid sick days just a sub par salary for working our butts off. Meanwhile those in government get immeasurable benefits, pensions and wages with way too much paid time off and for what? They do a terrible job and get a big pat on the back. Just like most ceo's. the worse you perform, the more you're rewarded...mainly because it's the few that benefit that dole out the rewards.
We should all bring this up the next time anyone mentions low "productivity" among canadian workers. We get next to no holidays or days off, no pensions, no paid sick days just a sub par salary for working our butts off. Meanwhile those in government get immeasurable benefits, pensions and wages with way too much paid time off and for what? They do a terrible job and get a big pat on the back. Just like most ceo's. the worse you perform, the more you're rewarded...mainly because it's the few that benefit that dole out the rewards.
amen
How about that Liberal senator banned from the Senate, still collecting a salary, and expenses?
Although there is a default Parliamentary calendar set out in the Standing Orders, it's up to the government to call parliament back after a prorogation, and to table government bills. Because Harper keeps proroguing and calling elections, we have fewer sitting days.
But I don't think it's correct to say that the MPs get "days off" when the House isn't sitting. I'm not going to get all sappy and sentimental about how selflessly selfless they are and how hard-working, compared to the long hard days of work most people put in at jobs they don't exactly love, but most MPs do work hard in their constituencies as well, and it takes a lot of time to get back and forth besides all that.
They never seem to be able to satisfy either people who think they should have been in the House for a certain vote, or at their meeting with MPs on the Hill, or at their event in the riding, or in their constituency office when the person walks in off the street. They spend most of their time juggling more demands on their time than they could ever fill.
Again, I'm not getting too wrapped up in this. They have great, satisfying jobs for the most part. It's just to say that days not spent in the House are not vacation days. They are days available to work on an MPs' other roles besides debating legislation and doing committee work.
And unlike Canadian MPs, American Congresspeople have Michael Moore to help them out
Perhaps it's worth recalling the phrase:
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session"
before we start asking for longer sessions.
BS harper does all his most devious things while the house isn't sitting then plays a shell game by throwing something else out there to distract while he does his worst(like shutting down commitees) when the media is distracted by another bobble.
Who is there to even question these decissions? Certainly not the MSM. They might touch on it, but after the initial news cycle they say let sleeping dogs lie...Census, arts funding, G summit fallout.
You're being too kind to the MSM. Their default position is that nothing matters. Then, only when prodded into discovering that some Canadians actually do think something matters, they go overboard and cover it non-stop like a bunch of pack-dogs, and afterwards say "boy that was overkill ... see, it didn't really matter after all".
i think they spend most of their time either figuring out ways to campaign continuously, obfuscate what they're doing behind the scenes with "tough on crime" bills, satisfy business interests, or keep their own parties from falling apart. It's a complete joke. They're certainly not acting on the best interests of people in this country, creating a better country or future, fighting injustice or environmental destruction, etc, etc, etc.
But people are also to blame for this, after all we continue to elect these people, and keep failing to organize against them.
I wasn't sure if I was reading the Fascist Tendencies thread or what the deal is.
The upshot is that the government evades scrutiny and Canadians are left in the dark about what their federal politicians are up to.
“I think there’s a problem there,” Franks said.
“I think in the long term government itself suffers because the bills that get through haven’t stood the test of parliamentary scrutiny . . . And so, we’re governed in ignorance.”
Enabling Act of 1933
And we should abolish the useless and unnecessary Canadian senate at the same time. They've got WMD in Ottawa. Bring down the phony
majorityminority tin pots in Ottawa!i am raising awareness of a new political party between the liberals and conservatives at the federal level. we would be a moderate conservative party that would try to gain a lot of support from the two major parties.
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