Question Period In The Bunker
It seems that, some 4 months later, my MP (John Baird – CPoC) has finally decided I am deserving of an answer to questions I posed back in February, you can read the full text of the letter I sent back in February below the post, the question part follows.
My questions are:
1. Are there no rules of Parliament that require Ministers to provide real answers to questions posed to them during question period?
2. When will the Canadian people not be subjected to this type of uninformative, unparliamentary, and unbecoming, behaviour within the highest institution of our public government?
3. Why is the Conservative government engaging in this behaviour?Thank you for your time.
Similar questions were posed to the (Liberal) Speaker of the House, his reply was basically that “the lunatics are in charge of the asylum, and they think they’re doing a fine job indeedâ€, John Bairds answer is given in true Question Period style.
You tell me if there’s an answer to my questions in there anywhere.
I would like to thank you for your letter dated February 16, 2007 with respect to members of Parliament in the House of Commons. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this important issue. Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay in my response.
The views of all Ottawa West-Nepean constituents are important to me. I thank you for your interest in this issue. The House of Commons is a dynamic environment, and I believe that it is important for all Members of Parliament to express themselves in the House of Commons in order to effectively represent their constituents.
Question period, often being the most publicized part of any day in the House of Commons, is a very engaging and exciting environment. Members of Parliament and Ministers do their best to answer questions correctly and effectively on behalf of Canadians.
Thank you once again for taking time to write. Please be assured that I have noted your comments and will keep them in mind during ongoing discussions with my cabinet and caucus colleagues. Should you have further questions, please feel free to contact my constituency office directly at 613-990-7720.
Sincerely
John Baird, P.C., M.P.
Ottawa West-Neapean
So there you have it, in Minister Bairds’ opinion, the CPoC Ministers are doing their best to answer questions “correctly and efficiently” in a dynamic and exciting environment to effectively represent us – their best, like the supposed best of those they replaced, is seriously lacking.
Like answers provided during Question Period my M.P. said nothing, I suppose I should be thankful that he didn’t try and blame the Liberals or tell me I was doing a poor job as a Canadian for asking a question in the first place.
Don’t ask why I refuse to participate – the answer should be obvious.
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Following is the full text of the letter sent to John Baird
Dear Mr Baird,
I am contacting you as a constituent of your riding (Ottawa-West Nepean) regarding the general conduct of Members of Parliament during question period.
During proceedings under the previous Liberal government the Conservative Party complained (and rightly so in my opinion) about the conduct of Ministers who were consistently evasive when asked simple and direct questions, or made a general mockery of proceedings by providing answers filled more with Liberal rhetoric than substance and a straight forward answer to questions asked.
During the last election campaign we were lead to believe that under a Conservative government things would be different. Unfortunately I, as a regular viewer of question period on CPAC, and a regular reader of the daily Hansard, do not see that. What I do see is exactly what took place under the Liberals.
For example, in yesterdays Hansard we read the following
Hon. Stéphane Dion (Leader of the Opposition, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, while the Prime Minister is busy rigging the courts, thousands of jobs are being lost in our auto and manufacturing sectors. His government is doing absolutely nothing to help Canadian workers.
If the Prime Minister does not share his industry minister’s appalling indifference and laissez-faire, where is his plan to help our auto workers?
Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, of course now the leader of the Liberal Party, having raised the subject of crime, would like to change the subject. I am not surprised that he would like to change the subject because he is not just soft on crime.
For the first time in history we have a leader of the opposition who is soft on terrorism. He is refusing to take the advice of Bob Rae, John Manley and Anne McLellan, and to back the anti-terrorism provisions that his own government put in place.
While I am the first to agree that the leader of the oppositions question began with a loaded statement regarding the appointment of judges (which had nothing at all to do with his question regarding the automotive industry) the answer that the Prime Minister gave had absolutely nothing to do with the question Dion ultimately did ask.
This is but one recent example.
The proceedings we watch on CPAC, and read in the Parliamentary Hansard, are (on a daily basis) full of the same evasive and rhetoric filled replies that we saw under the Liberal government, the same action and behaviour that the Conservative Party complained about when they sat on the Opposition side of the House.
I see no difference, and I believe that the Canadian people deserve better.
My questions are:
1. Are there no rules of Parliament that require Ministers to provide real answers to questions posed to them during question period?
2. When will the Canadian people not be subjected to this type of uninformative, unparliamentary, and unbecoming, behaviour within the highest institution of our public government?
3. Why is the Conservative government engaging in this behaviour?
Thank you for your time.
Boooooh. Hissss. BOOOOOOO.
Whooee! He took 4 months to say nothing? I hear-tell they’re cleanin’ up fer summer break. They probbly had a buncha lowest priority letters to deal with at the last minute.
I wonder where Evironment Minister Baird stands on the CPC NASCAR sponsorship.
JB
I found it fitting that the CPoC sponsored a vehicle that continually turns to the left in an effort to best their competition.
Coupled with the letter I got from the Speaker of the House it would appear that, regardless of their complaints about how the last party in power conducted themselves in the House, the status quo is now acceptable.
Given who this [non-] answer came from I feel safe in assuming that it is official CPoC policy — my how things change when you actually get to hold the reigns of power ‘eh?
As long as questioners insist on including unrelated drive-by smears as content of the questions, the questioners invite the respondents to address the drive-by smears rather than simply let the insult, mischaracterization, or whatever, stand. The first thing to do is get the Opposition members to ask succinct, clear questions free of irrelevant preambles and ad hominem attacks. That will leave the Ministers no manoeuvring room but to respond, defer, or refuse and then that shortcoming can be taken up by reformers.
No. The first thing to do is to convene all three party leaders and whips with the speaker, and agree on a protocol to bring civility to the House. “THEY have to behave first” is just another evasion.
Have you listened to the questions asked by Liberals such as why has this government abondoned Kyoto, when they haven’t but should.
Or why are their no emmsiion credits in the “green plan”?, a question asked by the Liberal environment critic, how does the Conservative minister answer a question like that with out telling any one that emission credits are in the new environment plan and why wouldn’t the environment critic know that? That’s Liberal politics at its very very best.
“THEY have to behave firstâ€
Ain’t that the same excuse why we ain’t able to commit to Kyoto? The Merkans didn’t so we don’t have to. The Chinese ain’t doin’ their share, so we don’t need to do our share neither.
I got a neighbour who drives a bigass gas guzzler and he don’t ever have anything out fer blue-box recyclin’. Maybe I oughta quit recyclin’, too.
But, Mom, he started it.
Grow up, numbnutses!
Here’s little FYI fer the HarpoonTossers who comment here. I don’t think there are too many Liberals around here. By throwin’ back some dumbass excuses and slammin’ the Liberals, yer only showin’ yer “we’re always right, they’re always wrong” mentality.
Both the Grits an’ the Cons are guilty of uncivil behaviour in the House o’ Comments. If one party’d start actin’ like responsible adults, the other’d hafta follow or else look stoopid. It’s a circus and Canajuns is gettin’ shortchanged.
JB
Every party has its Goon Squad -it’s just one more weapon in the rhetorical arsenal. Depending on circumstances and the culture of the party within any given government, the Goon Squad will be of greater or lesser value. Right now Baird-style shrieking and tantrums in the House reflect the government’s preferred approach, and they obviously feel this affords them some advantage. It’s certainly easier than debate, and their stupider fans eat it up.
>“THEY have to behave first†is just another evasion.
Hardly. To get all parties involved to sit down and reach agreement would be a preferable alternative, but an incremental approach to a problem isn’t an evasion.
Same to you, JB. Picking a starting point isn’t “he started it”. Start by giving the government respondents no overt excuses to dissemble and stray from the point.
Write letters to Dion and Layton (or whomever you would prefer to support). Propose that the leaders each take their party on the high road by asking only substantial questions pertinent to the issues of the day and bereft of noise, with a view to forcing the government to take QP seriously. You can’t seem to rise above searching for any tangent to be disappointed by the Harper government on any particular issue, but I’m interested to see your spin if you go to your shining knight and he coughs up the same bullshit.
“Hardly. To get all parties involved to sit down and reach agreement would be a preferable alternative, but an incremental approach to a problem isn’t an evasion.”
“Incremental” is not generally held to mean unilateral action by one party in the hopes that the other side will respond.
Bickering aside, I would really see this as a win/win thing. Harper gets credit for civilizing Parliament, and we get to watch Question period without cringing.
Neither the nature of the questions, nor the nature of the answers, has changed one little bit with the change in the governing party.
It seems quite evident to me that party calls for civility in Parliament are simple propaganda ploys – none of them are willing to give up an opportunity for a 30 second sound-bite regardless of how transparent the attempt is.
Did you not read my “the lunatics are in charge of the asylum” post lrC?
It’s linked above.
They did sit down, they did discuss the issue, and they decided to change nothing…. they all seem to believe that they are entitled to the entitlement of acting like complete and utter morons – and obviously like it that way.
[...] Principle II – Incompetents will do and say anything to defend themselves and other incompetents, including disassembling, obfuscating, lying and blaming others: Item 1: Dixit White House Spokesman Tony Snow on the potential illegality of the use of RNC email accounts by WH officials and aides: Clinton did it too. Item 2: Richard Cohen (again) grossly misrepresented/distorted the reality which lead to Libby’s conviction in order to support his “thesis” that poor Libby should have his sentence commuted – at least (another take on this here). Then again, he is hardly alone in this. Interestingly, Cohen is good at pointing his finger to others but not himself. Item 3: Would-be (maybe) GOP candidate Fred Thompson played the card of “they are encouraging our enemies“, in a typical incompetent ad hominem attack/(non)argument. Item 4: As the Democratic party-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform move ahead with their investigation of the intelligence used by the Bush administration to build the (false) case for the Iraq War, their GOP collegues are “threatening” to subpoena Valerie Plame Wilson in a pathetic attempt at bullying her (also see about Libby in previous items). I say: let them do just that, please – then, the more foolish will these incompetent GOP senators look. Item 5: Rep. Gingrey – again (see above) – indulged in an exercise of grossly misrepresenting the US death and casualty figures in his incompetent defense/support of the Iraq War. Item 6: more secrets and lies of the Bush administration revealed – not surprisingly. Item 7: Environment (neocon) Minister John Baird obfuscates and disassembles to plain and direct questions put to him by a blogger. That is only par for the course, really, whenever and wherever Baird-the-incompetent is concerned. Item 8: Tony Snow (again) obfuscates and disassembles with regards to the destroyed RNC emails – nothing new here. Remember this, or especially this? Conclusion: The above-mentioned principle is, once again, verified. [...]
“Incremental” just means in steps smaller than all-at-once. Clear enough?
>They did sit down, they did discuss the issue, and they decided to change nothing
What else would you expect if no-one but them had a seat at the table? The Opposition leaders need to be publicly, repeatedly challenged to stop throwing bullshit one-liners into the questions, and the Government similarly challenged to ignore the tedious playground bait and respond to the issue.
Thanks, I did actually understand the word. And I do you the honour of that assuming you do, in fact, actually understand the distinction between a process agreed to and embarked on with the agreement of multiple parties, and a single step taken with no commitment from other parties.