It is almost a cliché to say that the Parliament of Canada is not working for some time. Ever since some of the opposition parties began to make serious efforts to bring the minority government down and force another election, Parliament has virtually ceased to function. This, depending upon your point of view is either very good or very bad. What seems to be undeniable is that as dysfunctional as Parliament is at the moment, it sure is fun to watch.
The star of Canada’s newest sitcom — The Fools on the Hill- is of course the prime minister, Paul Martin. His attempt to hold on to the power that he sought for so long only because it was denied to daddy could not have been better scripted by a Hollywood writer. and no comedy show would be complete without a good supporting cast and Stephen Harper and Jack Layton do not disappoint.
The highlight of this hopefully short running series was the motion of non confidence that was introduced by the Tories with the support of the Bloc Quebecois. The motion was not a motion for the full House but rather a motion to refer the matter back to committee. So when the motion that said that the government did not have the confidence of the House of Commons passed, the Liberals said that this motion of non confidence was not a confidence motion and refused to treat it as such. as has been said many times, Canada has now entered into a new era of "government by technicality".
Luckily for those of us who look to CPaC and not the Comedy Network for "time well wasted", Stephen Harper refused to give up. He introduced another motion in the House to adjourn Parliament for a day and said that he was treating this as a motion of non confidence. The Liberals were so impressed with that one that they, along with the Bloc, voted with the Conservatives. That will teach Stephen!
Now, these motions shouldn’t have been brought. The proper way to have proceeded was for the Conservative Party to have introduced a proper motion of non confidence on an opposition day. Ooops. The Liberals cancelled opposition days. Ha Ha.
The budget that was introduced in February has also produced a few laughs. Immediately after the document was tabled, Stephen Harper sang its praises as being a "conservative budget" right up until the time that he announced that his party was going to vote against it in order to bring down the government. That did not present a difficult problem to Martin; he just forked over a few billion of our tax dollars and bought the NDP with promises of more windmills, affordable housing and all those other things that socialists will sell themselves for. Not taking any chances at the polls, Paul then went on a spending spree in the age old tradition of bribing the taxpayers with their own money.
But none of this proposed spending matters. The vast majority of budgetary spending is backend loaded and isn’t set to take effect for at least three or four years, long after this Parliament will end one way or the other. So the government’s commitment to spend billions and billions of dollars means absolutely nothing. Except that Stephen Harper has said that he will keep a lot of the spending programs that Martin has announced should he form the next government. You couldn’t make this stuff up folks.
No comedy series could be complete without subplots and this show is no exception. You have Immigration Minister Joe Volpe equating the Conservatives with the Klu Klux Klan because of a spoof of The Sopranos television series and you have Tory MP Inky Mark railing on about racism against Chinese because the Treasury Board President said that the Chinese-Canadian MP wasn’t very high up in the gene pool. It just gets better and better.
Canadian taxpayers fork out about $1 billion a year to fund the CBC. If they could produce comedy like this, the people’s network would be worth twice that amount.