Canada: Chattering Champion
On December 30, when the Canadian media were busy getting ready to celebrate New Year’s and they were also tied up reporting on some Canadians going after a hockey championship—nothing is more important in Canada than hockey—our Prime Minister prorogued parliament until March. If you’re not familiar with the word prorogue, I’m not sure of it’s origin, but I think it’s from the Latin for “when the going get’s tough, the tough shut the frigging place down and hide in a hole.”
A few Canadians were upset about our government running roughshod over our democratic institutions. And they said so. After a group of about 170 professors from across Canada put their names to a letter condemning the prorogation, Tony Clement, the federal Minister of Industry, said that the only people who cared about the government proroguing parliament were the elites and the “chattering classes.”
I find it ironic that a member of the federal cabinet—whose salary from his government job is $230,000, and who, as a member of cabinet, shares with his 38 cabinet colleagues executive powers over the affairs of state that no other Canadians have—would belittle other people for being members of the elite. But never mind that.
Apparently, he was referring to the professors when he talked about the elites. I’m more interested in the “chattering classes” who Mr. Clement demeans. Someone started a Facebook group titled “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.” One would assume that people who joined this group must care about the prorogation of the Canadian parliament, so they must be part of the chattering class that Mr. Clement was talking about.
The last time I checked, that group had 179,308 members. The number will probably be higher when you read this because it’s still rising. I’m not sure, but I think that this means that, per capita, Canada probably has the largest chattering class in the world!
That’s something to be proud of. We Canadians should keep that in mind as something we can boast about in case our athletes don’t do well in the upcoming Winter Olympics.
I guess Sarah Palin was proroguing her governorship before she decided to just go rogue with her new book and becoming a Fox News chatterer.
Nice to learn a new word today.
David: I’m no Sarah Palin fan–quite the contrary–but she resigned and turned her job over to someone else. She didn’t shut down the Alaskan legislature, or the Alaskan governorship for that matter. I wish our emperor-wannabe prime minister would resign and turn his job over to someone else through a new election.
I just learned a new word. Am glad that the Latin managed to compress the entire sentence into a single word….lol
Well, looks like Canada sure has the largest chattering class in the world…:)
BTW, Great post!
Mr. Stupid: Yeah, isn’t Latin grand?
By the way, the chattering class continues to grow in Canada. I just checked. That Facebook group now stands at 191,349 members.
That’s again growing Facebook addiction….:)
Man, 191,349 members, that’s huge….
Mr. Stupid: The problem is, almost as soon as I post an update, it’s out of date. I just checked and it’s 198,197 members. There’s a fairly good shot it’ll hit 200,000 before the end of today.
And I thought our government was fucked up. At least you have hockey.
Jen: Unfortunately, I’m not a sports fan, so what have I got?
I’ve never been terribly politically active, but our current Prime Minister has exhibited a pattern of disrespect for democratic institution that includes a number of actions that, to say the least, have been less than fully democratic. One advantage in a parliamentary system such as ours is that the House of Commons can vote non-confidence in the government, when our Prime Minister finally allows it to reconvene. If that happens, it is up to the Governor General to decide whether to call an election or ask one of the opposition parties if it feels that it would have the confidence of the House (likely acting in a formal or informal coalition with one or more of the other opposition parties).
We currently have a minority government, which means that the party in power has more seats in the House of Commons than any other party, but fewer than the opposition parties combined. Thus, if the opposition parties all vote non-confidence in the government, the government will fall. Personally, I hope they have the guts to do that.
The American politicos are running roughshod here as well! It must be a requisite!
Buggys: Maybe so, but I haven’t heard of Congress having been shut down, forcing all Congressional committees to stop working, canning all bills that haven’t yet been signed into law and forcing them to start back from square one when Congress is restarted. That would be the equivalent of what’s happened here. And it’s done by a Prime Minister who did it simply to shut down an inquiry, although he said his government needed the time to, in his words, “recalibrate.” He did the same thing less than a year prior, that time to prevent Parliament voting non-confidence in his government.
I believe they have shut down our government in the past…and it wouldn’t upset me if they did it again. At least they wouldn’t be screwing us all the time. I figure a shut down government does less damage.
megscole64: So, in that case the perfect government would be no government whatsoever. I disagree.
In the Canadian parliamentary system there is a big difference between recessing parliament (it was already recessed and not scheduled to sit again until Jan. 25) and proroguing parliament. When parliament is recessed then when parliament resumes sitting any legislation working it’s way through the parliamentary processes picks up where it left off in the process. With prorogation, any government bills die even if they had been through the required committee reviews three readings (debates and votes) in Parliament and were merely waiting to be signed into law. They must start back from square one unless the government can get ALL-party agreement to restart the process from where they left off.
When parliament is in recess parliamentary committees can continue their work. With prorogation the committees can’t continue working and they must be reconstituted when parliament is recalled. Parliamentarians can still meet informally to discuss what they had been discussing in committee, but they do not have the subpoena powers that they would have as a parliamentary committee. And their discussions carry no official weight.
Any reports prepared by officers of Parliament, such as the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner must, by law, be presented to Parliament before they are made public. So, while Parliament is not sitting the public–who pay for the Auditor General, the Ethics Commissioner and other officers of Parliament–cannot see any report that the Auditor General may have completed analyzing whether the government is being productive with its expenditures and receiving value for money or any report that the Ethics Commissioner may have completed evaluating whether the government is operating in an ethical manner.
Hey! Joel! Wake up and get back to work.
Doctor Faustroll: Huh? Uh? Did someone say something? I dosed off.
Dosed off? Is it because of the universal healthcare that you have good drugs?
Stephanie Barr: Actually, the provincial health insurance here does not cover drugs unless they are administered in a hospital. And I haven’t had any hospital stays recently,