Failed State

During a particularly ludicrous Question Period recently I found myself wondering – again – what was becoming of Parliament.  That same day I posed a question to a journalist friend of mine: “With no more conversation, dialogue, queries or answers, what’s the next state we enter in to?”  He ruminated a moment then replied: “I think we become a failed state.”The journalist was right, and his answer finds resonance in all the serious media commentators in Ottawa who aren’t chasing a Guergis here or a Jaffer there.  You have to have been in it for a time to notice the shifting of the tectonic plates, to spot the subtle changes that spell impending harm for the institution of Parliament itself.Since I’ve been in Ottawa, I’ve come to recognize two kinds of arrogance.  The first is the snobbish kind – the view of the elites who believe they know better than anyone else.  Ironically, in most cases they are proven correct, but it’s the attitude I’m speaking of.  It's that kind of “uppityness” that demeans others, sometimes unwillingly, and eventually shatters the ability of parties of differing views to find functionality.  The Liberals had a good dose of this when I first got elected.  Having been in government for most of Canada’s history, and for the previous 13 years, they had picked up on a huge number of complex issues and mastered their craft.  But it came at a price.  Rather than just governing intelligently, they also developed a kind of “policy condescension” that angered their opponents.  Eventually it got the better of them and they remain more humbled today.The Conservative arrogance is something else altogether.  They are becoming smarter the longer they’re in power, yet I can’t help but witness they are taking on a more destructive attitude to Parliament and its reach.  The PM can enact an election timing piece of legislation, then turn right around and break it.  The government fires civil servants for disagreeing with them.  They come within a hair's breadth of contempt of Parliament.  They refuse to permit their staff to testify in front of committees, even when staff have committed an infraction.  So the ministers come in their place.  On other occasions, when a minister is required to report to respective committees, they refuse to come altogether, creating a vicious cycle of denial and lack of accountability.This list could go on for some time.  There will be those who respond by saying the Liberals did the same thing.  Well, not quite.  There is an inevitable shutting the doors and turning off the lights running throughout the House of Commons these days.  The great institution is no longer just dysfunctional; it doesn’t work.  Laws are flouted; accountability has lost its checks and balances; transparency has gone into black-ops mode; respectfulness has been replaced by rancour, and a workable Parliament has become trench warfare.Both kinds of arrogance are blights on any Parliament, but it is the destructive kind that actually kills the institution itself that requires the most attention.  Yet how can we possibly provide that type of accountability when no one was warned that a billion dollars would be spent on the G8, when there is no place for our troops post 2011, when the water levels in Montreal are down by five feet, when Nortel pensioners never got their proper government protection, and when we’re drowning in a sea of red ink, or when they come within a inch of contempt of Parliament.?  If we can’t get past Jaffer or a fake lake, how will we ever provide enough attention and defence of a Parliament that is having its sinews ripped out as we speak?