An "Honourable" House

A couple of years ago, I came across a speech by one of Parliament's earliest speakers in which he reminded those participating in an unusually raucous Question Period that they were elected to Ottawa to behave in a manner beholden to the best principles of human engagement. He gently scolded them by stating that they were elected as "honourable members of the House of Commons" and that they should rise to that expectation. It remains a far cry from how the House has descended into a kind of collective madness.The House of Commons is no longer in a state of disrepair; it is, in fact, broken. And the stacked Senate, becoming more partisan by the minute, is failing to put the brakes on the slide their elected counterparts are journeying down as democracy crumbles. It has been this way since I arrived here four years ago, but things have moved from the juvenile to the humiliating. Something was suddenly altered when the famous "not" document was discovered by the media, putting the lie to the government's claim that nothing untoward had taken place in CIDA's decision to defund the aid group KAIROS. Now, within an alarmingly short period of time, numerous charges have been levelled against the Harper government that aren't centered around semantics but the judgements that come from the Speaker's rulings, numerous revelations about the money laundering scheme, better known as the "In-and-Out" scandal, and the flagrant violations of ministerial responsibility undertaken by Jason Kenney.Something has changed alright and it speaks to the very legitimacy of democratic governance itself. It involves the very unravelling of Parliament and the system of public accountability. In what can only be termed as a kind of political "bleeding out," the Harper government appears to have lost its renowned sense of control. Regardless, that kind of strict order could only have endured for a time. Not since John A Macdonald's attempt to evade parliamentary accountability in 1873 has the House of Commons been so abused in such a relatively short period of time. Perhaps the saddest part of it all, picked up increasingly by the media, has been the government's mockery of Parliament itself. Truth is nowhere to be found in this place because it can't be discovered when it's purposefully being hidden. At least for a time.I mentioned in an earlier post how the late Jim Travers presented me with a special book that he had possessed for years. It was a collection of some of Winston Churchill's earliest observations as a young journalist stationed in Africa. With the Speaker's two rulings against the Harper government yesterday, one of Churchill's sentences from the book came to mind: "The  truth is incontrovertible, Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but in the end: there it is." Well folks, here it is, in all its gaudy splendour. The opposition parties have been mocked for probing it. The media have been derided for discovering it. And the Speaker has been ignored for defending it. But its day of arrival has come, just as it has for other governments that had something to hide. The difference with the present version is that it ridicules those that expose or recount it. It all seemed so smart, so clever, so effective. But thanks to some increasingly pungent journalism, an insistent opposition, and a courageous man occupying the Speaker's chair, here it is.All of us as MPs, ministers, or even prime ministers, are called upon to be honourable. It's a more important trait than being smart, gifted or even eloquent because it is the "honourable" aspect of our representative task that makes the flourishing of ideas and compromise possible - it keeps us accountable. It is behaving, not as though the cameras are filming, but as though your children were in the gallery, wanting to be as proud of you as they possibly could. It would mean acting as though your parents, your God, your family and your friends, and your peers opposite, were all watching you, desiring that you show the kind of grace they believe you to possess. But even more importantly, it would mean you were honouring the good folks that put you in such a lofty place.Except we don't. The present government has driven integrity and accountability to the margins, while the main game of thuggery is carried out on the ice. This isn't just about crude actions, it concerns the very validity of our governing system itself. It's about you as citizens and how your government sees you. It was never meant to be about hiding things from you, turning you angry through blind partisanship, or bleeding your faith in democracy dry. It was always to be about honouring you by respecting your vote in what is supposed to be the most honourable place of collective accountability and service in the land. It isn't about Conservatives, Liberals, or anyone else but you - the citizen. If you wish to be honoured, you must work with the Speaker to establish it in the House again. And if the government again refuses to listen, you would do Canada a great service by just frequenting the voting booth.