It's Our House

It was years ago and it was a vicious fire in a rural region. A number of us with firefighting experience volunteered to attempt to stop a forest blaze that was in the process of devastating the wildlife and habitat of the region. It had already consumed a number of houses and cottages and threatened a local woodworking operation. Seven of us had banded together in an attempt to head off the blaze before it charted a new path into another set of woodlots. We were filthy and exhausted, having struggled for the entire night and now half the morning.It was almost noon when a helicopter arrived with some food and water for the team. It was then that we noticed one of our number was missing. We quickly retraced our steps until we found our new friend pouring water from his garden hose on the cedar shingles that covered an old modified farmhouse. I climbed the ladder, asking him why he had left us. "Glen, it's my home. Everything I've built in my life is in here."I thought about that instance yesterday for some strange reason. I thought about the "People's House" - Parliament, in all its splendour and historic significance. Everything we built in this country is somehow symbolized in that place. Everything from our aboriginal heritage, the building of the railroad, our industry sectors, children, natural resources, historical leaders, connections to the monarchy and to France, the BNA Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - things we have built as a people and that I've had the privilege of preserving each day.And right now it's about ready to be consumed. This is alarmist, to be sure, but it's fitting. Over 100 years of not just tradition but enshrined laws of jurisprudence emanated from that place. A woman's right to vote, a child's right to protection, a farmer's right to till the land, and a family's right to provide for their own - all these and so much more were sourced at that very spot. The House of Commons is hardly just a marvellous structure. Like a church or a family album, it houses who we are. It is a place of worship for the sheer power of human community and our desire to deal in toleration and respect for one another. It's a place where we said to the rest of the world:

We know our differences and we live with our tensions, but we live as a people - one people - and for all our separate distinctions we have made a home for ourselves in a marvellous land. We worship it, died for it, live for it everyday. We celebrate our democratic faith in every region of our country and we celebrate our diversity. But it is in House of Commons where we find the ultimate source of our democratic pilgrimage. Many of us haven't even been there. but our aspirations reside in its hallowed halls. It holds our spirit in the hands of legislators meant to keep us together and we place the future of our children in its care."

Beautiful, inspiring and simple words that are now under threat. For the first time in our history we have a government found in contempt in that privileged place. Heat has given way to combustion. A man who would be king has opted to take the ultimate seat of authority by unparliamentary means and has defied the will of the people, expressed through the Speaker and their representatives. The flames have been encroaching for a couple of decades, but now they have been spotted on the inside, threatening our representative system from within.Candidates during an election fight for many things, but some have split from the traditional hustings to defend a Parliament under assault. Young people are embracing digital media instead of garden hoses to protect its structure. Constitutional experts are carefully casting off their non-partisan leaning in favour of speaking out against a government bent on consuming our centre. Veterans, returned years ago from the battlefields, are figuratively donning their uniforms once more to protect a country they had already shed their blood for. Children are writing petitions and women are fighting for their rights. Environmentalists are fighting for our air and water, while unions fight to retain the true industry of this country - its people. Internationalists are weighing in over our lost influence in the world and democratic reformers struggle to  resurrect a citizen's influence in Parliament.I know there's an inconvenient election taking place at the moment. I know it interfered with your Easter and the royal wedding. But if you look carefully, a number of your fellow citizens aren't in your midst at present; they're on a figurative roof, using whatever means they have at their disposal to protect that one place where you find your ultimate freedoms and protection. "It's my House," they proclaim through their struggles against a government bent on autocratic rule. And if you look through your papers, you'll discover that you have a shared ownership in the place, with all the commensurate privileges and responsibilities that come with such a possession. If you can spare a minute, these brave souls could use your help on the roof. There are only a few days left to save it. Until May 2nd, to be exact.