On Pride and Sadness

Here's a statement for you: Never before in the history of any Parliament in the entire Commonwealth has a sitting government been found in contempt. We all realized the importance of this as we sat in the Commons today and voted the government in contempt. Government members moaned that it was just because of the opposition parties, but the reality is that Stephen Harper's government fell because objective forces have labelled the government contemptuous. This is really serious stuff. The Speaker, on two different counts, prompted this finding with his rulings. The RCMP and other outside parties are investigating the Conservatives at various levels for electoral fraud and illegal inside privileges.This will be the stuff that government experts around the world will study and ruminate upon. In Canada of all places, a government, despite many opportunities to the contrary, has engineered its own defeat because it would yield to the will of Parliament or its Speaker.I was proud today, even wearing Pierre Berton's bow tie for the famous and historic vote. I felt I was standing up for the people of my riding and for those institutions we have established over decades. My Dad, long gone, I knew would be as proud as of me as possible for expressing my love for Canada by risking my own future, just as he did during World War Two, for the sake of this country.Yet I also felt a deep sense of sadness. We are the Parliament of Canada; how did we get into this mess? How could the government, following repeated efforts at compromise, permit it to get this far. Surely we as opposition members could have done better as well, but it was the Harper government that refused to yield its autocratic power. In the final analysis, Parliament fell because the present government had beat down every living vestige of Parliamentary propriety. Except for those famous watchdogs who sought to hold it to account. And except for those parliamentarians who risked so much to stand on the side of democracy and Parliament. I should be elated, but instead I am ashamed for the botched mess that we have made of this 40th parliament.