Parliament Takes Off!

Picture from the Globe and Mail

    Parliament is now in full swing - the seating was announced for the House of Commons, Harper announced his cabinet, the MPs elected Canada's youngest Speaker of the House (even though 32 isn't that young, in my mind), and then our wonderful Governor General David Johnston read the speech from the throne, outlining the Conservatives' no-surprises plan.

    I try to stay non-partisan, but I must say that the Conservatives seem on track to really help Canada. I don't agree with everything the Conservatives are proposing - for example, I think that the long gun registry does a good job keeping gun owners accountable and the per-vote subsidy is useful because it gives individual votes more weight - but overall the Conservatives seem like the party to bring us out of the recession and strengthen Canada.

Picture from CBC News

    This page broke the House of Commons rules by protesting with her "stop Harper" sign in the middle of the throne speech. She also called for Canadians to engage in acts of civil disobedience against the Harper government.

    I think this incident signifies what's wrong with Canadian politics lately - both the lack of respect between all parties, and the opposition parties' (mostly the Liberals) lack of respect for what Canadians vote for.  We have one of the best election systems in the world, and Canadians elected a Conservative majority government. I know that lots of people don't like Harper, but Canadians elected a Conservative majority government. I know that some people try to paint him as an extremist, but Canadian voters elected Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister of Canada and gave him a majority government. We live in a democracy, so you need to respect the citizens' choices. The citizens chose Harper.

    If Bob Rae was elected Prime Minister (yes, I know that would never happen), I wouldn't start protesting that we don't live in a democracy anymore and run a big smear campaign against him. I would respect the choice of Canadian voters, and understand that Canada would probably remain the best country in the world anyways, even with a Prime Minister I don't like.

    For a multi-cultural country which emphasises respecting those who are different than you and those who you disagree with, our politics is nasty and lacks civility. On the bright side, MPs are saying they'll tone down the heckling and personal attacks in Parliament. However, party supporters need to do the same if we want to turn our political scene from one of pointless quarrelling into one of constructive debate.

   Here's a good post by a Globe and Mail commentator about the page: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/silver-powers/the-rogue-senate-page-and-the-absurdity-of-canadas-arab-spring/article2047880/