Yes. The simple fact is Parliament is working
Call it Schroedinger’s Parliament.
For the Liberals, Parliament is doing the best it can in a pandemic. For the Conservatives, the government is “eliminating the role of the peoples’ representatives.” How did we get here? As Canada was shutting down back in March, all parties agreed to suspend in-person sittings of Parliament until April 20. To safely continue working, they agreed that some members could sit in the house in person while others joined virtually. The House resumed full in-person sitting on April 20, but continued the hybrid model until May 25. And on May 25, the NDP and Liberals passed a vote to adjourn for the usual summer recess. A special committee on COVID-19 will keep meeting through the summer.
In February, the Conservatives and Liberals were neck and neck in the polls. As the crisis went on, the prime minister’s briefings became part of the daily news cycle, and the Liberals rose to around 40 per cent. The Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer in his ongoing role as the Ghost of Elections Past, sank to 25 per cent support. Breathlessly citing the need for “oversight” and “accountability,” Scheer called for in-person sittings to resume past May 25. He lost the vote in the house to the NDP and Liberals, who felt it was still unsafe to meet.
There’s little doubt that when COVID-19 hit, moving Parliament online was the right thing to do. And — just like many of us who began to work from home — Parliament found a way to be productive. Like other provincial parliaments in Canada, and in Westminster-style parliaments in Britain, New Zealand and Australia, bills were still introduced. Debates and votes still happened. The sky did not fall.
It’s still not falling. On average, during the last Canadian Parliament, the House sat for 122 days a year. If all goes as scheduled, the House will sit for 86 days this year — not bad, considering. Some have said if Parliament could meet during world wars it can meet during a pandemic. Mind you, only one of those is contagious. It’s not a great comparison.
As former NDP stalwart and parliamentary reform expert Bill Blaikie put it: “Whatever people think of what the federal Parliament’s doing, it is struggling to continue to be a Parliament in the pandemic context, which is more than you can say about, for instance, the Manitoba legislature. The Canadian Parliament, in spite of criticisms that have been levelled at it … the fact of the matter is they are working.”
What it means to be “working” also varies by party. The Conservatives are dealing with a suspended leadership contest and a political zombie for a leader. For them, “working” means getting the media attention that question period provides. Realistically, though, the “role of the people’s representative” is about much more than question period.
When people were struggling with pandemic lockdowns, they needed local leadership from their MPs. And those MPs stepped up. Take Hamilton New Democratic MP Matthew Green, for example, who used his constituency office to help my stranded niece get home from New Zealand. If Green and others would have flown across the country, it would have put their own health at risk. And their communities, too.
The hybrid model of Parliament has given us the best of both worlds. It has allowed members to be in two places at once — voting on issues in the House and helping folks at home. Now, as lockdown measures slowly ease over the summer, MPs need to be in their constituencies. They need to feed into the special COVID-19 committee that’s continuing to meet. And — let’s face it — it’s not like our MPs are going to Bali on vacation. We can expect they’ll be working hard.
For Conservatives, heading out the door for the summer, blustering that Canada’s democracy is under attack is an easy sound bite. But they’re not giving Canadians enough credit. Since the pandemic hit, we’ve all had a lot of time to pay attention to what our leaders are saying. We’ve been watching our prime minister and premiers closely. We are highly engaged. Maybe — just maybe — Scheer’s Conservatives are failing to convince Canadians not because we haven’t heard them, but because we have.