At this stage, it is probably an academic question as to which is more disgraceful: the fact that the Liberals were so willing to sell out Canadian democracy, or that they got such a low price for it.
One thing we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is the depths of the contempt that Canada’s professional class has for the practice of politics, our political parties, and even Parliament itself. In the early days of the pandemic, this contempt largely emanated from journalists, but it appears to have now spread to members of the political class themselves. There is little reason to think our institutions of democracy will ever recover.
As in many countries, Canada’s initial response to the arrival of the novel coronavirus was highly technocratic. We essentially turned the running of the country over to the public- health experts, with political leaders at every level appearing more than happy to let the country’s various chief public- health officers take the lead. There were some very good reasons for this, not least of which is that a public- health crisis of this magnitude is unknown in almost all of our experience. This is pretty much why we have experts in the first place.
There was also an understandable feeling that a public- health crisis was no time for “mere politics” — the jousting and the gamesmanship and the pettiness of a lot of political life seemed hugely out of step with the emerging scale of the crisis. Combined with other aspects of the response, measures like the command economy, the taking on of huge levels of public debt and the widespread restrictions on civil liberties, it served to underscore the sense that we were in something close to wartime footing.
But just as a war is far too serious a matter to leave to the generals, a pandemic is too important to leave to the experts. Every decision that has been made, every aspect of our response, has involved trade- offs, including the dreadful job of deciding who will live and who might die. These decisions are irreducibly political, and many of our leaders waited far too long to accept their ultimate responsibilities here. It is to our great discredit that we let them.
At the heart of this discredit sits the black hole that is our absentee Parliament. It was bad enough when, back in April, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer was dragged for suggesting that the House of Commons ought to resume sitting as scheduled and that the burden of argument lay with those who thought it should not. It was far worse that foremost amongst the draggers were some of the most senior and prominent members of the parliamentary press gallery, who accused Scheer of being “tone deaf ” and out of touch.
But none of this holds a candle to the prospect of one opposition party, in a minority Parliament, conspiring with the government to shut down the Commons in exchange for the smallest fraction of partisan advantage.
But that’s what happened this week, when Jagmeet Singh’s NDP gave its support to a Liberal motion to extend the suspension of regular sittings of the House of Commons until late September. This, despite the fact that March (and April, and May) came and went without a federal budget, that something like $150 billion in new spending must be approved by mid-june, and that there are enormous non- COVID challenges facing the country that simply must be debated in Parliament — our increasingly ominous relationship with China at the top of the list.
What’s in it for the Liberals is pretty obvious: the continuation of The Justin Trudeau Cottage Show, Summer Edition. As for the NDP, they’ve got themselves the X- Ray Specs of cereal box prizes — a pledge by the Liberals to make some attempt at persuading the provinces to implement a national program of 10 days paid sick leave.
At this stage, it is probably an academic question as to which is more disgraceful: the fact that the Liberals were so willing to sell out Canadian democracy, or that they got such a low price for it.
Anyone who has thought it right to criticize this tidy bit of Monty Hall karaoke on social media has been met with a Bingocard of transparently partisan excuse-making and special pleading. Actually the House is sitting right now. (Sort of. Barely. Inadequately). Parliament always has a summer recess from June to September, dummy. And didn’t you know that Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament twice?
What’s interesting though is that the dealmakers themselves haven’t bothered trying to run any of these lines past the voters. Both the Liberals and the NDP have happily conceded what they did, and just dared anyone to make an issue out of it. But who would? It’s not like Parliament matters. As one national columnist wrote last week, “The least essential service throughout the pandemic has been politics.”
In the end a democracy is nothing more, and nothing less, than a committed relationship between citizens and their political institutions. It is a shared set of expectations, hopes and dreams, with a plan for how they might be accomplished. And like all relationships, a democracy can weather some pretty nasty storms — cynicism, anger, even betrayal.
There is one thing no relationship cannot survive, though, and that is contempt. Contempt is a rot that eats away at its very foundations, and it is unhealthy enough when that contempt is held by the people and their self- proclaimed agents in the media. But when it emanates from the agents of democracy itself, when it is proudly boasted of by the highest office-holders in the land, then the country is indeed well and truly.