Field Trip: Federal Parliament Question Period

photo credit: jk

I'm currently on the midst of a sojourn to Ottawa, and while here I decided to take in a little bit of question-dodging and childish heckling in the form of question period (QP, as the locals call it) at the federal parliament. Since I won't be seeing the big blue sky of Alberta until Wednesday evening, my thought was that I could stave off the craving by looking at the big blue ties of my former and current MPs, and the man himself, Stephen "Takin' Care of Business" Harper.

Unfortunately, Harper wasn't there, former MP Ken Epp is buried so far into the backbenches that I couldn't see him from my perch on the west gallery (which probably isn't an entirely bad thing as the last time I attended QP it looked like he was either sleeping, in a coma, or dead), and I care so little about current MP Laurie Hawn that I didn't know what he looked like until I googled his name to try and find an unflattering picture for this post. So, although inspiration was not to be had today, plenty of laughs were.

On the walk up to parliament, we were greeted by two protesters; one of which was your fairly standard abortion nutcase, complete with a placard-sized image of an aborted fetus and another poster that said "contraception is killing society." The other was a man who, unlike the abortion guy, clearly came from the less-is-more school of protest: he simply wore two Newfoundland flags stitched together lengthwise with arm and head holes and silently paced up and down the walk leading to parliament. The friend who works at parliament and was escorting me for the day told me that the abortion guy had been there every day for quite a long time, but the Newfoundland guy is a fairly new addition.

After going through several security clearances and checking out the Library of Parliament, we decided to loiter in the second floor space that is located across an atrium from the offices of several cabinet officers. From this vantage, we could see numerous cabinet ministers and their young, clean-cut staffers (who seemed to function primarily as binder carriers) make their way towards the house for QP. Most notable was Peter Mackay, who's tie was seriously 4-5 inches too short. If only he was as good at dressing himself as he was at juvenile macho posturing.

We got into the chamber at about 1:45, and QP doesn't start until 2:15. For the first twenty minutes or so a Bloc Québécois member droned on in French in an amazingly monotonous voice about something that I'm not sure of as I don't speak French. I amused myself by watching Bob Rae use body language to speak very loudly that he's the one who's in charge. He draped over his seat like a wet towel, slouching, legs sprawled out, shoulders back -- he looked like Allen Iverson only completely the opposite colour.

QP finally began after 15 minutes of member statement which most of the members used to talk about bake sales or hockey tournaments in their ridings and most Conservatives used to enforce, with their characteristic subtlety, their Orwellian mantras of their party "Gettin' Stuff Done" and the Liberals being corrupt do-nothing homo whiners.* During this time, I was proud to look right beneath me to see Edmonton MP Rona Ambrose reviewing pictures of a recent weekend with her "girlfriend" (yes, I was eavesdropping on her conversation) on her digital camera, which, upon the Honorable Minister's review of said pictures, was inserted into a giant Louis Vuitton bag.

As question period progressed I found it quite hard to focus on what any of the members were actually saying because the heckling was so amazingly relentless. This puts a lot of people off and I can definitely understand why, as parliament has essentially been reduced to 45 minutes of partisan bickering. That being said, I like partisan bickering, so I found much of QP highly entertaining despite recognizing that it was largely a waste of time and tax dollars. For instance, the complete lack of any effort on the part of Ralph Goodale to make his heckles in any way creative or witty or hilarious. A sample (this isn't verbatim, just a typical example):

Conservative Member: "Mr Speaker, the Conservative government plans to --"
Goodale: "No they don't"
Conservative Member:  "--increase the amount of spending--"
Goodale: "Waste of money"
Conservative Member:  "--to ultimately accomplish the goal of--"
Goodale: "Won't work"

And on and on. As you can see: ultimately pointless, but pretty hilarious.

My day concluded by attempting to watch the press scrums from the second floor balcony outside the gallery in which we watched QP but being shuffled away from a paranoid security guard who apparently deemed me to be a security risk. He was probably right, all I really wanted to do is try and spit on John Baird's head.

*Alright, I made up the homo part. Tom Lukiwski wasn't in the house today -- ZING!

Comments

[JR]

Excellent job of summarizing to your loyal Alberta readers how we like to use your hard-earned tax dollars up here in Ottawa.

My most favourite part of the day, besides Liberal Environment critic David McGuinty heckling John Baird about cancelling the light rail plan as Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon talked about his party's commitment to public transpit ("Why don't you ask John Baird Lawrence?"..."Why are you reading off the page Lawrence?") and House Leader Peter Van Loan calling Stephane Dion a "pouty professor" thus drawing a rare rebuke from the usually dormant Peter Milliken (and cries from my boss that "You're a goddamn minister of the Crown, start acting like one!") was one point when it looked like Gilles Duceppe was going to high-five his Finance critic Paul Crete after some random MP delivered a zinger. He looked as excited as Stephen Harper at an all you can eat surf n' turf buffet.

I guess high-fiving members of your party goes against House decorum. Chest bumping on the other hand....

[Jewel]

G-O-L-D.

[Brian Dell]

I suggest trying to sit in on a Senate or House Committee meeting if you get a chance.