Stunts For The Asking

On Parliamentary Politics

We have to be better at keeping our eyes on the prize.

The first time I ever stepped foot in the House of Commons I was 15, a precocious 9^th grader who had written his final exam the day before. I have spent at least a hundred hours in the hallowed halls of Parliament. And my response to Pierre Poilievre baiting an ejection in the House on Tuesday was complete indifference.

It is not a lack of knowledge that keeps me from panicking about the disrespect to a hallowed institution, but a fervent understanding of the institution. The Rat Pack of Liberals in the 80s would do this to muck things up. Justin Trudeau called Peter Kent a piece of shit in that hallowed Chamber. The Liberals teamed up with the Conservatives in the majority Parliament to haul Tom Mulcair to a House Committee as a witness on some bullshit pretext to score political points. Rachel Notley got herself booted from the Alberta Legislature in the fall of 2019 to make a political point about changes to election law. Jack Layton did this in his first term as an MP in opposition to Paul Martin, and I only remember this because of a Rick Mercer rant whose crux was “if I led the NDP I’d do this all the time so people remember we exist”.

Yes, Trudeau apologized for calling Kent a piece of shit and Poilievre didn’t, but that’s not really relevant to my point. Althia Raj’s “Dark Day for Democracy” framing was a moronic overreaction because antics on the floor of the House are as foundational to our democracy as anything else. Hell, the Speaker of the Ontario Legislature has issued a ruling on what is and isn’t acceptable by Parliamentary standards and every progressive currently outraged by this stunt will no doubt be a big fan of the stunt Marit Stiles and the NDP apparently have planned for Monday.

Having been duly accused of engaging in whataboutism, let’s be clear; I do not have a problem with what Pierre Poilievre did. If, as the current signs suggest is likely, the Liberals face a majority Conservative government after the next election, then I will want the opposition to engage in quite a lot of stunts to remind people they exist. One of the reasons I wanted Bonnie Crombie to run in the Milton byelection this week was that I wanted her in the legislature so she could use Queen’s Park as a venue to grab attention in a way that is harder (not impossible, but harder) from outside. (That said, if Milton ends up being a very tight Liberal win – which is my incredibly loosely held and not at all confident guess, then her deciding not to run will likely have been crucial.)

Hell, the Liberals are hiving out the capital gains tax hike from the budget bill, so that the Tories have to face a stand alone vote on that and they are sufficiently wedged on the issue? Is that game-playing acceptable? Of course it is to the people talking about taking the House seriously. What do you think Sean Fraser’s been doing by not answering a question for the last month without just attacking Poilievre non-stop? You think that’s not about clips for TV and social? Of course it is.

Pierre Poilievre announced this week that minority rights guaranteed by the Charter will be subject to the whims of the majority under his government. He said that what is and isn’t constitutional will be subject not to the judiciary but to democracy, an absolutely terrifying concept which anybody should be able to see. Yes, my specific minority status is probably fine, but that’s not exactly reassuring or reason not to deeply oppose the idea of widespread use of the Notwithstanding Clause. And nobody’s talking about it because he’s got everyone talking about the stunt.

Here's the most honest assessment of the broader Canadian left you’ll get; it’s full of fucking hypocrites. The problem for the broad left is that holding principles is now whataboutism and people are more focused on winning some form of moral high ground on Twitter than effectively advocating for an actual outcome. Pollsters are manipulating things for views and clicks but Frank Graves’ vote intention by level of disinformation chart goes viral every time he tweets it as gospel truth. When Abacus has Doug Ford down it’s correct, when their federal polls are bad for Trudeau it’s biased hackery. At some point we need to hold ourselves to a standard.

I disagree that Pierre Poilievre is a threat to democracy, and I’ve said enough at this point to know that saying that will get me yelled at by people. I think he’s willing to be a far right agitator, and I think people who try and find his “real” views are missing the point. But to the extent that he is a threat to anything fundamental, he spelled it out this week, and then threw the political equivalent of a stink bomb to make sure the Liberals and their sympathetic media allies didn’t focus on it. That so many people overreacted is a bad sign.

We need to be better as a progressive movement at identifying hills worth dying on. Stunts on the floor of the House of Commons are actually evidence of a democracy working properly. Poilievre played a stunt, got what he had coming to him, and then walked outside to bitch. If the Speaker in Ontario boots Marit et al on Monday for wearing a “political” prop on Monday I’ll be pro-stunt then, but at least I won’t be a fucking hypocrite.

There are incredibly difficult questions that loom for the left, starting with the fact that the budget has done nothing positive to the government’s polling, compounded by the fact that Leger has the LPC at 30% in Quebec and collapsing everywhere else which complicates the case for ditching JT being a smart move. This column was originally supposed to be about whether Chrystia Freeland needs to go if the government is going to be able to sell this budget. Oh, and there’s the next issue that Anand and Fraser, the two best options to lead the Liberals after JT, are both likelier than not to lose their seats without a real revival. And the story of the week is going to be this. Not defending the government. Not questioning the leadership. Arguing about a fucking stunt.

I despair.