Questions arise on the efficacy of Canadian government
On Tuesday, Sept, 23, Canadians witnessed an unusually stormy exchange in the House of Commons during question period. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair asked the Conservatives about Canadian involvement in Iraq and was repeatedly met with what can be best described as non-answers.
When Mulcair asked, “Will the Conservative government confirm that the 30-day Canadian commitment in Iraq will indeed end on Oct. 4?” Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and, ironically, secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, responded to Mulcair with questions about a two-month-old Facebook comment made by Alex Anderson, who identifies himself as an NDP fundraiser.
Mulcair was asked if the coarsely worded comment “F*** the IDF and all who supports them. I am sick and tired of the media bulls***, trying to sell lies and hide a f***ing genocide” was representative of the party’s position on Israel. When Calandra first said ‘Israel’ instead of Iraq, there was audible laughter in the House, but his impassioned, albeit completely irrelevant, reply was eventually met with enthusiasm.
After his first question was disregarded, Mulcair responded, “Mr. Speaker, I can understand the confusion. We are in the Middle East and we are under the ‘I’s, but we are talking about Iraq.” After that slightly derisive comment, he asked about the number of troops in Iraq and again received an irrelevant response which centered on Anderson’s Facebook post.
Unable to obtain clear, definitive answers about the Canadian involvement in Iraq, Mulcair turned to the arbiter to try and force Calandra to respond, asking about the status about any commitments. When the Speaker, Conservative Andrew Scheer, did not force Calandra to respond to Mulcair’s question, the disgruntled NDP MP replied, “Well Mr. Speaker, that does not speak very favourably about your neutrality in this House.”
The Speaker was not neglectful of his duties; he does not have the authority or duty to force someone to answer a question. In a response delivered the day following the incident, Scheer quoted one of his predecessors: “It is not for the chair to decide whether the content of a response is in fact an answer. As we have heard many times, that is why it is called question period, not answer period.”
Calandra, after enduring three days of public ridicule, tearfully apologized to Mulcair and the House on Friday, Sept. 26, saying, “This was my response. I take full responsibility and I apologize to the leader of the Opposition, to you and to all my colleagues.” However, Tuesday’s events should still have Canadians paying just a bit more attention to our government.
The government should be open and transparent within itself and with the Canadian people, especially in the House of Commons. The actions of Canada’s armed forces should be made known to the Canadian public, and it raises concerns when questions about such an important topic are met with evasiveness. The questions that this type of exchange raises about the efficacy of parliamentary discourse are an issue for all Canadians.