Parliament losing power to keep tabs on government: Tory MP

OTTAWA — A former member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet has warned that Canadian parliamentary democracy is being jeopardized by the “command and control” system that is removing the right of MPs to speak in the House of Commons.

The warning came Monday from Conservative MP Michael Chong, who was Harper’s intergovernmental affairs minister in 2006.

Chong has earned a solid reputation as an MP seeking parliamentary reform — particularly with respect to the daily question period.

After a two-week parliamentary break, he rose in the Commons to express his support for a complaint lodged with the Speaker by fellow Tory MP Mark Warwara.

Warwara, who wants MPs to vote on a motion condemning sex-selection abortions, said his privileges as an MP were violated in March because his party’s leadership prevented him from speaking in the Commons during a 15-minute period known as members’ statements.

Since then, the abortion issue has escalated into a much larger battle over political freedom as Tory MPs — even Harper’s former director of communications — have urged Speaker Andrew Scheer to take control away from party leadership over who gets to speak in the House.

In his speech Monday, Chong said that over the past three decades, parties have assumed total control over which MPs get to rise in question period, and they are now assuming that power for member’s statements.

He said this is a dangerous trend.

“Today in this chamber, members of Parliament cannot ask questions of the government to hold it to account,” he said.

“They no longer have that fundamental right — whether they sit on that side of the aisle (the opposition) or on this side of the aisle (government backbenchers).”

Chong said that “shift” has eroded the “fundamental concept of responsible government” that was at the heart of the creation of Canada in the 1800s.

“The idea that the executive is accountable to members of the legislature is a fundamental underpinning of modern political institutions in Canada. And the shift that has happened in question period and is starting to happen in members’ statements is eroding this very fundamental principle.”

Chong was first elected in 2004 and was appointed to cabinet in early 2006, when Harper’s Tories were first elected. Several months later, he resigned from cabinet over the government’s decision to recognize Quebec as a nation within a united Canada.

In 2010, MPs passed a motion proposed by Chong to study how to improve decorum in question period.

However, a committee tasked with holding public hearings on the issue heard from only one person — Chong himself — before Parliament was shut down by an election. As a result, the initiative went nowhere.

Among the changes that Chong had proposed:

* Give the Speaker a stronger mandate to impose discipline on MPs who behave badly.

* Lengthen the time limit for questions and answers.

* Allocate half the questions each day to MPs who are randomly selected (currently, it’s the caucus leadership that decides who gets to ask questions, and on what topics).

* Require ministers, if they are in the House, to answer questions directed at them instead of having another minister answer on their behalf.

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mark Kennedy