Really Children ..... Please Grow Up!

This week the Finance Minister of Canada presented the federal budget. The Opposition heckled, yelled and banged their desks so loudly for the entire speech that people could not hear what he was saying. The next day, the Conservatives presented 257 motions that they insisted be voted on. Because the 257 motions put forward by the Conservatives were all related to the budget and because all budget-related motions are seen as votes of confidence, if any one of those motions had been won by the Conservatives, the government would have fallen. Therefore all of the Liberal members needed to be there all of the time. It needs to be noted that because the Conservatives knew that they would lose on each motion - they had no need to ensure that all members were there for each vote. The sight of cots lining the halls of parliament so that members could take a nap would look bizarre if not such a sad commentary on our politicians.

I can understand that the federal Conservative smell fresh blood and want to make as much hay as possible while the sun is shining (sorry for the mix metaphors). I understand that for political parties such as the Conservatives and the NDP who both appear to lack any capacity for making some contributions to the running of the country, that the temptation to fixate on one topic where the government appears to be vulnerable may be almost overwhelming. I can understand that doing the hard work of looking for solutions to our problems is a lot less fun than heckling anyone who is speaking. But it is rude and far more importantly the Conservative strategy was counter-productive.

The House sat for 30 straight hours. Listening to speeches and then voting on each motion. 30 hours to vote on motions that the Liberals were guaranteed to win seems like a colossal waste of time and energy. While it may be that there is something in the allegations about how the Prime Minister and his office deal with SNC-Lavalin matter, it is not the only issue facing Canada. If the Conservatives want to demonstrate that they could run a county perhaps they need to start showing some maturity.

As useless as I think most federal (or for that matter provincial) politicians are most of the time - engaging in silly actions just ensures that they do even less. In fact, committee meetings were cancelled the day after the Conservatives' gambit to attract attention because everyone was too tired. It is difficult to imagine that anyone would see the Conservatives in a positive light after watching them demonstrating with childish glee their silly faked irritation. What employee in any company would be allowed to show such disrespect for their bosses - the electorate?

If the Liberals get tired of all of this stuff - they could do what the former Prime Minister did and just prorogue Parliament. In the meantime - it would be nice if everyone could attempt to act in an adult fashion and at least pretend to treat each other with a modicum of respect. If not the six months between now and the next election are going to be a waste of time in terms of anybody doing anything in Ottawa.