"There's Something Happening Here, What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear"
When battle lines are drawn, people change. Good people act badly. There is a need for improvement in behaviour among the people running our nation.
by Don Hutchinson

Perhaps I betray my age by opening with a line from a Buffalo Springfield song, but there is a significant lack of clarity about events that have unfolded in Ottawa over recent days. There’s definitely something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear!

One of the reasons for the election less than two months ago was the dysfunction of Parliament. The usual structures of parliamentary business had almost ground to a halt as the result of divisive and partisan political practices from all four parties in the House of Commons and the Senate.

During the election campaign, and afterward, all party leaders and many of Members of Parliament (MP) and Senators expressed the need for an improvement in behaviour in order to get about the business of the nation. During the election, the EFC’s President, Bruce J. Clemenger, expressed the need for “civility” as the most important issue for Canada’s 40th Parliament, an expression echoed in his December 3 open letter to Parliamentarians and Canadians.

A scant few weeks ago, Parliament returned. The Speaker was admonished for not exercising better control over the House and then MPs went back to behaving badly. While there are a few MPs who have distinguished themselves by not participating in the fray, most have reflected another line from the same Buffalo Springfield song, “There’s battle lines being drawn, Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”

In a minority Parliament, the governing party is required to work with at least one other party in order to secure sufficient votes to do business. In a turnaround on this philosophy, the opposition parties have decided to work together in an effort to secure sufficient votes to do business. The problem is, they are not the government (at least at the time of writing). They have not secured the traditional level of support required in the Canadian Parliamentary democracy to form the government and have chosen instead to model an effort at coalition building based on the parliamentary structure of other nations.

Is this a constitutional crisis? Well, most constitutional experts agree that it is not. It is simply an unanticipated form of behaviour in Canada’s Parliament. A small number of constitutional experts have stated they believe the opposition proposal is an unconstitutional proposition. The resulting media coverage of “conflicting experts” has created an inflated sense of crisis about the future of our nation.

At the same time that this “revolutionary” development is taking place – that’s a pun based on one media outlet’s description of there not having been such a degree of rancor in one of Her Majesty’s colonies since the American Revolution – the world is facing an economic crisis. International leaders have pointed to Canada’s as a financial system that is among the best functioning on the planet. I wonder what those international leaders are thinking about current events in our Parliament? What happens to the economy while the current power struggle unfolds?

Then there are the phone calls and emails asking how there can possibly be Christians on both sides of this disagreement? More troubling are the comments expressed by MPs, who I know are people of Christian faith, directed towards other MPs, who I know are people of Christian faith.

I don’t know if it is the drawing of party lines, a mob mentality or simply the entrenchment that occurs when battle lines are drawn. “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”

I do know that there are good people behaving badly, both on the floor of the House and sending messages to me, the media, MPs and others.

I do know that if we dig down to the roots of Parliamentary tradition – and for those of faith, to the roots of that faith – we will find that it is possible to restore “peace, order and good government.” The challenge is, who are the men and women who will sacrifice their rancor, hurt feelings and the brass ring of political power in the honored service to which they were elected?

Many around the world have looked to William Wilberforce and the movement to abolish the slave trade over the last year’s 200th anniversary celebration of the incredible accomplishment that led ultimately to the end of slavery as an accepted institution in the western world. How many recall that the second “great object” Wilberforce felt God had called him to was “the reformation of manners”? Manners … something we could use more of in society and in Parliament.

Don Hutchinson is Vice-President, Centre for Faith and Public Life, and General Legal Counsel with The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Used with permission.  Copyright © 2008 Christianity.ca.

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