As I finished off one post and tried to return to productive work, I caught the House of Assembly proceedings and a point of privilege raised by Opposition leader Roger Grimes about statements made by the Premier yesterday on security measures at Confederation Building.
I have already offered the view that Speaker Harvey Hodder has acted improperly here by sanctioning new security arrangements without advising all members of the House.
In listening today to the Premier's comments on the point of privilege, I am going to point out another way in which Mr. Speaker is sanctioning unparliamentary language, the ultimate effect of which is to undermine the ability of the House to consider issues properly.
There is an extensive use by members of various personal pronouns like "you". Before you roll your eyes up in your head, here's the point. It is a long standing tradition to address members in the third person or by the name of their district. The reason is simple: when topics are controversial, there is less likelihood the matter will be sidetracked by ego and temper. Members speak to the chair and address the chair not their fellows directly as a further means of distancing individuals from ideas and issues.
Here are some of the Premier's comments as reported by CBC:
"You want to inflame [the situation] and you want to make it volatile and you want to incite those people who have a livelihood at stake, in the gallery," he [the Premier] said.
"If that's your game, you're playing a dangerous game."
He was jabbing his finger as he said that.
The more the House loses sight of these traditions, the more the Premier and other members point fingers and talk directly to their political opponents, the more the House degenerates into a yakking shop.
Mr. Speaker ought to be clamping down on this. Anyone used to appearing in court should be familiar with the concept. Anyone who has sat in the House for more than one term should already have this stuff in his or her skull.
Every time the Speaker fails to correct members and impose order on the proceedings, the House degenerates.
The genesis of the point of privilege today is actually the earlier failure of the Speaker and the members themselves to clamp down on an unacceptable situation.
Every single measure that has been taken to address the disorder in the public galleries, as innocuous as it might seem to some, or as virtuous as may be the Premier's intentions, has been ineffective and weak. The Premier's response, as I have said elsewhere, actually has the effect of usurping the power of the legislature to govern itself. There was not even the pretense of courtesy in the unilateral imposition of new security measures.
The result is that the response to an attempt to subvert the legislature feeds the disintegration of the House as a functioning body.
The House is becoming a laughing stock.
This only serves the interests of those who already view the House - a fundamental expression of our democracy - as inefficient and ineffective.
If Mr. Speaker was doing his job to the fullest extent he may, the House would not be in the situation in which we find it today.
