Keith Martin has long been my favorite Liberal Member of Parliament. He is a true liberal when it comes to civil liberties and the drug war. He is also one of the most open minded MPs when it comes to health care reform. My dream federal election is Maxime Bernier versus Keith Martin.
My dream has gone from being unlikely to impossible because Keith Martin has said that he will not run again for Parliament.
This seems to be a pattern lately. All the best politicians from all parties have been steadily declining to reenlist for another term of service. Mr. Martin gives us an indication of why::
"This is deeply dissatisfying to all Members of Parliament and indeed Senators. There's a deep and profound level of dissatisfaction across party lines amongst the members that this has become a colossal waste of taxpayers' money," said Mr. Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, B.C.), who has seen Parliament change over the last 17 years that he's been an MP. "Taxpayers are not getting value for money, at all. Many committees are ground down by partisanship. The committees have just become another theatre for political warfare, an extension in fact of the House. Studies, when they are done, cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet are compiled and thrown onto a shelf to collect dust. So, where's the actual effect of the activities that are taking place on the hill to benefit the public that pays for all of this? It's simply not occurring."
Of course the complaint that Parliament is too partisan is hardly a new one, but it really does seem that it is getting worse.
An easy excuse is that the rise in partisanship is caused by the age of minority parliaments and legislative deadlock, but I don’t buy it. Other countries routinely experience legislatures that are even more split and divided than Canada’s. Yet they seem to find ways to reach across the floor and work together at least to some extent.
So what is the problem? What has been different the last few years? The more I think about it the more I have to come to the conclusion that the fault lies with the current Conservative Party leadership.
Don’t get me wrong. The Liberals and other opposition parties have been guilty of adding to the absurd levels of partisanship. There are no bloodless hands in this matter. Still it is the Conservatives that have taken things to a whole new level.
Early in the government’s first mandate they distributed to MPs a manual describing how to disrupt committees. Committees have traditionally been the place where MPs can put aside partisan concerns (okay at least partly put aside partisan concerns) and enter into real debate. Now, as Mr. Martin says, committees have become nothing more but an extension of the show boating seen in the House. This attitude of hyper-partisanship seeps its way into everything that the government does, from rhetoric to policy everything is about Liberal bashing. Try to remember the last time a Minister of the Crown made a public policy announcement and refrained from taking a stab at the opposition.
It is not surprising that good people like Jim Prentice and Keith Martin are giving up and going home. Wouldn’t you?
