Please Advise! I'm the Speaker, Not Parliament's Babysitter

[Oscar]

Please Advise! I'm the Speaker, Not Parliament's Babysitter

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/09/30/Pa ... on-Period/ ]

If anyone can help turn petulant crybabies into dignified MPs, it's totally Steve Burgess.

By Steve Burgess, September 30, 2014 TheTyee.ca

[Editor's note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a Ph.D in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

I am at my wit's end. Every day I am forced to deal with a room full of unruly children. They don't listen to me -- it seems my authority means nothing. A bunch of kids in short pants are running rampant while I sit in the middle like a glorified babysitter. They don't pay me enough to do this job, but I can't go on strike. I'm non-union -- there's only one of me.

What to do?

Sincerely,

The Honourable Andrew Scheer
Speaker of the House
Parliament Hill, Ottawa

- - - - -

Dear Mr. The Honourable,

It's so easy for outsiders to judge, isn't it? Smug, childless types who see some little tyrant going berserk in a supermarket check-out line because Mom won't buy him a Snickers bar -- we're so sure we could do better. We'd keep that punk in line. And if we were Speaker of the House, we'd show discipline. We'd get Conservative MP Paul Calandra to treat Question Period with respect instead of spouting non-sequiturs about Israel. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/paul-calandra-s-non-answer-period-week-in-videos-1.2779265 ] We'd soon have those childish, hooting, heckling MPs in check. We'd restore dignity to Canadian politics.

Sure. The problematic word there is "restore." There is considerable argument over whether parliaments and congresses have ever been anything other than houses of ill-repute, here or elsewhere. Certainly those who say the problem has lately become worse must deal with the example of Representative Preston Brooks, who in 1856 beat Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death with a cane on the floor of the U.S. Senate. [ https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/hi ... Sumner.htm ] There's never been a whole lot of respectful behaviour in the halls of governance.

But having said that, Mr. Speaker, you have not done much of a job. When you made your statement in reply to Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair's criticism, you proclaimed that as far as you're concerned non-answers are a non-problem, repeating a previous Speaker's little joke: "That is why it's called Question Period, not Answer Period." [ http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... uffoonery/ ] Very true. That's also why it's called "cynical bullshit," not "responsible governance."

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