An ugly brawl broke out today in the House of Commons, where a Liberal MP claims he was physically accosted and threatened by a Conservative who "flipped out."
Ottawa MP David McGuinty accused Tory MP Royal Galipeau of storming across the floor and unleashing a tirade of insults. He called the unruly conduct the worst he's seen in his three years on Parliament Hill.
"The member was clearly out of control, using unparliamentary language and in a threatening fashion grabbed my left shoulder and only left my side when several of my colleagues urged him to stop and to leave, but he would not," McGuinty said. "He was really completely out of control, raising his voice, flailing his arms, gesticulating in a threatening fashion and making wild accusations."
Parliament is a mess, and as Peter Van Loan likes to remind us, under our parliamentary system, the government gets to set the agenda and tone. Restoring honor and integrity, as promised. Clearly, voter turnout will be massive in the next election, as Canadians express their sense of pride in our national institution.
7 comments:
What's also amazing is the comments from our Blogging Tory friends. Basically, they said McGuinty is a whimp. And if a Liberal lept across the floor and grabbed a Conservative by the arm, on the floor of the HoC no less, I'm sure they wouldn't be demanding the Liberl be led out in handcuffs like their anarchist leaker...
Each time I let myself think that the Conservatives have hit the bottom, they pull out some more shovels and start digging.
In my admittedly increasingly more paranoid moments, I sometimes wonder if this government-hating government behaves as badly as it does in order to discredit government in general. A much more reliable strategy than going through all the bother of cutting funding and deregulating.
How depressing it is to be watching our HoC proceedings on CPAC when they shift over to an hour's coverage coverage of the British HoC QP.
Look, look! There's wit, there's courtesy, ministers know the answers to questions, ministers back up their arguments with research instead of reading aloud from tabloids, support for a response is shown by members rising to their feet briefly and then sitting down again...
Then CPAC switches back to our own HoC and the inchoate pooh-flinging resumes.
So.... very sad. No matter who you vote for, if you vote at all, it's events like this that are sad for all of Canadian democracy.
Mr. Speaker, back when the members for Ottawa—Orléans and Glengarry—Prescott—Russell cared about the Franco-Ontarian community, they supported the battle to save Montfort Hospital. Since the government decided to eliminate the court challenges program, they have remained silent. This clearly indicates that official language minorities are really not important to this government.
Will the Prime Minister immediately reinstate the court challenges program before another crisis shakes the Franco-Ontarian community?
This is the comment that provoked Galipeau.
It occurs to me that the tight leash that Harper keeps his MP's on, must be straining and in this case snapped.
bcer, you could hear the con's calling him that while he was making the point of priviledge. I was astounded. I know that McGuinty can be dramatic in the House, but he did sound somewhat shaken. Who wouldn't be?
Van Loan lamely defended Galipeau by saying that he didn't actually cross the floor, because he sits on the opposition side.
Another day, another lie. If you watched QP, you would have seen Galipeau on the Government side yesterday.
It's past sad, imo.
In my admittedly increasingly more paranoid moments, I sometimes wonder if this government-hating government behaves as badly as it does in order to discredit government in general.
I don't think it's that paranoid. Harper comes with the dull man's prejudice that compels him to believe that simple issues are made complicated by "liberal" vain intellectualism and a bureaucratic love of process over substance. So his little 9-volt brain decides that a robust populism (which he can't distinguish from hooliganism) and a little rough and tumble is what's needed to restore balance to a staid and unresponsive institution.
Too bad Harper is too mean-spirited and not nearly clever enough to pull that off, something which is not helped by the fact that he's saddled with the dumbest caucus of any Canadian government in history.
Deb Gray, come back! All is forgiven...
This seems like to kind of stuff that turns people off from politics. More importantly this is the main reason despite my interest in politics, I have no intention on running anytime soon and instead plan to pursue a career in the private sector. If I behaved this way at a business meeting, I would be fired right on the spot, so why shouldn't MPs be held to the same standard.
I've heard in Germany that their politics is quite civil and even though parties disagree with each other on issues, they are still respectful of the other side. Instead the Conservatives seem to want to follow the American example and go even further since as nasty and as boorish as American politics is, I don't recall hearing any stories about near fist fights breaking out on Capital Hill. This is something you usually hear about in Third world countries, which at times it seems they want to imitate.
Post a Comment