An Utter Waste Of Time

With so many issues flying around, the actual role of Parliament in this scandal is largely lost. For the last two days, I’ve made a point of watching Question Period with some misguided “anticipation”, which should have been betrayed by past experience, but curiously wasn’t this time. I suspect the amount of people viewing Question Period has risen this week- even attendance in the gallery seems to be more than usual- there is a rare buzz, as happens when major issues break. What is instructive I think, the absolutely ABYSMAL show in Question Period, the complete and utter irrelevance of the undertaking, a total waste of time. Fact is, the debate amongst our Parliamentarians, at least during this high profile period, has contributed nothing of value, it’s provided no “light”, it’s given no answers, it has served no purpose that I can ascertain.

Review the transcript from yesterday, the actually sad hilarity is just that much more pointed. The NDP begins with a question about the robocall controversy, the Prime Minister responds with a completely unrelated lecture about floor crossing episode. The NDP leader asks a follow up question, same topic, again the subject is ignored and the same response regarding an issue with no relationship to the question. We then move to another NDP questioner, who is met with a complete dodge, something about telling Elections Canada what they have, delivered in robotic fashion, nothing gleamed or anything of use to anyone. Okay, let’s give the Liberals a crack. Rae rises, asks some pointed questions about the robocall scandal and the Prime Minister responds by discussing vikileaks, unilaterally ignoring the question and delivering his own pre-determined message. And so on, and so on, and so on….. CLICK, what was I thinking, why did I bother, if there is a place on earth devoid of external meaning, surely this is it.

Question Period is supposed to be a means to maintain accountability. The whole concept revolves around the notion of the government answering to the issues of the day, the opposition playing its role in holding them to account, that’s the theory. In practice, an embarrassing display of nonsensical answers, it’s as though two parallel worlds exist that can never collide, just get the charade over with, make it until 3pm and everyone gets out of jail. Should anything of substance actually transpire, this is a seismic event, an anomaly that is really a byproduct of random chance, dumb luck, rather than true intent.

Again, so many angles to this particular robocall story, but one that I take note of, another astonishing example of just what a disservice, what a fundamental failure, this now accepted comedic routine known as Question Period.