Canadian parliamentarians on Canadian politics

Glen Pearson, Member of Parliament for London North Centre, has a post on his blog The Parallel Parliament reflecting on Barack Obama’s election. Pearson argues that Canada doesn’t so much need a transformational figure like Barack Obama, but someone who can rise above partisan and regional conflicts to call us back to our shared values: “It’s my belief that we don’t require a transformation figure, much as we’d like to have one. But what we do require is a kind of inclusive individual whose very words and thoughts transcend our present regionalism, or crippling moral failure towards the less-fortunate, and who can reconcile us with the planet.”

Pearson highlights a different vision for Parliament. “We need someone who will make Parliament work, [who] will look at the opposition parties and say “You’ve got a point and you hold it dearly. In fact, so do we as a party. But we’ve so much argued ourselves to the ground that we have precious little energy left to give to those people that actually elected us in the first place. Let’s make their needs our primary goal. Let’s find what we share in common and at least give them that. And then perhaps we can find compromise on the rest.”

Former MP Bill Blaikie, who retired from federal politics, also reflected on the nature of Canadian Parliament, in the Canadian Parliamentary Review. Blaikie, who is ordained in the United Church of Canada, notes “What is needed and what is missing, I would argue, is a sense of forgiveness.”

“At the moment our Parliament is very much driven by a sense of revenge. “You exaggerated what we did now we are going to exaggerate what you did.” And on it goes. Surely, at some point someone has to forgive and we move on.”

Blaikie also notes the “atomization” of parliamentarians that has resulted from our obsession with technology that leads to a dehumanization within political interactions. This tendency has been helped by “the anti-politican cult” that developed following the Charlottetown Accord Referendum. Blaikie argues that procedural changes can only go so far in reforming Parliament if we don’t address these deeper issues.

(Hat tip to Aaron Wherry of Maclean’s blog Beyond the Commons, who pointed me in the direction of both these pieces.)