NDP calls for uncivil MPs to be suspended without pay
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
Civility in the House? What a novel concept for people who want to know why bullying is so out of hand. Lead by example....
By George, I think they may be stating to catch on.
By George, I think they may be stating to catch on.
Yes, everything the NDP does is to make themselves look 'cool'.
Compelling argument from Bear confirmed.
Depends on what the people really want.
I have to admit myself it might be an extreme measure, but if it fosters productive debate, it might be worth it. I really hate the idea of some kind of censorship, but when question period turns into baboonery this might be the inevitable next step.
Did I say everything?
I think I was pretty specific, in this case they're playing to party hacks and idiots that believe they're sincere.
Beats the idiotic comments from you.
It comes as no surprise that you would support restricting democracy.
If ONLY they were actually catching on and not simply stating what they think will garner them the best press. A politician is a politician, until they start walking the walk, I'll not be hanging too much faith on them meaning anything real when they talk the talk.
I understand the word just fine.
But that isn't the only post you've made on the subject...
It's not a matter of you might defend this nonsense, you've done so, willingly, and consistently.
But I can understand why you want to pretend to backpedal on it now. Despite your die hard party affiliation.
I like the idea presented in the OP in principle. One problem though is with the idea of penalizing a party for the actions of a member. I don't see how the principle of justice would apply there.
A few rounds in the ring like Brazeau and 'Shiny Pony' Troudeau might just do the trick.....A woman gets a free first punch;-)
The big question is; How does one define civility?
The second one costs full price
When it comes to Question Period I would recommend every MP casts an eye up to the Grade 8 classes sitting in the balcony observing and try to behave at least as well as them.
That's civil enough for Parliament.
So in order to achieve true civility in the HOC, we need to replace MPs with children. Huh, I guess the whole "children are our future" thing might be kind of prophetic after all.
It should at least be possible to define the more blatant acts of uncivility.
Either have the HOC populated with children, or...... Pro Wrestlers - Now that would be extremely entertaining!
Going about the definition process that way is kinda like describing a tree by focusing on everything else that surrounds it... Kinda a process of elimination
And lucrative! We could have the national debt paid off in no time!
Imagine, people might actually watch CPAC!
It ought to be possible to at least give a rough definition. It might be like, if we can't define precisely where the river ends and the ocean begins, we can come up with a more restrictive or broader definition depending on our objectives.
So in this case behaviour that's borderline could be included in 'civil', with uncivil being what most would agree to be out of bounds.
From what I can gather from watching the news, the N.D.P. may be the worst offenders! -
(Suicide by mouth)
Too many people that will bend over backwards to incorporate an individual perspective on what is 'civil' or considered to be off sides.... If the NDP really want this, they can provide, in excruciating detail, exactly how people WILL act in Parliament. Any deviation earns punishment.
Doesn't sound too credible, but if that's what is wanted, then this is a solution that will deliver and allow for no subjective interpretations
- Hypocrisy is the mother's milk of politics and so it is no surprise that the party with the worst tempered and most unparliamentary leader in Tom "The Bomb" Mulcair and the the worst tempered and most unparliamentary MP in Pat Martin is the party moving a motion to promote civility in parliament.
- The last time the issue of rudeness and negativity in parliament was actually studied in a comprehensive and scholarly manner was a couple of years ago and the McMaster University profs who conducted the study found that then NDP leader and now NDP saint Jack Layton was the rudest and most negative and unparliamentary leader in the Commons and that the NDP MPs as a group were the rudest and most negative and unparliamentary MPs in the Commons.
- Now, Layton has been replaced by a leader in Mulcair who is known to be even more short and bad tempered than Ole RubNTug ever was and NDP MP Pat Martin seems to have gone over to the dark side even more than he had back in 2011.
- So the whole thing is a farce and everybody in parliament knows it but it seems the NDP thinks it can con some of the left leaning rubes out there to believe it is the party on the side of the angels and therefore the party to work for, send money to and support at election time.
- Meanwhile, Tom The Bomb and his Quebec dominated caucus propose to scrap or amend The Clarity Act so that a simple majority of 50% plus one will be sufficient to overturn a 145 year old country and government structure which makes Canada the only major nation in which something as consitutionally fundamental as national unity can be split asunder by a simple majority.
- To illustrate the rank hypocrisy of the Notoriously Dumb Party (the NDP), amending the party's consitution requires a 66% vote.
- Therefore, either the NDP is moronic or opportunistic or hypocritical or it really believes that its own party constitution is more important than the constitution of Canada.
- Loony tunes indeed.
UPDATED: Question Period rife with rudeness, Layton most negative, new index finds
Sarah Boesveld | May 31, 2011 1:06 PM ET | Last Updated: Aug 5, 2011 5:55 PM ET
More from Sarah Boesveld | @sarahboesveld
Reuters / Chris WattieNew Democratic Party leader Jack Layton holds up his coffee mug before the start of a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa May 25, 2011
http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?u...deness,+Layton+most+negative,+new+index+finds
Oh, The Humanities!: Academics gather this week in Fredericton for the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, presenting papers on everything from subjectivity in ultrasounds to performing gastronomy to the crisis in public education. Throughout the week, we showcase some of the most interesting research.
Jack Layton and his caucus will enter Parliament Thursday with a promise to be a very civil Opposition. Even the NDP’s most notorious pitbull, Winnipeg MP Pat Martin, will be passing out buttons reading “Opto Civilitas,” Latin for “I choose civility.”
But on the eve of the new (ideally) more respectful parliament, a new civility index finds Mr. Layton among the worst offenders when it comes to negative exchanges during Question Period. The findings, from researchers at McMaster University, will be presented to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Fredericton on Wednesday.
The index looked at a representative sample of Question Periods from Canada’s 40th Parliament, analyzed text and video from the daily exchanges and, through a sophisticated coding mechanism, ranked how rude or civil MPs acted toward one another. Though few MPs have the opportunity to speak in the house, the ones who did were averaged out on the civility scale and their behaviour considered.
On a scale of one to 100 (one being really bad and 100 being top notch), MPs got an average score of 58 for both partisan commentating and attacking other MPs or parties. MPs were also ranked 34 out of 100 for their measure of rudeness.
Mr. Layton was deemed most negative, just ahead of former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, while Conservative public works minister Rona Ambrose was considered most positive after the House speaker.
While many Canadians (and even politicians) dismiss Question Period as an angry cat fight, index co-creator Alex Sévigny, an associate professor of communication at McMaster University, says it’s much more than that. This index, which he put together with Philip Savage also of McMaster University, and Andrew Laing of Cormex Research, aims to shed light on the complex dynamics of Question Period and gives Canadians a better understanding of how politicians get things done.
“It reflects the fact that politics is visceral, politics is human,” he said. “It’s not a game of logic and academic debate, it’s a representation of the spectrum of human experience because that’s what politics is. It’s about people’s hopes and dreams and feelings and fears and this kind of thing.”
Mr. Martin said he was surprised to see his party leader ranked most negative with a score of 39, especially since Mr. Layton tried to push for a private members’ bill ensuring civility two years ago. At caucus last week, the leader made a “threat of meaningful consequences” against those who heckle and display abusive behaviour in the House, said Mr. Martin.
He admits to being “as guilty as anyone and maybe more guilty than some,” having been nominated thrice at the National Press Gallery Dinner for the title of Attack Dog of the Year.
“It was a laugh, but it’s nothing to be proud of when you think about it,” he said, adding that incivility has gotten out of hand in Parliament. “We really have to ratchet it back because there’s nowhere else to go in terms of inflammatory rhetoric. People are shrieking and spraying spittle, so it’s really not a pretty sight.”
While Mr. Martin and the NDP are hoping to raise awareness about civility through buttons (John Baird, the minister of foreign affairs, has agreed to wear one), Conservative MP Michael Chong doesn’t believe that’s the answer.
“I don’t think that the behaviour in the house can be something brought about by a new spirit of cooperation,” said the MP for Wellington-Halton Hills. “I don’t think the behaviour in the house is going to change until the rules are changed.
He is lobbying to give more power back to the Speaker who, 30 years ago, would choose which MPs would get to ask a question — a set-up that would ensure more backbenchers got a chance to raise issues their constituents cared about. Today, the parties choose who asks the questions, resulting in far more partisan fighting, Mr. Chong says.
Ottawa should look to the United Kingdom’s model of daily exchanges for inspiration, he said.
“You’ll see the prime minister being asked about funding for a particular hospital or funding for a particular group in a person’s riding,” he said. “We don’t get those kinds of questions in our question period because they’re not “national enough” or deemed national enough for the parties who control question period.”
Mr. Martin agrees, but for different reasons. Britain’s “Question Time” is far more effective, he said, because parliamentarians are both civil and witty.
“It’s quite meaningful and if there is any jabbing, it’s done with wit,” he said. “Wit is a weapon more than volume and that would be a lovely change.”
In the McMaster civility analysis, the researcher Prof. Alex Sévigny found MPs used arguments that appealed to human emotion, the argumentative strategy known as ‘pathos’ used 46% of the time.
Only 7.2% of female MPs spoke up in Question Period during 2010 as opposed to 92.8% of male MPs — a number adjusted according to representation. Western MPs got more representative in Question Period, making up 46.4% of MPs speaking up in the House.
Perhaps not surprisingly, 59.9% of the questions posed were rhetorical, while 48.9% were information seeking.
“Politics is about making an impression, it’s about reinforcing an agenda, it’s about building a narrative,” Prof. Sévigny said. “I think that rhetoric and persuasion are a big part of that.”
- The last time the issue of rudeness and negativity in parliament was actually studied in a comprehensive and scholarly manner was a couple of years ago and the McMaster University profs who conducted the study found that then NDP leader and now NDP saint Jack Layton was the rudest and most negative and unparliamentary leader in the Commons and that the NDP MPs as a group were the rudest and most negative and unparliamentary MPs in the Commons.
- Now, Layton has been replaced by a leader in Mulcair who is known to be even more short and bad tempered than Ole RubNTug ever was and NDP MP Pat Martin seems to have gone over to the dark side even more than he had back in 2011.
- So the whole thing is a farce and everybody in parliament knows it but it seems the NDP thinks it can con some of the left leaning rubes out there to believe it is the party on the side of the angels and therefore the party to work for, send money to and support at election time.
- Meanwhile, Tom The Bomb and his Quebec dominated caucus propose to scrap or amend The Clarity Act so that a simple majority of 50% plus one will be sufficient to overturn a 145 year old country and government structure which makes Canada the only major nation in which something as consitutionally fundamental as national unity can be split asunder by a simple majority.
- To illustrate the rank hypocrisy of the Notoriously Dumb Party (the NDP), amending the party's consitution requires a 66% vote.
- Therefore, either the NDP is moronic or opportunistic or hypocritical or it really believes that its own party constitution is more important than the constitution of Canada.
- Loony tunes indeed.
UPDATED: Question Period rife with rudeness, Layton most negative, new index finds
Sarah Boesveld | May 31, 2011 1:06 PM ET | Last Updated: Aug 5, 2011 5:55 PM ETMore from Sarah Boesveld | @sarahboesveld
http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?u...deness,+Layton+most+negative,+new+index+finds
Oh, The Humanities!: Academics gather this week in Fredericton for the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, presenting papers on everything from subjectivity in ultrasounds to performing gastronomy to the crisis in public education. Throughout the week, we showcase some of the most interesting research.
Jack Layton and his caucus will enter Parliament Thursday with a promise to be a very civil Opposition. Even the NDP’s most notorious pitbull, Winnipeg MP Pat Martin, will be passing out buttons reading “Opto Civilitas,” Latin for “I choose civility.”
But on the eve of the new (ideally) more respectful parliament, a new civility index finds Mr. Layton among the worst offenders when it comes to negative exchanges during Question Period. The findings, from researchers at McMaster University, will be presented to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Fredericton on Wednesday.
The index looked at a representative sample of Question Periods from Canada’s 40th Parliament, analyzed text and video from the daily exchanges and, through a sophisticated coding mechanism, ranked how rude or civil MPs acted toward one another. Though few MPs have the opportunity to speak in the house, the ones who did were averaged out on the civility scale and their behaviour considered.
On a scale of one to 100 (one being really bad and 100 being top notch), MPs got an average score of 58 for both partisan commentating and attacking other MPs or parties. MPs were also ranked 34 out of 100 for their measure of rudeness.
Mr. Layton was deemed most negative, just ahead of former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, while Conservative public works minister Rona Ambrose was considered most positive after the House speaker.
While many Canadians (and even politicians) dismiss Question Period as an angry cat fight, index co-creator Alex Sévigny, an associate professor of communication at McMaster University, says it’s much more than that. This index, which he put together with Philip Savage also of McMaster University, and Andrew Laing of Cormex Research, aims to shed light on the complex dynamics of Question Period and gives Canadians a better understanding of how politicians get things done.
“It reflects the fact that politics is visceral, politics is human,” he said. “It’s not a game of logic and academic debate, it’s a representation of the spectrum of human experience because that’s what politics is. It’s about people’s hopes and dreams and feelings and fears and this kind of thing.”
Mr. Martin said he was surprised to see his party leader ranked most negative with a score of 39, especially since Mr. Layton tried to push for a private members’ bill ensuring civility two years ago. At caucus last week, the leader made a “threat of meaningful consequences” against those who heckle and display abusive behaviour in the House, said Mr. Martin.
He admits to being “as guilty as anyone and maybe more guilty than some,” having been nominated thrice at the National Press Gallery Dinner for the title of Attack Dog of the Year.
“It was a laugh, but it’s nothing to be proud of when you think about it,” he said, adding that incivility has gotten out of hand in Parliament. “We really have to ratchet it back because there’s nowhere else to go in terms of inflammatory rhetoric. People are shrieking and spraying spittle, so it’s really not a pretty sight.”
While Mr. Martin and the NDP are hoping to raise awareness about civility through buttons (John Baird, the minister of foreign affairs, has agreed to wear one), Conservative MP Michael Chong doesn’t believe that’s the answer.
“I don’t think that the behaviour in the house can be something brought about by a new spirit of cooperation,” said the MP for Wellington-Halton Hills. “I don’t think the behaviour in the house is going to change until the rules are changed.
He is lobbying to give more power back to the Speaker who, 30 years ago, would choose which MPs would get to ask a question — a set-up that would ensure more backbenchers got a chance to raise issues their constituents cared about. Today, the parties choose who asks the questions, resulting in far more partisan fighting, Mr. Chong says.
Ottawa should look to the United Kingdom’s model of daily exchanges for inspiration, he said.
“You’ll see the prime minister being asked about funding for a particular hospital or funding for a particular group in a person’s riding,” he said. “We don’t get those kinds of questions in our question period because they’re not “national enough” or deemed national enough for the parties who control question period.”
Mr. Martin agrees, but for different reasons. Britain’s “Question Time” is far more effective, he said, because parliamentarians are both civil and witty.
“It’s quite meaningful and if there is any jabbing, it’s done with wit,” he said. “Wit is a weapon more than volume and that would be a lovely change.”
In the McMaster civility analysis, the researcher Prof. Alex Sévigny found MPs used arguments that appealed to human emotion, the argumentative strategy known as ‘pathos’ used 46% of the time.
Only 7.2% of female MPs spoke up in Question Period during 2010 as opposed to 92.8% of male MPs — a number adjusted according to representation. Western MPs got more representative in Question Period, making up 46.4% of MPs speaking up in the House.
Perhaps not surprisingly, 59.9% of the questions posed were rhetorical, while 48.9% were information seeking.
“Politics is about making an impression, it’s about reinforcing an agenda, it’s about building a narrative,” Prof. Sévigny said. “I think that rhetoric and persuasion are a big part of that.”