Trying to make Canada's unaccountable government accountable

Brent Rathgeber is having an interesting week
Brent Rathgeber keeps doing Brent Rathgeber things

For the purposes of mocking and challenging the Conservative government, Brent Rathgeber is perhaps better placed than any other MP in the House. As an independent, he is basically free to say and do whatever he wishes. As a former Conservative MP, he has the symbolic import of a former ally. And as an ideological conservative, he stands a sort of haunting spectre of philosophical consistency for a government that is otherwise unchallenged on the right of the political spectrum.
This week he has been particularly mischievous.

On Tuesday, he took his turn in question period. With his first opportunity, he took the Prime Minister’s apparent support for an Alberta-style carbon levy, tied it to the government’s rhetoric on carbon taxes and wondered aloud, “when will Canadians hear more details about the Prime Minister’s proposed multi-billion-dollar, job-killing carbon tax, levy, tech fund or whatever else he decides to call it?”

Next, after an undaunted Leona Aglukkaq had insisted on the government’s opposition to a carbon tax, Rathgeber took his second opportunity to lament for the government’s spending of $750 million on advertising. “Does the government that brought us the Federal Accountability Act not believe in protecting taxpayers from using public dollars that advance partisan ends?” he asked. In response, Tony Clement stood and lamented for Rathgeber’s tone before retreating into the sort of explanation that a Conservative MP would surely never accept from a Liberal minister.

For his next trick, Rathgeber stood after question period today and tabled a bill that would behoove the federal government to generally balance its annual budget—the sort of thing the Conservatives promised in 2013, but have yet to table. Rathgeber has already had a turn in this Parliament at having a bill debated—the ill-fated C-461—so his new bill has no chance of passing unless the government decides to adopt it. Failing that, it might still sit as some sort of legislative taunt.

READ MORE: http://www.macleans.ca/politics/brent-rathgeber-is-having-an-interesting-week/