Are the winds of change truly brewing?

Parliament: Does it get any worse than it just got?

Parliamentary democracy may have reached its lowest ebb yet. But reform could be on its way. Really. Finally.

When an expense scandal exploded upon the British Parliament several years ago, some observers sought to revive the tradition of bestowing pithy titles upon noteworthy editions of the legislature. In old England, there had been the Good Parliament, the Bad Parliament, the Mad Parliament, the Cavalier Parliament, the Merciless Parliament, the Useless Parliament and the Wonderful Parliament. And so the parliament of 2005 to 2010 became the Rotten Parliament.

No such naming convention has been applied to the 40 parliaments of Canada since 1867, but for the sake of capturing a moment in time, there is something to be said for hanging a single adjective on a period. The 41st Parliament, now in its final moments, might thus be remembered as the Lamented Parliament. Indeed, this might be the most-lamented era in the history of our Parliament—a period of particularly loud fretting and fussing for the state of Canadian democracy. And the 41st Parliament will conclude amid profound questions about our politics, but at least a promise of some kind of change.

Lamenting our democracy is almost its own sector of the economy. Last year saw the publication of both Tragedy in the Commons (“Former Members of Parliament Speak Out About Canada’s Failing Democracy”) and Irresponsible Government (“The Decline of Parliament Democracy in Canada”)—the former compiled by Samara, a Toronto organization dedicated to improving the health of Canadian democracy, the latter written by Brent Rathgeber, an Independent MP who has become a crusader for reform since quitting the Conservative caucus. In March, the CBC aired a public debate on the question “Is politics broken?” In May, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa held a debate on the proposition that “Canada’s democracy is in crisis.” And in August, former Liberal leader Bob Rae will publish the plaintively titled What Happened To Politics?

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