Hypocrites anonymous

On the surface, things are pretty easy to figure out in Ottawa these days. The Liberals have lost confidence in the government and want to send Canadians to the polls; the NDP and Conservatives are working together because they'd rather help Canadians get employment insurance than have another election.

Of course, this is Ottawa - where nothing ever is as it seems. In today's Globe & Mail, Jeff Simpson argues that despite the posturing, it's the Conservatives who want an election and the Liberals who don't. Over at Macleans, Paul Wells points out that this would be pretty much the best time, strategically, for the NDP to want an election.

The biggest problem with all of this? Nobody seems to see anything wrong with it. It has become acceptable, perhaps even expected, for our elected officials to outright lie about their motives for the sake of political posturing.

What's the cause of all this? I don't know. Perhaps it's the media's fault - there seems to be a sense among Parliament Hill television shows that you just can't go a full hour without having a panel of party strategists, who are understandably less concerned with policy or governance than with appearances. I've seen suggestions that Parliament is a mirror of the Prime Minister, in which case it's all Stephen Harper's fault (although to be fair, could you see Jack Layton or the political version of Michael Ignatieff being any different in this respect? Me neither.). Maybe it's reciprocity - the public doesn't care about Ottawa, so Ottawa's decided to stop caring about the public.

I don't know what's causing this ridiculous Parliamentary situation. But smarter people have tried to explain it, and provide solutions. Last week, CPAC aired a two-hour special debate on "is Canada's democracy broken?" - and since the panelists more or less agreed that it was within five minutes, the bulk of the time was spent on "how do you fix it?". Panelists included, among others, John Ralston Saul and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Video of this debate can be found here.

I'm not getting my hopes up that the current political culture will change anytime soon. It'd be nice, though.

--Ryan