Fixing Question Period

Today, the Public Policy Forum is tackling the issue of Question-Period reform at an all-day conference in Ottawa. I'm moderating the morning panels, which feature speakers such as parliamentary expert Ned Franks, former government house leader Jay Hill, former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan and, significantly, Michael Chong -- the Conservative MP how spearheading a specific effort to fix that daily spectacle in the House of Commons.  Yesterday, I wrote about a poll the PPF released in advance of today's event. Not surprisingly, I guess, it shows that people aren't that impressed with Question Period. 

I say "not surprisingly" not to discount the poll or the event, but to underline a pointed question, which I hope today's conference addresses. If we all know that Question Period is a revolting display -- and we've known it for quite some time -- why does it keep going on the same way? The PMO, regardless of stripe, is capable of exercising great control over MPs. If this PMO, or previous ones, had been interested in making QP better, it did/does have the clout to do so. Ditto for the leadership of the other parties. Politicians do many seemingly pointless things, but the fact that they devote so many resources to Question Period, as it now dysfunctionally exists, indicates that they find some use for it.  Someone must believe that this works; that all that noise and silliness has a purpose. And the fact that most of the panellists today are former parliamentarians, as opposed to current ones, may demonstrate that it's easier to talk about reform when you're not in the midst of the political circus. 

I hope today's panellists quickly get past the discussion of how QP is stupid, and on to the thornier subject of why the stupidity persists. For years, decades even, earnest people have pined for better ways to spend those 45 minutes every afternoon while the House is in session. It seems time now to stop diagnosing the problem and start grappling with fixing it. And the first step in that process is to figure out whether all the actors -- government, opposition AND media --  are motivated to do the necessary repairs. I'm still not convinced we're there yet. 

Mr. Teneycke has left the building

This morning, political/journalism  junkies on Twitter noticed that Sun TV VP Kory Teneycke's account -- which he'd been using mainly as a name-calling vehicle against his foes and challengers since starting to work for Quebecor   -- had been suspended.

Then, at 10 a.m., we got the announcement that Teneycke was stepping down, acknowledging that he'd gone too far   -- making Sun TV too controversial.

The Twitterverse, which Kory has vacated, exploded with smart remarks; some of them hilarious. Here is a selection. Warning: Some of the jokes/remarks  require context. If you see others, please feel free to add to the comments section:

@InklessPW (Macleans' Paul Wells, who has a few): June 9, 2010 - Sept. 15, 2010: the best summer job since Kim Campbell's.

@InklessPW: This is really sad. Apparently Kory just wasn't lame enough to hang out with a lamey lame-o bunch like us. Boo. Hoo.

@LizT (Elizabeth Thompson, formerly of Sun Media, one fired by Kory): Fascinating. Kory Teneycke blows up one of the best bureaus on the Hill, hires new people plus PMO staffers, then quits. Bienvenue Luc.

@colbycosh: I sort of figured they'd find out Kory can read.

@acoyne: So, logically then, it's Kory to CRTC.

 @corbettkev: I heard there's a church in Gainesville that's looking for a publicist. #cdnpoli #canpoli #suntv

  @jessehawken: Teneycke - another man playing checkers in a world of chess players  

@_estunautre: Yep. A trip to DisneyLand can sure change your mind about things.

When the gun lobby backfires

Stephen Harper must have some sympathy with those NDP MPs who are now switching their vote on the gun registry, largely because they don't like the heavy-handed tactics being used against them. 

Once upon a time, way back in the 1990s, a young Reform MP called Stephen Harper actually voted in favour of the gun registry too, mainly because the pro-gun folks disturbed him. Janice Tibbets has reminded us of this again today in a  Postmedia report -- and here's a blog entry I did a year ago on the same subject.  It contains a link to  an old Southam  story, by Joan Bryden,   referring to  the threats that Harper had received from gun-lobby folks. 

I remember chatting to Harper after his town-hall session in Calgary. He told me that after he left the meeting, he told his wife in the car that he didn't like the mix of anger and guns -- seemed a little dangerous. He especially didn't like the idea of gun owners vowing to defy the law.  Hair-trigger tempers, contempt for the law -- these aren't great conditions for gun ownership, he said. 

Today, of course, Harper is in favour of scrapping the gun registry. But it's still true that the gun lobby is its own worst enemy. CBC's report last night, on the involvement of the U.S. National Rifle Association, pretty much makes that same point. 

Voting and shopping and stuff

In the Star's Insight section, Saturday and Sunday, you'll find some scribbling from me about Tim Horton's, the Tea Party and populism in general. The third and concluding part of the series will be in Monday's paper. 

Basically, the stories are yet another way to poke into this issue of where politics and consumerism meet -- something that's interested me for  a couple of years now, ever since I took a course in "material culture" at the University of Toronto while on a journalism fellowship. My awesome colleague, Chris Carter, has put a couple of links to other pieces I've done on this theme under my story on the web. You can find them here and here. Someday, I hope not too far in the future, I'm going to turn this interest into a master's thesis at Carleton University and also, fingers crossed, a book.  (Why do I want to do another book, you may ask? Because I am insane.) 

Political marketing is a relatively new study in Canada. One of the academics who's done some early work in this, Daniel Pare at the University of Ottawa, told me last  year that political scientists are reluctant to tackle the issue because it seems a little too practical; too much about logistics and machinery. 

Actually, though, it's a fascinating, cultural topic. I'm intrigued by the way politics and populism have got all caught up with the idea of "stuff" and things we buy -- how it's just easiest for our politicians to see us all as shoppers, concerned mainly with accumulating more stuff and getting sale prices on things. To me, it explains why environmental messages (consume less) can't get any traction in political debate and why anything that interferes with our ability to shop (higher taxes, the HST) is politically toxic. 

If you are interested in this too, I can point you in a few directions. The best book I've seen so far is Lizabeth Cohen's "A Consumers' Republic."  Some of the academics included in this series I'm writing are working on a forthcoming, Canadian-oriented book on political marketing in Canada: Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson and Andre Turcotte, to name a few. There's also a Facebook group on Canadian political marketing. 

Giasson has recently been looking into how much the Canadian media reports on political marketing. The short summary of his findings is: not much. This series is my small and humble way of addressing that to some extent. Maybe by the time the  next election rolls around, that will change. Personally, I'd make all these folks regular commentators on some network during any campaign -- it seems to me that voters should know what they're being sold and more importantly, why the politicians think they're buying. 

Lunch with Nancy Pelosi

Every now and then, long-time service in Ottawa throws a happy privilege one's way, and today was one of those occasions.

 Julie Jacobson, wife of the U.S. ambassador to Canada, threw a rather  amazing lunch for women in Ottawa to meet Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Have to say,  it was a little humbling to be around that table.  Laureen Harper, the Prime Minister's wife was there, as was Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose. Among the other attendees were Roseann Runte, president of Carleton University; Suzanne Fortier, president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council; noted author and historian Charlotte Gray, France Chretien-Desmarais and former Ontario minister Mary Anne Chambers. Congressman Ed Markey, travelling with Pelosi on this trip, was the only man at the table. The three journalists present were Jane Taber of the Globe, Kady O'Malley of CBC, and yours truly. 

When we all took our seats at the table, we found a rather elegant party favour on our seats -- individually inscribed books from Pelosi.   

Pelosi didn't discuss her talks with premiers on the oil sands last night and this morning. Instead, while we dined on blackened chicken and then a sinful chocolate dessert, everyone at the table was asked to  give a brief biography and/or projects that concerned them and/or women. Pelosi, at the end of the recitations,  told a few stories of her own -- how on her first meeting at the White House in December, 2002, as part of the Democratic leadership, she felt "crowded in her chair," aware of all the women who had gone before her and fought to make a place for women in politics. (The story's in her book too, on page 124, in case anyone's looking it up.) Pelosi also joked about how her daughter saw her as a pioneer, not because of her high political titles, but because she was a trail blazer for giving up cooking for the family when she got too busy. 

Most of the discussion revolved around lessons these women had learned from the front lines of juggling personal and professional life. I'm sorry I have no trade secrets to share with you here. Mainly, it was just about jumping in there and doing it. 

The meltdown will be televised

Tonight at 9 p.m. on CBC TV marks the debut of a four-part series on the economic meltdown that started in 2008.  I'll be watching, for a few reasons: the subject is fascinating, I'm a huge fan of Terence McKenna's documentaries and, moreover,  one of the producers, the talented Michelle Gagnon, was with me at Massey College for the Canadian Journalism Fellowship in 2008-09, and I know how hard she's worked on this. 

Tune in if you can. Here's the blurb: 

Doc Zone has traveled the world - from Wall Street to Dubai to China - to investigate The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse. Meltdown is the story of the bankers who crashed the world, the leaders who struggled to save it and the ordinary families who got crushed.

September 2008 launched an extraordinary chain of events:

• General Motors, the world’s largest company, went bust.
• Washington Mutual became the world’s largest bank failure.
• Lehman Brothers became the world’s largest bankruptcy ever:
• The damage quickly spread around the world, shattering global confidence in the fundamental structures of the international economy.

The CBC’s Terence McKenna takes viewers behind the headlines and into the backrooms at the highest levels of world governments and banking institutions, revealing the astonishing level of backstabbing and tension behind the scenes as the world came dangerously close to another Great Depression.

Tom Clark's departure: "not his idea"

Yesterday, in this space, I lamented the loss of Tom Clark over at CTV's Power Play. The lament was sincere -- I believe Tom was a true pro  in cutting through political spin and I know I wasn't alone in thinking he was impeccably fair to guests of all stripes. Some of the news stories about his departure have left the impression that Clark left the CTV in a disgruntled fashion.

But I've been reliably informed in the last hour, by people close to Tom, that this impression is dead wrong. It wasn't his idea to leave CTV or the show, for that matter. Nor is he "bitter."  Which makes this quite baffling, actually. And very disappointing.  Moreover, oddly enough, one of the first guests on the new, Clark-less show yesterday was my friend Greg Weston, late of Sun Media.

Many here in the press gallery are hoping that Clark and Weston get picked up ASAP to resume their excellent journalism -- where it left off last June.

Shuffles everywhere

A couple of hours ago, just as we were starting to have some fun speculating on what the Liberals' shadow-cabinet shuffle meant, a small bombshell landed in our little media world here in Ottawa. Tom Clark, after four decades with CTV, is leaving the network, and also as host of one of the nightly politics shows in the capital.

Though I've been more associated with CBC over the years, especially with Don Newman's old show (less so with its replacement), I had enormous respect for Tom Clark as a political-show host. His questions were smart and he managed to be pleasantly curt with politicos who were trying to use their time on his show to repeat talking points. Most of all, Clark restored credibility to a show that had devolved into a long, job-application process for the Senate under previous host Mike Duffy. (Hey, say what you like about that comedy show. It got Mike the job he wanted.)  I'm hoping that Clark lands somewhere soon where we can continue to enjoy his professionalism and hard-earned political insights. They were much needed around here and will be missed each evening between 5 and 6.

At any rate, it all means that Parliament Hill is suddenly VERY interesting after a sleepy old summer. On the shadow-cabinet shuffle, David Akin had a neat idea -- pairing the new critics with the cabinet ministers they're up against. Take a look at Akin's fast work here.  

As noted in the previous post, the pairing to watch, in my view, is new Government House leader John Baird against new Liberal House leader David McGuinty.  They're both Ottawa politicians -- which makes sense, since the House leader has to spend a lot of time around the capital. But their antagonism (and I believe it's real) also has roots at Queen's Park, where McGuinty's brother, the premier, worked on the other side of the Legislature from Baird.  I think there's lots of history there.

Also interesting -- Rodger Cuzner, out as whip. You'll remember that there was lots of speculation about this after the Liberals lost that crucial vote they provoked on abortion and foreign aid last winter. I don't think Cuzner's in the dog house with the leader, though. Out in Baddeck, Ignatieff went out of his way a couple of times to single out Cuzner for special mention and apparently (I'd have to double check this), Cuzner was the first MP to publicly sign on to Ignatieff's leadership bid back in 2006. 

Interesting also to see Denis Coderre back in the fold as Natural Resources critic after his public spat with Ignatieff last fall,  and I'll be intrigued to see what Scott Brison does with the Finance portfolio, which may be all-important this fall.

New Liberal shadow cabinet

Michael Ignatieff has done a substantial shuffle of his shadow cabinet. I'll do a subsequent post on this, but for now, here's the list (because I can't seem to find a weblink yet).

  Immediate notice  is David McGuinty taking over from Goodale as House Leader; Rodger Cuzner finished as party whip; Scott Brison replacing McCallum as finance critic. There are other changes too worth noting; coming soon.

Parliamentary leadership:

Deputy Leader                                                       Ralph Goodale
House Leader                                                        David McGuinty
Deputy House Leader                                            Judy Foote
Chief Opposition Whip                                           Marcel Proulx
Deputy Opposition Whip                                        Yasmin Ratansi
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate                 Sen. James Cowan
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate     Sen. Claudette Tardif
Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate                      Sen. Jim Munson

Opposition Critics:

Aboriginal Affairs                                                             Todd Russell
Agriculture, Agri-food & Canadian Wheat Board              Wayne Easter
Amateur Sport                                                                Joyce Murray
Arctic Issues & Northern Development                          Larry Bagnell
Canadian Heritage                                                          Pablo Rodriguez
Citizenship & Immigration                                              Justin Trudeau
Consular Affairs, Consumer Affairs                                 Dan McTeague
Crown Corporations                                                       Bonnie Crombie
Economic Development Agency for Regions of Quebec
   and Associate Finance Critic                                         Alexandra Mendes
Democratic Renewal                                                       Carolyn Bennett
Environment                                                                   Gerard Kennedy
Finance                                                                           Scott Brison
Fisheries, Oceans & Atlantic Canada
  Opportunities Agency                                                     Rodger Cuzner
Foreign Affairs                                                                  Bob Rae
La Francophonie                                                               Raymonde Folco
Health                                                                              Ujjal Dosanjh
Human Resources & Skills Development                          Mike Savage
Human Rights                                                                  Irwin Cotler
Industry, Science & Technology                                       Marc Garneau
International Cooperation                                                Glen Pearson
International Trade                                                          Martha Hall Findlay
Justice & Attorney-General                                              Marlene Jennings
Labour                                                                             Maria Minna
Multiculturalism                                                                Rob Oliphant
National Defence                                                              Dominic LeBlanc
National Revenue                                                             Jean-Claude D’Amours
Natural Resources                                                            Denis Coderre
Official Languages                                                            Mauril Belanger
Pacific Gateway and Western Economic Diversification    Sukh Dhaliwal
Public Safety & National Security                                      Mark Holland
Public Works & Government Services                               Geoff Regan
Rural Affairs                                                                      Mark Eyking
Seniors and Pensions                                                       Judy Sgro
Small Business                                                                 Navdeep Bains
Southern Ontario Development Agency                           Frank Valeriote
Status of Women                                                             Anita Neville
Transport, Infrastructure & Communities                         John McCallum
Treasury Board                                                                 Siobhan Coady
Tourism                                                                            Gerry Byrne
Veterans Affairs                                                                Kirsty Duncan
Water                                                                               Francis Scarpaleggia

Journalism, petitions and activism

Like many political/media junkies, I've been watching with fascination this whole, evolving controversy over the Avaaz petition against SunTV. Kady O'Malley at CBC has the best summary of the whole thing and she's not a disinterested observer. 

For those who aren't junkies, a quick recap: Avaaz, an American-based organization, started a hotly worded, online petition against a CRTC licence for SunTV. Margaret Atwood entered the fray, engaging in debate with SunMedia bureau chief David Akin at the first part of the week. But by week's end, the whole thing devolved into a bigger mess. 

Fake names -- including those of some well-known Hill journalists as well as Conservatives and fictional characters -- were added to the petition sometime on Thursday. The head of business development for SunTV wrote a column for Friday's paper, slamming the petition because of the existence of fake names. Problem -- Kory Teneycke seemed to have inside knowledge of the fake names on the petition, and thanks to some dogged inquiry by O'Malley and Avaaz, we learn that these fake names were submitted by one person -- either known by Kory or Kory himself. (Kory did say on TV last night that he didn't do it, but he does seem to know who did.) Conservatives say the issue is the validity of the petition. Avaaz, and those whose names were appended to the petition without their knowledge, say the issue is forgery/fraud. Here are my two cents:

* First, let me say that I find myself in moderate agreement with some of the petition's critics. It baffles me why an American organization, not a Canadian one, is whipping up opposition to SunTV. Worse, the rhetoric in the petition is over the top and the goals scattershot. It asserts that the head of the CRTC is to be replaced, based on a highly speculative Globe and Mail column, and alleges that SunTV will propogate "hate speech." This is the problem about trying to do political activism at a distance, based on newspaper reports. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever right now that the head of the CRTC is going to be replaced and there's even less evidence to connect that to CRTC deliberations over SunTV's licence.  Seems to me that if you're an ordinary citizen against a licence for SunTV, a simple No, said to the cable carriers, would suffice. Why start a petition against what may or may not happen at the CRTC? Why all the personal insults and talk of "hate speech"? 

* On the issue of the fake names, I'm in agreement that the issue here is fraud -- not the validity of the petition. I think there should be an investigation into who submitted the names and the person who did it should be punished. This isn't high school here; we're talking about people's jobs and reputations. 

* Now. On this business of how much Teneycke knew about the fake names before writing his column. In journalism, we try (not always successfully) to draw a distinction between commentary, advocacy and activism. Commentary is the usual business of columnists and many journalists, but advocacy is not unusual either. Some pundits feel passionately about some policy issues (the Afghanistan war, poverty reduction, etc.) and wear their cause on their sleeves.  

What is forbidden, however, is to create news for the purpose of writing about it, or worse, to  promote a cause. That's why we're not allowed to feed questions to the opposition at committees or in Question Period. 

On the road this summer aboard the "Liberal Express", I witnessed  several  occasions where Sun reporters in the regions produced a piece of paper with a question for Michael Ignatieff. They would read this query, sometimes saying they'd been told to ask the question by their bosses.  Funnily enough, the questions mirrored Conservative talking points that were also sent by email to reporters aboard the bus. Then we had stories in the paper the next day saying that Ignatieff's tour was being "derailed" by questions about his candidates. The "derailing" (which was a bit of an overstatement) came from journalists' questions, nothing else. 

This is where journalism strays into activism. We are supposed to be in the business of writing about protests, not instigating them. And this, it seems to me, is where we want to be cautiously observant about SunTV's proposed blend of politics and journalism. Advocacy for a cause or an ideology is fine, even admirable at times. But if the idea is to create news, well, probably we don't want to call that journalism. Entertainment, maybe?   Whatever your issue is with SunTV, I think that's what we want to get sorted out before it gets a licence.