darrenfoulds.com

I’ve deliberately not posted online about politics over the past few months. I just didn’t want to get into it online. I still don’t want to get into it, but I am going to post political today. I’ve got a couple thoughts about the NDP that I’d like to put out there. They’re not exclusive to what’s going on in Parliament right now, but they are well illustrated by it. And while I’m qualifying this post, let me add that I’m not going to comment on the actual issue being discussed in Parliament right now.

To start with, a filibuster, which the NDP are about to engage in, is not illegal or wrong as far as parliamentary procedure is concerned. Our Canadian system of governance has a set of rules that all political parties know and play along with. Often politics is a game of tactics and a filibuster is a tactic.

That said, the current threat of NDP filibuster shows that when Jack Laton and his party were elected, they weren’t serious about trying to “get along with” and “work with” Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. In fact, Mr Layton stated as much when he qualified “we’ll play nice” with his “we won’t be walked all over”. Allow me to translate for Mr Layton:

When I said, the NDP would work with the government, I meant, the NDP would work with the government only if they enact the policies we desire. If they don’t, we’ll do the exact opposite of work with the government. We’ll argue, waste time and carry-on.

And so, we settle in for a NDP filibuster tonight. Way to contribute to a smooth running Parliament, Mr Layton.