Pubdate: Thu, 18 Apr 2002
Source: National Post (Canada)
Webpage: www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020418/675015.html
Copyright: 2002 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Andrew Coyne
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HE DARED EXPOSE OUR SHAM COMMONS

MP Violates Taboo And Grabs Mace After Liberal 'Poison Pill' Kills 4 Years 
Of Work

Sitting in the House of Commons watching four years of work go down the 
drain, feeling more than usually despondent about the irrelevancy of the 
ordinary MP, Keith Martin finally snapped.

Moments before, his private member's bill calling for simple possession of 
marijuana to be decriminalized had been killed when Liberal MPs, on the 
Prime Minister's strict orders, stood and voted for a "poison pill" 
amendment denying it second reading -- an unprecedented bit of 
parliamentary sleight of hand designed to sidestep the convention that 
private member's bills are not "whipped." His Alliance caucus mates rose to 
walk out in protest. The member for Esquimault-Juan de Fuca had another idea.

"I said to myself, this is your last, best chance to draw attention to this 
issue, so you'd better have the courage to pick that thing up."

"That thing" was the Mace, the large, gold-encrusted staff that rests upon 
the clerks' table immediately in front of the Speaker's chair when the 
House is in session: symbol of the Speaker's authority and sacred totem of 
parliamentary democracy. Mr. Martin walked down to the centre aisle, picked 
up the five-foot-long Mace, and turned toward the Speaker. "We don't live 
in a democracy any more," he declared in a loud voice. He glared over at 
the Liberal front bench, then put the Mace back where he'd found it.

"I was fed up," he says -- fed up at the rights of MPs being slowly 
whittled away to nothing, fed up with MPs being treated as "nothing but 
voting machines," fed up with seeing his every effort to change the system 
go nowhere, most of all fed up that nobody seemed to care. And now this: A 
sneak procedural trick had not only killed his bill, but eviscerated the 
parliamentary tradition on which whatever slim hopes a private member's 
bill has of passage depend.

"The public need to know what's happening in this House, and they don't," 
Mr. Martin comments. "When they do find out, they're shocked." He had to do 
something to grab the public's attention. Grabbing the Mace seemed the most 
logical way.

Understand that this is in violation of every parliamentary rule and 
convention. The last time an MP so much as touched the Mace, more than a 
decade ago, he was called before the Bar of the House and reprimanded: the 
parliamentary equivalent of six of the best. Mr. Martin's actions are now 
under investigation by the Speaker; the government is pushing for him to be 
suspended until the end of the current session, a month or more from now.

At least they take some conventions seriously. Mace-grabbing they take very 
seriously indeed. On the other hand, that little convention about MPs being 
elected to Parliament to represent the people -- deliberating and voting on 
legislation according as either their conscience or their constituents 
dictate -- well, that's a nice little fiction, isn't it? Members of the 
Parliament of Canada, as everyone knows, have one role and one role only: 
to stand up and sit down when they're told.

And private member's bills? Legislation put forth, not by the government, 
but by ordinary, individual MPs? Don't make me laugh. In the current 
Parliament, some 229 such bills have been introduced in the Commons. Most 
of these die then and there: A small fraction win a lottery -- literally -- 
which entitles their sponsors to go before a committee to plead why their 
bill should be brought to a vote. A small fraction of these -- just five 
out of the original 229 -- succeed in persuading the committee, a majority 
of whom are government MPs, to make them "votable." And that's just the 
start of the many legislative hoops through which they then pass. Exactly 
two of those five bills have even made it as far as Mr. Martin's bill did, 
and none have made it to committee: the clause-by-clause examination that 
bills receive after passing second reading.

So Mr. Martin was entitled to feel a little bit heady. He had spent the 
better part of two years researching and drafting his bill. It had taken 
another two years for it to get to this stage. And its chances looked good. 
It enjoyed support on all sides of the House -- 55% to 60% of the Members 
were in favour, he estimated. And there was that convention that votes on 
private member's bills were free votes. Why, the Prime Minister himself was 
on record to the same effect. Could it be that his bill might actually 
pass? More than that, could an ordinary MP, not even a member of the 
governing party, actually make a difference?

No, actually. The bill itself might not be whippable, but amendments could: 
so ruled the Speaker earlier in the session, after an awkward 15-minute 
deliberation. From that moment, Mr. Martin's bill was toast.

Of course, not every private bill meets the same fate. Three have passed in 
the current Parliament, all originating in the Senate. There was the bill 
to name Canada's horse. And the one establishing a parliamentary poet 
laureate. And a third honouring Sir Wilfrid Laurier. "If my bill had dealt 
with making April 2 disabled dog day, it would have passed," Mr. Martin 
says. But because it dealt with something substantive, because it called 
upon MPs to think and act on a matter of public interest on their own, as 
free individuals freely elected, it was deemed too threatening. "It just 
makes a mockery of democracy," he says in frustration.

Parliamentary reform is of course one of the youthful Mr. Martin's 
passions. Until last night, he might have permitted himself to hope that, 
in some small sliver of a way, it might become a reality. He was wrong.
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MAP posted-by: Beth