[…] After a little over a year spent observing the parliamentary contests at Parliament in Ottawa, a few observations stand out; I would like to present three of them.
First observation, and this one is clear: acting counts for little, promising is enough.
If the polls say that we should get involved in the conflict in Ukraine, the government puffs out its chest saying that “Canada will be there for Ukraine”, then nothing. Can only see that the employment insurance system is broken, that obtaining a passport is an adventure comparable to that of climbing Everest, the government repeats that “we have spent several millions” and that ” we are there for the unemployed and for the population”. However, nothing changes, the citizens are still waiting. […]
Second observation. Although a lot of work is done in Parliament, what journalists watch and what the public often hears about is Question Period, that period of about 45 minutes when the opposition parties question the government on the issues of the day or on their commitments.
Naively, when I arrived in politics, I believed that question period was a heated contest made up of debates of ideas. What a mistake ! Rather, question period is when members of the government consult a large binder filled with ready-made answers and read with boredom, even with difficulty, replies which often do not even have a direct link with the questions asked. We quickly understand why question period is not called answer period. Finally, I cannot ignore the meaningless phrases that are repeated endlessly. […]including the incomparable “we will be there” without our being able to understand where this illustrious “there” is located.
It is clear that we are faced with a tired government which, as the saying goes, believes that “things repeated always end up pleasing” and that promising is enough. However, that is not enough.