Slowing down in politics is perhaps a miracle, like the name of this new restaurant where we meet: Miracolo. Do you have the impression that the political pace has accelerated in recent years, at a time when crises – political, social, climatic or others – are becoming more complex?
Véronique Hivon: I have the feeling that things have accelerated. The pandemic has also had an impact on the microcosm of parliament by establishing daily press briefings, including oppositions. This means that we expect all political parties to be able to react to the morning’s articles every day. It puts enormous pressure, but at the same time, how can you have the perfect answer in extreme immediacy?
There are also parliamentary committees. When I was a political attaché in the early 2000s, several weeks passed between the tabling of a bill and the consultations in committee. Now groups are often called two weeks later [aux auditions publiques], then the government continues with the detailed study. You haven’t even had time to absorb the expertise you’ve received so you already have to make up your mind.
Christine St-Pierre: The number of journalists has also decreased incredibly over the years, while the speed of information has increased. Today, certain subjects are overlooked, not because journalists do not want to cover them, but because they do not have the time and there are not enough of them.
Is leaving the parliamentary “bubble” a sensation comparable to stepping off the conveyor belts that transport us from one area to another at the airport? We know we’ve accelerated, but we notice it suddenly on the way down?
Véronique Hivon: Parliament has its own rhythm and this frenzy is difficult to explain outside this bubble. At the end of my political life, I had a lot more criticism and difficulty dealing with that. I found that it was incessant and that we did not always serve democracy well by being so often in action/reaction.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Christine St-Pierre
Christine St-Pierre: The best example of decisions that are made quickly and with which you can sometimes blunder are motions. [sans préavis à la fin de la période des questions]. They arrive when you are in caucus, focused on the question you are going to ask in the Blue Room, or the one you are likely to be asked. Then, in 20 minutes, you are forced to make a tightrope decision. Afterwards, the press scrums, the bills, the Council of Ministers and the meetings follow one another. It’s pretty crazy. When I was a minister, I often said that I had four offices: in Quebec, in Montreal, in my riding and my car. That’s politics. And at the same time, it’s paradoxical, but we like it.
With the crisis of business models in journalism, but also all the questions that arise for a reform of parliamentarism, is it utopian to think that we could collectively choose to slow down, elected officials and the media, to give ourselves more time to think about public policies and to cover them?
Christine St-Pierre: Some media will specialize in that, in reflection papers, in more depth. But when you return to the furnace of parliament, I think it’s impossible to slow down.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Christine St-Pierre, Véronique Hivon and our journalist
For what ?
Christine St-Pierre: Because everything moves quickly. It was slower before because there wasn’t social media. Now you receive the minister’s line in real time and journalists update their text immediately.
Do you share this impression, Mme Hivon, that we cannot lower the heat that emanates from the “furnace” of parliament?
Véronique Hivon: I think we should try to take it down. It’s impossible to completely lower the pace, but we can imagine a way of functioning in two ways, media and elected officials, where the first way is a bit of a continuation of what we see now, but the second way is a way to take matters further and so that the debates taking place in our parliaments find a real echo in society.
It’s true that journalists have a job that has become enormously more complex. In this context, I am campaigning for a summit, a joint discussion meeting between elected officials and the media to find out how we can better serve democracy. I don’t think it’s utopia. We see certain movements linked to information fatigue. People who drop out. I think we have a responsibility to question ourselves about that.
The remarks have been abbreviated and condensed for brevity.
Our guests
Véronique Hivon
- Born in Joliette in 1970. Holds a master’s degree in social policy analysis and planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the United Kingdom, as well as a bachelor’s degree in civil law from McGill University.
- Was a Parti Québécois MP in her hometown from 2008 to 2022. She did not run in the last elections.
- Visiting professor in the political science department of the University of Montreal.
- You can hear him every week in a column on the morning show All one morning on the airwaves of Radio-Canada radio in Montreal.
Christine St-Pierre
- Born in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies in 1953. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the University of Moncton.
- After a long career as a journalist, parliamentary courier and foreign correspondent for Radio-Canada, she served as a member of the Liberal Party of Quebec in the riding of Acadie in Montreal from 2007 to 2022. She does not was not represented in the last elections.
- We can now read his political analyzes in the magazine News.