A simple solution

There's been plenty of focus on Peter MacKay's all-too-vivid example of inappropriate comments in the House of Commons. But much less time seems to have been put into any efforts to actually improve the decorum of Parliament generally, despite the unanimous concerns of the MPs who discussed the issue on today's Question Period:

While members of Parliament may disagree on the exact nature of some contentious comments allegedly made in the House of Commons last week, they agree it's time to crack down on questionable behaviour on Parliament Hill...

"I've been in politics for 20 years, I've never seen it so bad," said Wasylycia-Leis. "It's always been a bit of a persistent problem, this lack of decorum, the heckling, the name calling, the noise, the palpable anger, but it's getting worse."

She has called for a code of conduct or a sexual harassment policy for MPs.

If everything that is said in the House was recorded by the Hansard, the official transcript of Parliament, "it would make all of us blush because it's that horrific," Wasylycia-Leis said...

(Con MP Helena Guergis) did acknowledge the situation in the House of Commons needs to change, saying "decorum had been shot in the House long before I arrived in 2004."...

Jennings, well known for her own heckling ability, said there is a difference between speaking out in the House when there is a disagreement with what is being said, and levelling hurtful personal insults at other MPs.

She said she has no problem with the first type of heckling, but objects to the second...

Wasylycia-Leis said the lack of decorum discourages women from considering politics as a career, and hurts Canadians' respect for government.

"Do you know how many times you ask a school teacher if they're going to bring their class to the House of Commons to watch democracy in action, and they say 'I wouldn't dare bring my children to that place because they would learn such inappropriate behaviour.'"

While Wasylycia-Leis' suggestions for a code of conduct or harassment policy might help somewhat as well, it seems to me that the obvious solution lies instead in her earlier rhetorical suggestion. After all, every MP's seat in the House of Commons is already equipped with a microphone...and it wouldn't seem to require too much effort to ensure that those microphones were set up to actually pick up what each MP says while other MPs have the floor.

It would be particularly interesting to see a resulting second Hansard consisting solely of what's picked up from MPs not holding the floor at a given moment - though that might not be as viable as simply making the audio public for others to compile.

Granted, more thorough recording wouldn't change the underlying personalities of the MPs who have given rise to the concerns. But it would at least ensure that future incidents would be met with at least as swift and thorough a response as this one, rather than being missed or forgotten for lack of available evidence. And with time, the end result could well be a Parliament where Canadians can observe a civilized debate, rather than a cacophony of insults on all sides.