The infamous House "committee obstruction manual" from the last Parliament will be refined, improved and will be back in play, says new Chief Government Whip Gordon O'Connor who also hopes for a less raucous and more productive 40th Parliament when it returns on Nov. 18.Assuming O'Connor could be taken at his word that the dirty tricks manual is really nothing more than a handbook for chairing committees, there would then be no reason at all for the Cons to refuse to keep it hidden for partisan purposes. And indeed, they'd have every incentive to want to work with the other parties in developing a manual which could be applied to all Parliamentary committees, including those which are chaired by opposition members.
"What it is in reality is it's like the Cole's Notes of what committee chairs should think about, or how to operate in committees," said Mr. O'Connor (Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Ont.) in an interview with The Hill Times. "I think there's a need for that certainly for people who will be chairs from our side, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through the book—if you want to call it that, but it's just a bunch of sheets of paper—and I think I'll try to refine it and improve it so that it's focused on how to be an effective chair."
So O'Connor's spin can be tested very easily: if the Cons actually believe they've produced nothing more than a handy guide for better committee operation, then for the sake of having all committees running smoothly they should be eager to make it public. On the other hand, if the Cons think their manual needs to be kept in-house lest it be used against them by opposition committee chairs, then there's no reason to think they've changed in the slightest from their perpetual obstruction and tantrum-throwing from the last session of Parliament.
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