On respectful disagreement

For the most part, I'll have to agree with Ed Broadbent's take on both the need for greater respect on the political scene, and the prospect that proportional representation would make for a step in the right direction:

The boorish behaviour now so typical in Parliament has contributed greatly to Canadians’ disenchantment with federal politics. It’s not surprising that we’re regularly asked what can be done to make the House of Commons more serious and relevant to our lives.

But it ought to be possible, even if it’s not happening now, for Parliament to do what it’s meant to do: to act as the country’s main public forum of debate, reflecting the diversity of Canadians as indicated by the way they vote, and to do this with both passion and civility.
...
Real debates about substantive matters – war and peace, poverty and inequality, the continuing degradation of the environment – should rattle the chandeliers. But it is entirely possible to argue genuine differences of policy and values with conviction and passion while avoiding personal insult. As leaders, Pierre Trudeau, Bob Stanfield and I all had our faults. We often strongly disagreed, but we did it without personal invective or accusations of lying. Reason, passion and civility prevailed, grounded on the respect each had for the dignity of the other.

Now, I'm sure there are examples to be found as to how Broadbent's recollection doesn't tell the entire story of the relationship between the leaders of the '70s and '80s. But the more important caveat worth placing on his comment is that there's an obvious prisoner's dilemma underlying political debate - and little prospect of matters improving so long as one of the parties can be expected to defect from any attempt to improve the state of political discourse.

After all, it should be fairly obvious that a generally trusting and respectful political environment can only make it easier for a manipulative politician or party to avoid the consequences of actually being dishonest. So while it's probably worth giving the benefit of some doubt before a particular party has demonstrated bad faith, I'd argue that it's nonetheless important to point out a lack of credibility where it exists in order to create disincentives to breaches of the trust which the public should be able to place in its leaders.

Moreover, I'm not sure it can even safely be said that our current problem is more a lack of respect and deference than a misallocation or even excess of it. Even in what's seen as an unusually combative environment, for every example of MPs going overboard in pointing fingers and launching insults, there's a counterexample involving a failure to sufficiently question or challenge voices of authority - resulting in major legislation passing virtually unchallenged, and thoroughly implausible assertions being treated as news and then as fact simply because they originate with the government.

Of course, it's fair enough to point out that an undue focus on personality politics may only distract from the more important policy discussions which Broadbent rightly wants to encourage. But it's still necessary to point out gaps between promise and practice, or between invented "facts" and those which actually exist, in order to provide an incentive for politicians to avoid creating them in the first place - as without some assurance that rhetoric will be reflected in reality, all the respectful arguments in the world won't necessarily lead us to better political outcomes.