Hyer Ground

When Lise St. Denis decided last year to leave the Official Opposition to move down the opposition back benches, I noted that the most important issue was likely less her individual choice than whether it would lead to more MPs following suit. (Which of course it didn't.)

And to a large extent, the same goes for Bruce Hyer's decision to sit as an independent: the long-term effects will likely be minimal if other members facing similar choices keep working within the NDP. But it is worth noting one key background point in Hyer's decision.

It's been well noted that the one issue of caucus discipline involving Hyer took place under Nycole Turmel's interim leadership last fall. So Hyer's timing may have been less a matter of seeing anything change to his dissatisfaction under Thomas Mulcair, and more an issue of disappointment that the NDP's new leader didn't restore the party's previous stance allowing MPs to vote their conscience on the gun registry.

But it's still true that a change has indeed taken place since the last election, as MPs who campaigned on a position which was seen as consistent with party policy have found themselves facing discipline for exactly that stance. And that may be particularly important in light of Mulcair's primary leadership campaign proposal to allow for diversity of voices within the NDP.

Remember that Mulcair has (rightly) promised to encourage regional campaigns working within the party's existing policy framework in order to better address local concerns. And the leading example as to how that idea has worked in the past is...the NDP's base in Northern Ontario, which helped Hyer and a number of other MPs to get elected - in part by enabling candidates to put aside the gun registry as an issue.

Now, it could be that party members will make a decision on the gun registry that would take Hyer's stance outside the realm of party policy by 2015. But for now, Hyer's departure again highlights a question as to whether the candidates working within regional campaigns can count on the same flexibility in voting on issues after an election that they've been offered while campaigning. And Mulcair may need to clarify that point in order to encourage more regions to follow Northern Ontario's successful model.

Parliament In Review: June 22, 2011

The second-last day of debates in this spring's session dealt mostly with Bruce Hyer's motion on small business. But lest anybody think there would be agreement on the details of an issue where every party supported the motion itself (resulting in a rather inexplicable standing vote)...

The Big Issue

So what did the parties find to debate about while agreeing on the NDP's plan for small business taxes?

Well, the Cons tried to put forward Japan as a positive example - which led to Hyer's apt observation that corporate taxes are significantly higher there. (And I'll offer a reminder that in fact, the Cons' target tax rate is identical to Japan's definition of an abusive tax haven.)

Meanwhile, Dennis Bevington raised an important point as to how corporate tax slashing doesn't get passed along to consumers when products are sold in the world economy. To which Maxime Bernier could only respond (loosely paraphrased) "Hayek! Lower Taxes! Blargh!".

For the Libs, Joyce Murray proudly labeled herself as more anti-government than the Cons by taking credit for the B.C. Libs' regulation-slashing. But due credit to Scott Brison for criticizing corporate tax cuts while noting that they only offer anything to 5% of businesses.

And finally, Hyer served up a reminder as to which party actually has the best record of balancing budgets.

Budget Votes

The other main votes taken on the 22nd involved budget estimates and related legislation. And there were a few noteworthy departures from what one might have expected.

Rather than opposing the budget in full, the Libs voted for the Cons' requested Senate funding. And after making a show of supporting the Cons' budget, the Bloc joined the other opposition parties in opposing not only the main estimates, but also the budget legislation reflecting the policies they supported.

In Brief

Mathieu Ravignat challenged the Cons on their willingness to impose even higher prescription drug prices through the CETA. Laurin Liu and Megan Leslie offered timely questions on the toxic extraction of shale gas. Similarly, Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Libby Davies questioned the Cons' plan to do nothing about health care until 2014, and were met with a thoroughly worn list of unrelated spin. In presenting a petition, Nathan Cullen slammed the Cons for standing alone in the world in favour of unfettered asbestos production and exports. And Peter Stoffer countered the Cons' war on knowledge by introducing a bill to remove the GST from books.

On cooperative measures

It's difficult to disagree with Bruce Hyer's planned motion to permit legislation to have multiple sponsors (including from across party lines) as a means of encouraging cross-party cooperation. But the proposal looks all the more worthwhile when placed in a bit more context.

The most obviously underlying issue is that of the relative power of MPs and parties - which doesn't figure to change substantially based on the ability to present legislation differently. And that's particularly true as long as a hyperpartisan government continues to order its MPs to do as they're told to maximize perceived partisan advantage, undermining both individual MPs' freedom and the sense that it's possible to work across party lines to get anything accomplished.

But that's where Hyer's motion may serve as a useful means of challenging the status quo in perception even if it doesn't change much in substance.

After all, it's not hard to anticipate that each and every bill presented by two or more opposition parties will be met with the Cons' consistent attack on a phantom coalition. But there's little reason to think Canadians will see that as a reasonable response, especially in as innocuous a setting as agreement on a single piece of legislation. And that means that if Hyer's motion succeeds, it may serve not only to empower individual MPs to work together, but also to defuse the Cons' scaremongering just in time for Canadians to decide whether they want a change.

I stand corrected

So much for my expectation that the Libs would at least want to be seen doing what they could to pass the NDP's Climate Change Accountability Act - a bill they'd supported multiple times before - in time for the Copenhagen summit. Instead, they're now making excuses to join with the Cons in stalling the bill, and thus ensuring that Canada won't have an expression of the majority of Parliament to take to the world:

Federal Liberals say they won't support the NDP in its effort to push a private member's climate-change bill through the House of Commons on Wednesday.

The proposed legislation, called Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act, sets strict targets for greenhouse gas emissions and is currently being considered by a House environment committee.

The committee has asked for an extension of 30 sitting days to review the bill, a request that will be considered Wednesday when the House sits.

But New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said the delay would undermine efforts to have the bill passed into law before the Copenhagen summit in December.
...
The bill has passed through two readings in the House of Commons since it was introduced by NDP member of Parliament Bruce Hyer, receiving support from the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois.

Liberal environment critic David McGuinty, however, said the committee needs more time to study the implications of the bill.

"We need to hear more about the American position, the European position, the Chinese position" before considering the bill, McGuinty told CBC News.

Needless to say, that raises some serious questions for the Libs to answer. For example, why on earth did they pass the same bill before if there was any need for "more time to study (its) implications"? What do the Libs think we don't yet know about the positions of other parties at Copenhagen, and why haven't they been doing any work to find out? And even if it would be ideal to have more information before making efforts to pass the Climate Change Accountability Act, isn't it a worse trade-off to wait for that information in exchange for losing any ability to act on it through Parliament?

Mind you, matters only figure to get worse from there. Remember that the hold-up on previous incarnations of the bill has been the Senate's delay in passing legislation which had already received the approval of the House - with delay being the best the Cons could do at the time since they were in the minority in the Senate. But with Harper's patronage-fest on the verge of flipping control of the Senate, it won't be long before the Cons have the numbers to vote down any environmental bills entirely.

Which means that a vote to delay C-311 now may do more than just eliminate the prospect of the bill's passing before Copenhagen; instead, it may allow the Cons to bottle up any action on climate change until the Harper government is removed from power (and indeed beyond if Harper's senators stay loyal to him after the House changes hands). So now is indeed the time for a push to force the Libs to put up or shut up on climate change - and to permanently brand them as Harper's accomplices if they choose to make sure nothing gets done.

Update: Devin has the definitive commentary on what the Libs' vote means.

But can we teach him to heel?

Bruce Hyer:

NDP MP Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.), who was elected in the last election in the northern Ontario "orange crush," in which the NDP picked up a handful of seats from the Liberals, said people in his riding want EI benefits, not elections, and therefore he's happy with his party's case-by-case approach.

"Training Prime Ministers is a lot like training puppies; when they do something bad, you put them in the dog house. And they did bad things 79 times in a row and we put them in the dog house. On this one the Prime Minister did something good and it's time to give him a cookie," he said.