Roundup: The problem with measuring parliamentary productivity

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Every year around this time, we get the series of articles trying to measure just how “productive” parliament has been, and it uses metrics like how many votes passed – as though that were the sole function of an MP.  And while Aaron Wherry tried to challenge this particular metric of parliamentary productivity, I thought that I would add a few added bits of context. For starters, a number of the bills passed by the Conservatives late in any parliamentary sitting would be some small and very narrow bills to do with something like legislating changes to a particular federal park whose boundaries they expanded (and called it an environmental programme), or specific one-off changes that deal with particular First Nations. They would introduce these bills, let them languish on the Order Paper, and then just before the Commons was set to rise for either winter or summer break, they would pass them at all stages with pretty much no debate or committee hearing, citing them as uncontroversial, and off they would go to the Senate, where they tended to at least get a few hours of debate. Bills like these helped to inflate the numbers that the Conservatives would then cite to “prove” just how productive they had been, when in reality, so much debate time got swallowed up by the need to constantly debate and vote on time allocation motions.

Meanwhile, has this particular government been slow on their legislative agenda? Hell, yes. The fact that Bill C-7 on RCMP labour relations went the entire fall sitting without being brought back for debate after the Senate amended the bill last June is concerning. This was a bill that was in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision that was granted a brief extension by the Court (around the same time as the assisted dying legislation) and the fact that said deadline expired months ago is a problem. I really don’t know why Bill C-32 (equalising the age of consent for gay sex) hasn’t been brought up for debate yet because the bill is a no-brainer and could (and should) pass with a mere few hours of debate, and yet it’s been sitting there for a month. There are customs and pre-clearance bills that have been sitting on the Order Paper since June, which you think would be important to a government that is looking to try to eliminate barriers to trade with the United States. I’m not sure why the House Leaders are having difficulty in getting these bills moved forward. So while I do think that trying to measure the effectiveness of a parliament by the number of bills passed is a bogus measure, it doesn’t mean that there still aren’t bills that they should have moved on months ago.

Good reads:

  • Bill Morneau is telling the provinces that they’re not going to get the increased transfers that they’re demanding. Gaskets will be blown.
  • Big city mayors are calling for more control of revenue streams, but don’t necessarily want to go through the constitutional wrangling involved with that.
  • The largest public service union has managed to delay any changes to sick leave benefits to the next round of bargaining.
  • Senator Percy Downe says the government isn’t hiring enough injured veterans like they promised to.
  • Kevin O’Leary said there’s nothing proud about being a warrior, and all other Conservative leadership candidates lined up to condemn his remarks.
  • Here are a couple of academics who poke a bunch of new holes in the Elecoral Reform committee report, and whole approach to the issue.
  • Chantal Hébert looks at how Liberal self-interest is keeping them from making changes to the fundraising rules.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look inside the new DND headquarters campus.