Tag Archives: Partisanship

Roundup: Performing partisanship

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Andrew Potter put out a very interesting post yesterday about self-help for partisans, given the tone of the rhetoric right now, and it came at a particularly apropos moment given how unreadable my Twitter reply column has become since the publication of my fact-check piece for Maclean’s. And no, it’s not just Conservatives who are sore that their team has been caught out, it’s also an equal number of their opponents who are utterly obnoxious in using the piece to prove something about the Conservatives.

What has really gotten me, however, are the number of partisans whom I’ve worked with, who have been sources for pieces I’ve written that have savaged the Liberal government, who are taking to Twitter to accuse me of bias. And I had to step back from my reactions to realise something that Potter articulated in his piece:

And maybe that’s the big problem — that everyone has stopped arguing with their opponents, and has decided to simply perform for their supporters.

And this is it exactly – they’re not engaging critically with what I wrote or acknowledging that I have a record of being just as critical on the government on very substantial issues (as opposed to cheap outrage and the usual hairshirt parsimony that means nothing). They have to take to social media to denounce me in order to perform their partisanship. And I get it. But it’s really, really disappointing.

But as Potter also points out, this is also reflecting itself in how Parliament is operating these days – MPs aren’t debating with one another. They’re performing for their base, and we can see that in the way that we went from debate to reading speeches into the void, and from QP that engaged on issues to one that is now solely focused on generating outrage clips for social media. Parliament is ceasing to be about debate or ideas, or about governance or accountability – it’s about performing for your base so that you can win a few more votes. And that’s not only sad, but it’s terrifying for what it means for the future. And that’s why I think we need to have a rethink of where rules changes have gotten us, and start reshaping those rules that will force MPs to re-engage with Parliament in the way it’s intended to run, rather than allowing it to further degrade into this puppet show we’re careening toward.

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Roundup: A few answers and a fuzzy line

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The RCMP gave a lengthy press conference yesterday on the “domestic terror” incident in Quebec, and laid out several more facts to the case – that they were aware that the person of interest was being radicalized, that they had been in contact with his family and the Imam at that local mosque after concerns were raised that they arrested him back in July and seized his passport after he expressed a desire to head to Turkey in order to join the fighting in Syria, but that they seemed to be making progress and that he appeared to want to turn his life around just a few weeks ago. And then the incident happened, but there wasn’t much that they could have done to prevent it because it’s not illegal to have radical thoughts, or to drive a car. One of the two soldiers that he ran down died of his injuries yesterday, the other’s injuries are minor. The whole incident raises questions about passport seizures – especially as it means that they might be more likely to commit an act of violence here in Canada – and also highlights the fact that the threshold for where an act of violence becomes an act of terrorism is a subjective one. Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said that the death of that soldier will strengthen the resolve of our CF-18 pilots headed to Kuwait. Stephen Saideman offers some perspective sauce on the whole issue. Michael Den Tandt says that Canada can’t pretend to be immune to the threat of terrorism any longer, but it depends how the government handles the next steps that will be the most telling.

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Roundup: Fun with the non-census numbers

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It’s time for census National Household Survey data! So many things to talk about – starting with the reminder that the quality of this data is not as good as that of other years thanks to the fact that it isn’t as methodologically sound and full of sample bias, they’re now going to charge for the data that used to be free, and a few other facts about how it was collected. Here’s a look at the top line numbers. A lot of the data in this release was about religious demographics – more people without religion (now the second-highest group in the country), more Muslims as they are the fastest-growing religious group, and fewer people who listed “Jedi.” There was also a lot of data on Aboriginals, who were one of the fastest growing segments of the population, but they are also losing touch with their native languages, and more of them are growing up in foster care. Our immigrant population has surged, and we now have the highest percentage in the G8. Some small towns in the Conservative heartland were pretty much wiped out of the reporting because people simply did not reply. Economist Stephen Gordon is less than impressed by the quality of the data, and questions who will find it usable.

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Roundup: Gross partisanship over a tragic incident

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It was another day of gross partisanship yesterday as Stephen Harper decided to begin the day by, apropos of nothing while attending the funeral of Baroness Thatcher, calling out Justin Trudeau for not being equivocal enough in his condemnation of terrorism and saying that trying to understand the root causes – so as to prevent it – was somehow “rationalizing” or “excusing” it. And then, just before Question Period, one of his faithful backbenchers repeated the same point for the benefit of the House. Well, that went over well, and after Trudeau called him out over the politicisation, the NDP decided to pile on during the evening political shows and moaned that Trudeau didn’t focus enough on the victims and the first responders. No, seriously. Because apparently a tragic incident can’t escape the narrow partisanship on either side of the aisle. The various statements that were made are collected here. Susan Delacourt, meanwhile, has a fantastic blog post about where narrow partisanship and sarcasm meet over Twitter, and all reason is lost.

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