Stand up and be Herd

I was sitting in my office yesterday evening and I watched with escalating rage as the House of Commons voted on four pieces of Private members legislation. I know, I need to get out more, but in my defence, I was working. I didn't care about the legislation, though on paper, at least one of them seemed like a good idea.

This may come come as a shock, but all of the votes were cast straight down party lines.

In turn, each MP stood up to hear their name read as being either for or against the legislation. At least three times, I watched as MPs mistakenly stood up - either to vote when they weren't supposed to, only to be pulled down by the colleague who was paying attention, or to vote twice on the same bill, both for and against it.

When all was said and done, four pieces of legislation were defeated, and every MP in the House heard their name read four times. This took over 95 minutes. Almost all of Cabinet was present. The rules of the house state that members must be present in order to cast their votes and can only cast them when they are called.

This is a stupid rule. I think MPs should be able to vote on bills remotely, by "votey card" or, perish the thought, allow for the party representatives who already tell them which way to vote to actually cast the votes for them.

I will carve out exactly two exceptions 1) confidence motions and 2) the throne speech. If we are going to have pomp and circumstance, then fine. But for the love of Christ (D - Montana), can we get on with the business of the nation the other 363 days of the year?

I understand accountability. I understand that most Canadians can look at a voting record on paper, which in the Canadian context would be a written representation of when any MP in question opted to do calisthetics in the House. Exactly zero Canadians whose vote is actually up for grabs will tevo every vote in the House to hold their MP accountable.

At least twice in the past two years, votes the continued status of House of Commons has hinged directly on the health of its members. If I can transfer 100 million dollars electronically, I am sure the Speaker can devise a pass code that would have allowed Chuck Cadman (R - Revenge, CA - screwed, I - Hero) to stay in bed to vote. How about a pass word like "Hey Peter, Its Chuck - Mongoose. Nay."

Traditionalists would say "well, the party leaders do exchanges..." Bah, Flim-shaw. Any breaths wasted to say "I will trade you one Cancer for two diplomatic missions" is simply ridiculous.

But even if we have perfect attendance, and we have 307 replicants standing when their party leaders tell them to, surely to god we can get them to push a button to register their decision. They use this system in all kinds of developed places around the world, like America and Sri Lanka.

There are lots of good reasons to modernize the voting process- but let me give you a practical one- assuming perfect attendance, there was 29,165 minutes of time spent (307 x 95 - the speaker does not vote) by all of the MPs and Cabinet Ministers.

I would guess that if MPs were allowed to use electronic voting cards, black marble in the white bucket, or any other instantaneous system the absolute maximum it would take is five minutes per MP, and then they could go and do something else with the other 90 minutes of their lives otherwise wasted sitting around waiting to hear their name called. Maybe not so important for the MP from Halton (I - MPTV) , but the MP from Calgary South-West (C - Handshakes) could probably use the time to see his kids or come up with a workable Climate Change plan.

But, forget about the time- let's think about the money. The one time expense of the "votey card" system would be paid for in about six minutes of voting in terms of support, staff, clerks, electricity, food, lighting, hair gel and pages passing notes between them.

Or, we can just have the house debate the issues for all that extra time rather than spending 29,000 plus minutes deciding that which is already pre-determined.