Over at the Ottawa Citizen's politics blog, Andrew Potter correctly identifies that Canada has a less homogeneous political class than other countries and wonders if that lack of a political class, which leaves Canada's parliament full of relative amateurs, is a problem. It's a good question. First, a few facts. To begin, we'll borrow from Ned Franks again, who shows here that, on average bet... [More]

Not only is our Parliament sitting less, but it's passing fewer bills too. According to Queen's professor Ned Franks, a smaller and smaller percentage of bills receive royal assent (Parliamentary lingo for becoming law). Sixty years ago, more than 96% of legislation received royal assent. During the last Parliament, it was just over 53%. While it hasn't been a consistent downward climb, it has... [More]

MPs are spending a lot less time in Parliament, and according to Queen’s professor Ned Franks, this is a fact that long pre-dated the latest prorogue. Franks has spent over 40 years researching Parliament, and at a recent conference in honour of political scientist Peter Aucoin he had occasion to reflect on his observations on the institution in a paper called "The Functionin... [More]

Thanks to Aaron Wherry for drawing attention to this panel on our current Parliament, featuring The Star's Susan Delacourt, The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson and Rick Salutin, Queen's professor Ned Franks and the University of Saskatchewan's Janice MacKinnon, and moderated by The Agenda's Steve Paikin. If you don't want to spend 35 minutes watching, you can read Simpson's take here and Salutin's here. ... [More]