Recently The Mark hosted a discussion with three people, myself included, on the public's engagement with our politics - where it's at and how it can be better. You can listen to the full tape here (we each speak for about 10 minutes), and I've included the highlights below. The first up was with Peter Loewen, a prof at U of T, whose articles are must-reads for anyone wanting to better understand... [More]

Yesterday's Globe and Mail carried a thoughtful editorial reflecting on the findings in The Accidental Citizen? (and conveniently provides a fantastic 500 word summary of the report and its main implications for those who don't have time to read the whole thing). The Globe's piece rightfully points out that the report, which highlights the varied and often unexpected ways many MPs described their... [More]

Last week we released the introductory report of Canada's first-ever series of exit interviews with former Members of Parliament. Our goal is ultimately to encourage a greater understanding of Canada's public life, draw attention to things that are working well and contribute to a constructive discussion on what can be improved. In that spirit, we were happy that the report generated some good d... [More]

We are pleased to share the introductory report of Canada's first-ever series of exit interviews with former Members of Parliament. It's called The Accidental Citizen?, and it sets the stage for a larger series of publications that will share the stories of the MPs who participated in the exit interviews. The title reflects the varied, and often unexpected, ways so many MPs described their journe... [More]

Today in The Hill Times, long-time Ottawa-watcher Donald Savoie decries our political parties as having lost their connection to Canadians, and our Parliament, which has turned over its accountability function to various agents of Parliament, including the auditor general and the privacy commissioner. According to the Hill Times (which has a paywall, so I'll crib and attribute bits here), in Savo... [More]

Last night I was a fly on the wall as Maclean's announced the results of its annual Parliamentarians of the Year awards, as voted by their peers. The overall winner was John Baird, which drew a few surprises from those in the room, as well as on the Maclean's site.  But Baird's speech was gracious and paid testament to his seventh-grade teacher, to whom he attributed his interest in politics... [More]

Regular readers of this blog know about our MP exit interview project, the first time this kind of information has been gathered systematically in Canada. We're putting the final touches on our first report, which will talk about the MPs' motivations for running and their paths to politics, and are turning ourselves to the next one, which focuses on their transition to politics and their work as ... [More]

Maclean's Aaron Wherry links to the debate on Michael Chong's recent motion that aims to "strengthen the dignity and authority of the House" by proposing a number of changes to Question Period. From Chong's opening remarks: "Canadians know that something is not quite right with their democratic institutions. They know that something is not the way it should be. They may not know exactly what pro... [More]

Thanks to Douglas Reid for passing along this excellent article by Mark Lilla that reflects on the current state of politics in America specifically, and in western democracies more generally. Too multi-faceted to summarize here, it gets into the causes and implications of people's well-reported decline in trust for government and other collective institutions in society, and hints that our quest... [More]

Andrew Potter reacts to one MP's recent proposal to change Question Period, using it as an opportunity to elaborate on reasons for the relative weakness of our legislature branch when compared to the executive (i.e., the PM and cabinet). His reasons include: Low quality MPs, and too few of them The size of the country, whose associated travel and lifestyle demands makes it hard to attract com... [More]

More from the Parliamentary possibility corner.... Conservative backbencher Michael Chong was on CBC Radio yesterday morning* talking about how to make MPs matter. He's concerned about the role of individual MPs in our legislature, which he called "the weakest in the Western world" in this regard.  Like many observers, he believes the executive branch (the PM and cabinet) is much stronger t... [More]

It's been a good couple of weeks for those who think the Canadian Parliament matters. Last week, the House of Commons' Speaker's ruling on questions of Parliamentary privilege. This concerned Parliament's right to access to the documents on the Afgan detainees, which the Government argued should be withheld due to national security concerns.  In a thoroughly-researched and, at moments, oddly... [More]

It's no secret that Canada does pathetically when it comes to electing women. Today, while receiving the EVE award at the Equal Voice/Canadian Club Women in Public Life lunch, Anne McLellan shared why she thinks this is the case. McLellan, a former cabinet minister and deputy PM (and, incidentally, an exit interviewee), is currently on the hook for finding more women candidates to run for her pa... [More]

Yesterday I stumbled upon OpenParliament.ca, a fabulous new resource that does much to make Parliament more meaningfully public. About a decade ago, when I was working with several hundred other Canadians on how cities can attract and retain young talent, one of our team members, a municipal employee, had hired someone to compare the number of times the words "urban" and "rural" were used in Parl... [More]

Lovers of politics and lovers of data may have found their nirvana in this handy website. OpenParliament.ca is a volunteer effort of Michael Mulley, who created it because he thinks "Parliament's goings-on are important and because [he believes] that public information should be meaningfully public, which today means shareable and computer-readable."  Here here. The site lets you track publ... [More]

I added my two cents to the discussion, started here by Alan Broadbent and reinforced here by Andrew Potter, that argued that more MPs would help "reclaim the House of Commons" and "make for more accountable government."  By enlarging the size of party caucuses, so the argument goes, we'd both loosen the grip of the Prime Minister and create more safe seats.  The prior would allow for m... [More]

Thank you for your many responses to this week's political guess who. The most common response was Paul Martin.  The correct answer is Ed Broadbent.  Congrats to the author of Pundits' Guide for being the first to answer correctly. Stayed tuned for more of what will be a semi-regular feature.  Next time, prizes will be involved!

Regular readers of this blog know that we are waist-deep in transcripts from our MP exit interview project. To date, we've spoken to 66 MPs from all parties living in most regions of Canada.  At two hours apiece, these interviews have generated a ton fascinating information that we'll be sharing in a number of ways, including in a series of reports, over the coming year. We're starting where... [More]

Rumours to the contrary aside, if March is any indication, there is good reason to believe that philosophy is alive and well in modern life. Today, Paul Saurette encourages us to reflect, in light of Ann Coulter's recently-thwarted attempt to address a crowd in Ottawa, on the appropriate justifications for limiting free speech in Canada.  His plea for a "thoughtful and nuanced consideration... [More]

Recently back in the big smoke after my annual in-person visit to Question Period, I can assure everyone that emotion - real and contrived - is alive and well in Canadian politics. For those interested in exploring emotion and public policy in a slightly more, shall we say, detached fashion, next Tuesday evening, March 16, there is a free public lecture on emotion and public policy at th... [More]