I moved to Canada six years ago next month. I've seen parliamentary procedure on TV of course, but today was my first in-person experience. It was pretty much what I expected, though.
There's no reason to give a blow-by-blow; nothing much was accomplished, and today was filled up with an excruciating boring hour and a half of resolutions, recognizing friends and family in the gallery and of course Question Period.
All said and done, I'm reminded of Charles Dickens' 1842 trip to Halifax, when he too happened upon the opening day of the legislature. His ship ran aground off Eastern Passage, "about the last place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be," and had to wait through the night before the tide came in and they could proceed to Halifax. Dickens' account of the legislature is usually clipped in such a way as to make it sound ridiculous, but this is immensely unfair. "I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the country," he wrote of his trip to North America, including Halifax, eight years later. "To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity, or partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is always a very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight years, and could disregard for eighty more." He continues:
I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above hurried me on deck. When I had left it overnight, it was dark, foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us. Now, we were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven miles an hour: our colours flying gaily; our crew rigged out in their smartest clothes; our officers in uniform again; the sun shining as on a brilliant April day in England; the land stretched out on either side, streaked with light patches of snow; white wooden houses; people at their doors; telegraphs working; flags hoisted; wharfs appearing; ships; quays crowded with people; distant noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places towards the pier: all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused eyes than words can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some shouting and straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before it had reached the ship - and leaped upon the firm glad earth again!Dickens seems to have quite liked Halifax, and so do I. The legislature... well, Dickens was happily amused that the forms of London were repeated in miniature here, and so I am.I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though it had been a curiosity of ugly dulness. But I carried away with me a most pleasant impression of the town and its inhabitants, and have preserved it to this hour. Nor was it without regret that I came home, without having found an opportunity of returning thither, and once more shaking hands with the friends I made that day.
It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a telescope. The governor, as her Majesty's representative, delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne. He said what he had to say manfully and well. The military band outside the building struck up "God save the Queen" with great vigour before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the in's rubbed their hands; the out's shook their heads; the Government party said there never was such a good speech; the Opposition declared there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a great deal among themselves and do a little: and, in short, everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home upon the like occasions.
The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished. Several streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to the water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running parallel with the river. The houses are chiefly of wood. The market is abundantly supplied; and provisions are exceedingly cheap. The weather being unusually mild at that time for the season of the year, there was no sleighing: but there were plenty of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them, from the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have 'gone on' without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's. The day was uncommonly fine; the air bracing and healthful; the whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious.
We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the mails. At length, having collected all our bags and all our passengers (including two or three choice spirits, who, having indulged too freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying insensible on their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines were again put in motion, and we stood off for Boston.
There's a formality to the legislature that can be off-putting but, ya know, parliaments have served us pretty well for a few hundred years; probably not something we want to fuck around with willy-nilly. There's more than a bit of theatre to it nowadays, but so what?
It wasn't the formality that annoyed me. It was Question Period. No-- don't misunderstand me: I am not one of those prudes who think politicians shouldn't yell at each other; the more vigorous debate, the better. What annoyed me wasn't the catcalls and interruptions, it was the stupidity of the opposition.
Look, I criticize the NDP government all the time. They richly deserve it, on a number of fronts. But the opposition's Question Period criticism almost entirely boiled down to the issue of taxation---it appears the Liberals and PCs both have swallowed whole the bullshit American mantra that taxes must be lowered, lowered, always lowered.
Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Sure, we can be overtaxed, and arguably the sales tax increase was about the worst possible way to increase taxes. It would've been interesting to hear that debate in Question Period, but instead we got an unfocused criticism of any taxes anytime.
This anti-tax, regardless attitude leads to the American situation, where turnpikes and parking meters are sold off to the highest bidder, where schools are vastly underfunded, where people die on the streets for lack of health care. It leads, in short, to madness.
Nova Scotia is better than that.
