Columns
June 06, 2007 09:00 PM
David Teetzel
Oh, what the heck, let’s all start the summer now.
Close the schools, head off to the cottage, roll out the lazy, hazy crazy days of summer ...
What? You still have work to do first?
If that doesn’t stop the government of Ontario, why should it matter to you or me?
Now, I’m not saying Premier Dalton McGuinty shut down the legislature three weeks earlier than scheduled because he wanted extra time off.
Or even that he wanted extra time to campaign — although our MPPs won’t be doing any legislative business again until after the Oct. 10 election.
I’m sure he has better reasons than that.
No doubt the premier is devastated Citizenship Minister Mike Colle won’t get a chance to set the record straight on that whole slush fund thing before a legislative committee.
If only he had waited another day, Mr. Colle could have explained to us all how grants were allocated to community groups with Liberal ties and put aside all these silly misunderstandings.
How sad the Grits will have to contest an election with this issue unresolved.
All governing parties play this game. No matter how good an idea is, if it came from the other side of the house, it doesn’t see the light of day.
The Liberals went overdrive to ensure several pieces of government-sponsored legislation were passed, but 107 bills died on the order paper.
One of them was a private member’s bill by Oak Ridges MPP Frank Klees that would have required us to indicate if we would be organ donors.
The bill was supported by all three parties on second reading. There were also several petitions expressing support.
All the legislation required was to stick a question on the application form for drivers licences and health cards. It could have saved lives.
But it wasn’t important enough to keep Queen’s Park open to the end of the scheduled session.
Same thing with a bill to stop people from yacking on their cellphones while driving.
Much of the legislation that died originated with Conservative or NDP members.
That’s probably why Mr. Klees feels justified in calling the failure of his bill to pass “one of the most offensive and glaringly partisan decisions taken by this government yet”.
But you know what?
When Mr. Klees and his Conservatives were in government, there was a similar stack of opposition members bills left high and dry.
Take, for example, New Democrat Marilyn Churley’s adoption disclosure bill or Liberal MPP Pat Hoy’s school bus safety bill.
All governing parties play this game.
No matter how good an idea is, if it came from the other side of the house, it doesn’t see the light of day.
I guess they’d rather leave good undone than let another party take credit for it.
The sad part is, I once heard Mr. McGuinty say he would change that.
And yes, it was around the same time he said he wouldn’t raise our taxes.
Very soon, provincial politicians will be trying to get us fired up about exercising our democratic rights.
They will even ask us about a new voting system that is supposed to make our votes count more.
I think I would believe my vote counts if I knew that, should I have a legitimate request for legislative change, I could bring that to my representative and have a chance of seeing the law passed — regardless of whether or not she is a member of the party in power.