‘Government is like the referee in a society that is like a boxing ring. A socialist government jumps into the ring to help beat up one side of an issue on behalf of the side that they perceive to be the little guy. Now, the prototypical extreme right wing would do the opposite and beat up on the plaintiff on behalf of the defendant, but really, Mr. Chair, the point is that a good government doesn't go to either of those extremes. A good government instead simply equips both parties with boxing gloves and a good ring and training, and then lets them go to it and lets the merit of the matter determine the issue’
–Stephen Woodworth, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre, yesterday’s environment committee
‘Capitalism is the greatest wealth-producing machine known to human beings. But there’s a problem with it: those who have money tend to get more of it until the people who started with less end up with much less. That’s why you need a welfare state to step in and ensure that the country does not deteriorate into haves and have-nots. Although that does seem to happen anyway… from time to time’
-undisclosed former Canadian Prime Minister
‘Canada’s Health Care system is a massive wealth redistribution machine from the rich to the poor.’
-Geoffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail Journalist, last week
“Don't be afraid of asking, brother!
Don't be won over,
see for yourself!
What you don't know yourself,
you don't know.
Add up the reckoning.
It's you who must pay it.
Put your finger on each item,
ask: How did this get here?
You must take over the leadership”
-Bertold Brecht, a while ago
Hi friends! Long time, no blog! Sorry about that… let’s see what I can do to fix that.
Lez just get some factual business on the table: I'm into the second half of the programme now, which means that I've switched to my second allocation. I was previously working for the Liberal critic for citizenship and immigration Justin Trudeau and now I'm working for a Conservative by the name of James Bezan who is chair of the Environment committee. He's a Manitoban cattle rancher turned business man turned politician. He’s a procedural whiz-kid and a serious dude. So far I'm having an amazing time in the office and doing pretty cool stuff. You can see evidence of this by watching this brutally long and not particularly exciting video for which I wrote the script.
On the whole, navigating the office dynamics and the general transition that is known as 'crossing the floor' has been somewhat stressful but also hugely educational. Almost no staffers on the Hill have the opportunity to work for multiple parties, which can create a bit of awkwardness and tension depending on how dogmatic the folks around you happen to be. As you can imagine, there can be some real zealots amongst MPs and staffers. Interestingly though, it is a dynamic that we interns are well-adjusted to by this point, so it is actually more awkward for other people than it is for us. You can see the gears screeching to a halt as people try to process the generally unacceptable two-facedness of our mixed tenure on the Hill. Being on both sides of the House has forced me to take seriously positions that I have never fully dealt with—-but I’ll save that thought for another time.
As I've already explained to most of you, the program is pretty cool in other ways besides the office placements themselves. We just got back from our second study tour, this one to Brussels and London (with stops in Vimy and Cardiff along the way). While in Brussels, in addition to the EU parliament, we visited the Belgian federal institutions. This government has not been officially formed for more than 200 days because the Flemish separatist party got the most seats in the last election and has decided to demonstrate the uselessness of the federal system by, um, preventing it from existing. This is like if the Bloc Quebecois won the Canadian federal election and decided to boycott parliament to demonstrate its insignificance.
We also saw Westminster, the Welsh "devolved" parliament and a variety of other political contraptions. To my sensibilities, Europe in general seems riddled with mind-bending political contortions that make the provincial relations in Canada look positively comprehensible. I also saw some sweet musicals in London and spent a great afternoon at the British Museum (note: check out the BBC podcast “a history of the world in 100 objects,” it is the illest). We will have two more study tours this year, one to Washington and one to Nunavut.
To other matters! Am I living ethically? Our program is sponsored not by public money but largely by corporations such as bombardier, CIBC and Scotiabank. Discussing the issue with one Liberal MP (who tends more towards the left than his party affiliation would indicate [a somewhat common affliction which I would be happy to talk about another time]), I was told that I must be participating in a corrupt and inherently exploitative program because of the source of our funding. This is something that I've yet to really work out, although I politely requested that that Member explain to me how the corporations are using me as a pawn before he insists that they are.
Regardless of whether my life is perfectly examined, it is certainly quite pleasant. We've had really amazing access to people and places. On Thursday, for example, a few of us had lunch with former parliamentary intern ('72) and Globe and Mail columnist Geoffrey Simpson, who presented his thoughts about the failures of the healthcare system and insisted that we cease to idolize our own system so that we might actually begin to improve it.
On Friday, we had lunch with Allan Rock (former Health, Justice and Industry Minister and former Canadian Ambassador to the UN [and Steve’s father!]) who brought some different perspectives to the issue and insisted that softer solutions (like no more fee for service for doctors!) would make the difference. As one of the other interns suggested after the meeting, Rock might be best understood as "a raging Liberal from the 1990's." I agree with that assessment but I would also stress that this shouldn’t be thought of as an entirely bad thing.
We also sat down with Megan Leslie who is the COOLEST. Instead of asking us to introduce ourselves with where we’re from, she asked us to declare our favourite West Wing character and explain why. Thank the sweet lord that I’ve devoted so many waking hours to that artistic masterpiece.
(Unrelated but inspiring quote from Megan Leslie: ‘So it turned out that, instead of building another coal power plant, Nova Scotia Power could just go into people’s homes and make repairs to the things that were inefficient. Fix windows, install new furnaces. So that’s what we did. And it worked.’)
So yes: as you can tell from my unwieldy explanations, lurching sentences and unpredictable narrative style, there is far too much to tell. The other interns are insightful and I learn as much from their experiences in their respective offices as I do from my own.
Despite poor contact-keeping, I miss all of you greatly (even you, Sebs. We’re FB friends now, dontcha know) and I dream of the day when I will be with you all again (I’m imagining some kind of serene afterlife but it could just as easily be ‘Halifax’ or ‘Toronto’ in the summertime). So stay true to the game.
All my lovin’,
Mark.
PS: we have a research paper to write for this program and so I’m working on… guess what? Hegel! Hegel and Parliament! And digital democracy. It is going to be King’s as hell.
PPS: Should I say things about non-internship stuff? Yes, I should. But maybe you should skype me. markdance3 is me!
