There's an old proverb saying people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and a modern version from Dr. Laurence J. Peter that says "people who wear glass slippers shouldn't tap dance." I was reminded of both two weeks back when our always excitable media went into a most extraordinary feeding frenzy over Premier Christy Clark's description of life under the Belleville Street "Big Top" called the legislature.
Clark, with her sometimes-too-quick radio talk-show tongue, had said there was a "sick culture" under the dome; that the feelings of on-the-street British Columbians were not truly reflected in the great debating chamber.
A Globe and Mail columnist termed her remarks "explosive"; radio commentators raved about insulting language. In Victoria, on-the-street television interviewers recorded colourful but uninformed opinions in answer to ill-conceived questions; and on Belleville Street the NDP, forgetting it wears glass slippers and lives in a glass house, danced in delight and threw stones with abandon.
Clark was showing contempt for the legislature, they said - and the city of Victoria. One sign of contempt they claimed lay in the fact that the legislature had sat for a bare 47 days this year, a sure sign that Clark didn't want to face the people. Clark's reply was that facing the people was exactly what she wanted to do, which is why she planned to spend more time meeting them on their home turf. She didn't say but could have added that when she's up-country meeting the home folk, she's harder to shoot at. Moving targets always are - which of course is what annoys the NDP.
What about this charge that the legislature should be sitting more often, that 47-day parliaments are a disgrace? And what about that "sick culture" charge on the legislative precinct?
Let's take the "sick culture" first. I don't think anyone wants to go as far as Cromwell and storm the House with cries that our elected officials have sat "too long in this place" to achieve any good, but we might find easy agreement with a British prime minister, Herbert Asquith, who once said of the hallowed Palace of Westminster: "There is no more striking illustration of the immobility of British institutions than the House of Commons."
As for those meagre 47 sitting days, well, it's one less than the 48 days the legislature sat last year and one more than the 46 it sat in 2010. In those same years, by way of comparison, the Alberta legislature has sat for 28 days to date this year, was in session for 47 days in 2011 and 50 in 2010. The universe continues to unfold as it should.
Only twice since 1987 has the sa国际传媒 legislature sat for more than three months cumulatively. In 1987, with Bill Vander Zalm in control, the House sat for 115 days, and five years later in 1991, with the mighty house of Social Credit in free-fall disintegration, for 17.
Under NDP premier Mike Harcourt in 1992, the MLAs sat for 111 days, but for only 40 in 1996. On NDP premier Glen Clark's watch the House convened for a high of 90 days in 1998, dropped to 70 in '99 with premier Dan Miller taking over from Clark; then in 2000 after Miller handed the keys to the premier's office to Ujjal Dosanjh, the House sat for 52 days, in 2001 for 36.
In the same time frame, the Alberta Legislature's longest sitting was 74 days in 1994, its shortest 40 days in 1997. That same year there was no fall sitting because, like sa国际传媒 this year, there was no legislation to debate.
So, what to make of this latest "insult" to the people - politicians, bureaucrats and scribes who inhabit the press gallery and have to work harder in their search for political news than they do when it's served up in the daily vaudeville show called question period?
It's not too long ago that then-NDP premier Dave Barrett told members of the press gallery they just sat around drinking their own bathwater, and publicly, to her face, described a female newspaper columnist in, let's say, expletive-deleted language.
As a member of the gallery at the time, I didn't find his comments too far off the mark. Neither did the female reporter who regarded his wrath as a compliment to her writing.
Remembering the good old days again? Not really, just noting again the more things change, the more they stay the same and suggesting that while Christy Clark doesn't inspire me as a leader, she has nothing to apologize for in this latest flap-doodle.
The NDP critics, supposedly the government in waiting, should be careful as they seek to capture hearts and minds between now and next May. To paraphrase Jonathan Swift, it "would be folly for them to mistake the echoes of Victoria's legislative precinct for the voice of the people."
"Putting flamboyant labels on empty baggage," as Aneurin Bevan once said, is not the way to go - for the NDP or media.
