Canadian Cabinet Shuffle Is A Non-Story – How Energy Efficient Light Bulbs Could Make What Is Left Of Our Democracy One Helluva Lot Cheaper

 A Commentary by Doug Draper 

It must be a pretty slow time for news in Canada when national newspapers and broadcasters are making Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle one of their lead stories.

I’m serious when I say that this cabinet shuffle is a non-story. I mean does it really matter who sits on Harper’s cabinet? Every reporter and columnist – liberal or conservative – who has spent any length of time covering the way Harper does governance knows that he calls all of the shots anyway. You could have Curly, Larry and Moe, along with Homer Simpson and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in this prime minister’s cabinet, and it wouldn’t make any difference.

They are all, each and every one of them, no more than knobs on a seat. Trained seals. Whether they are a member of Harper’s cabinet, and every member of his caucus right down to the lowliest member of his caucus can’t even make a few statements about a historical plaque being unveiled in a park in their constituency without those statements first being filtered through the prime minister’s office.

So who cares who sits on Harper’s cabinet? And who cares who makes up his caucus of MPs, for that matter. In fact, we could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in scarce money that could be used for health care or education for young people if we simply replaced all of these MPPs – each raking in $157,737 a year, not counting expenses – with a box of light bulbs that can be rigged up on the desk tops in front of their parliamentary seats. 

Let me explain how efficiently that could work and may I say how ‘cost effectively’ it would work for all of the advocates for austerity and less government out there.. There would be a green light bulb for ‘aye’, a red light for ‘nay’, and a white bulb for abstain. And just to show that a Canada that is still willing to export deadly substances like asbestos around the world has not completely given up on conserving what is left of the natural environment, we could use energy efficient light bulbs. Surely Harper’s oil industry bosses in Alberta would not deprive him of making that one small concession to whatever is left of an environmental movement in the country.

The buttons for these MPP-replacement light bulbs would be controlled by one of the last few people standing in the parliament – the prime minister. If the leaders of the other parties like this idea, maybe we could rig up buttons controlling lights for them too and save even more money. Doesn’t that sound just about as exciting as getting rid of the partisan hacks sitting in the country’s un-elected Senate completely? Tell me the last time this chamber of ‘sober second thought’ ever had a thought of its own, outside of any direction it receives from its political and corporate masters?

If you think I am being silly or sarcastic in advancing a case that light bulbs could replace our parliamentary representatives, just look back to this June when every single member of every single caucus fell into line on votes for or against Harper’s controversial omnibus budget bill. If you were a knob on the Harper Conservative side of the benches, it didn’t matter how many individuals and groups across the country complained about what the bill might do to seniors benefits, health care, environmental protection and other services, everyone from Harper’s caucus from his cabinet ministers on down, mindlessly voted in favour of it. If this was a bill advanced by the opposition Liberals or NDP, have no illusions. They would vote for this bill or some facsimile of it too.

So now some may be asking how light bulbs replacing the trained seals in the parliament might ever make up for the loss of a meeting with these same knob s on a seat back home in their constituency offices. That is simple. All we need to do is to provide the constituents in each riding across the country with a toll free number where they can call and get a recorded message from the prime minister or one of whatever other party leader may have won a seat in the riding; that begins something like this; ‘Thank you for calling the constituency seat for the (whatever) party. … Your call is important to us and we ask you to follow the following instructions – press one if your interest or concern has to do with health care, press two if it has to do with seniors’ benefits, press three if it has to do with employment benefits, press four … ‘ Well you get the idea. Environmental protection would probably be much further down the list, of course, since that isn’t much of a priority in Canada any more 

Once the number is pressed, the prime minister or leader of one of the other parties will be heard responding back in a recorded message with the top ten talking points produced by their spin doctors on whatever topic you choose. It won’t make any difference since the MPP would be ordered to recite these same talking points anyway, and we have saved all kinds of tax dollars having them around to do it. See how a few energy efficient light bulbs on a seat can make what is left of our democracy in Canada so much cheaper?

Now some of you people out there that may be in to knit picking great ideas like this might ask; ‘Well what if the constituent has a rotary phone? How are they going to get the pre-recorded talking points they have a right to hear as good, upstanding taxpaying citizen of Canada?’ Well in that case, I am afraid to say to our neo-con and libertarian friends that hate government so much they would like to gas it all, that we might have to have an option where rotary phone people can dial zero and get an operator who can direct their call to those talking points.

I think it was Winston Churchill who once said something like; ‘Democracy isn’t perfect, but it is the best system we have.’ Well maybe one of the imperfections is that we still need to pay a few operators for our fellow rotary phone citizens.

Now then let’s get back to that Harper cabinet shuffle. It was pretty well know that Bed Oda was going to be removed from cabinet after her hands were caught in the cookie jar. It isn’t all that surprising, given the ethics of this government that Julian Fantino, Ontario’s former top cop for the OPP, with all of his baggage, would take her place as the new minister for the Canadian International Development Agency or CIDA or whatever the hell that is.

At any rate, here it is July 5 and I am already willing to predict that this cabinet shuffle, along with the recent news about the separation of Tom Cruise and his third and latest contract wife for the past five years, Katie Holmes, will top of the list of non-stories for the month of July.

I will leave it to you to watch what other big headlines don’t turn out to mean much this month, and correct me if I am wrong.

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