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Federal private member’s bill would give caucus power to boot leader
OTTAWA — Conservative MP Michael Chong has introduced a private member’s bill that aims to give political party caucuses more power — including the ability to oust their leaders. Although private...
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Usual naysaying, hysterics greet MP Michael Chong’s bid to reform Parliament
Can’t be done. Too risky. Goes too far. Doesn’t go far enough. Whenever and wherever someone actually makes some concrete proposal to repair our damaged democracy, the forces of inertia almost...
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Balance of power: MP Michael Chong on fixing the relationship between MPs and...
Ontario Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong Tuesday introduced a private member’s bill dubbed “An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms).” He says...
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What they’re saying about the bill that would rebalance parliamentary power
What would MP Michael Chong’s private member’s bill, the Reform Act, actually do? If passed, the bill would do three things: 1) Give MPs the power to call a party leadership review if 15 per cent of...
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Senate scandal propels Chong’s Reform Act
Let’s dispense, to begin, with the quaint fiction that MP Michael Chong’s proposed Reform Act has nothing whatever to do with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Senate spending scandal. It has...
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Conservative MP Michael Chong offers Canada best hope at pushing back at...
Most members of Parliament will never have a better job than the one they have now, and you can count on them to pursue whatever course of action allows them to keep it. As H.L. Mencken put it: “If a...
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Yes, the state has a place in the caucus rooms of the nation
Even people sympathetic to the Reform Act’s proposals blanch at the idea of legislating them into effect. This is especially true of the process set out in the bill, introduced this week by...
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Happy backbencher Ted Opitz dishes on Ukraine, veterans
OTTAWA —Typically relegated to the backbench of the Conservative caucus, Ted Opitz enjoyed a rare moment in the limelight this week, rubbing shoulders with the prime minister and senior cabinet members...
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MP Deepak Obhrai launches direct attack on fellow Tory’s reform bill
By Dale Smith For Postmedia News OTTAWA – A Conservative MP has written to all Tory parliamentarians urging them to reject a private member’s bill from a fellow Conservative that would give individual...
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Conservatives converge on Ottawa to swap ideas, hear from potential future...
OTTAWA – Four of the main contenders to replace Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the next Conservative leader will headline the Manning Centre’s annual conference starting Friday in Ottawa, as hundreds...
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The Manning Networking conference is a gathering of the Conservative party in...
OTTAWA — So this is what a Conservative convention looks like. After that bizarre lockdown in Calgary last fall — reporters harassed and penned in at every turn, the prime minister’s defiantly empty...
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Alberta crisis shows again why we need to reform our political parties
The details of Alison Redford’s disgrace need not detain us: the $45,000 spent to fly to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the trips on government jets for her daughter and her daughter’s...
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Michael Chong ready to amend proposed Reform Act in order to gain wider support
OTTAWA — Conservative MP Michael Chong is preparing amendments to his Reform Act, which strips party leaders of a key power and hands clear rules to party caucuses to dump their leader, the Ottawa...
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A normal government wouldn’t ram through this elections bill
In normal times, under a normal government, the Fair Elections Act would have been withdrawn by now, or at least be in serious trouble. The past few weeks have seen the bill denounced as a threat to...
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Let Eve Adams run for nomination where she wants, Tory MP says
OTTAWA — Embattled Conservative MP Eve Adams has received a bit of caucus support in her effort to run for the party nomination in an Oakville-area riding. Calgary Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai, the...
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Tory MP Michael Chong to introduce second reform bill
OTTAWA — Conservative MP Michael Chong is expected to introduce on Monday a new private member’s bill that would amend a series of democratic reforms initially proposed in late 2013. Chong’s new bill,...
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Den Tandt: If you’re seeking bright ideas, you won’t find them in Ottawa
It would be easy to blame all three major federal parties for the pre-summer torpor that has settled over Ottawa this spring, as MPs turn their minds to garden parties, BBQs and a break from the...
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Den Tandt: Michael Chong’s Reform Act isn’t going away
Michael Chong’s private member’s bill, the Reform Act, is the plucky, underdog outgrowth of years of frustration among backbench MPs about the steady erosion of their powers, beginning really in 1970...
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Coyne: It isn’t just one party or its leader who stand in the way of...
How could it have been otherwise? Were the party leaders going to give up any of their present dominance over caucus, even to so slight a degree? Were MPs going to defy their leaders on such an...
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Coyne: Antics in Question Period illustrate the charade our politics has become
The depravity of our politics is measured not by Paul Calandra’s sins, but by his confession; not by the confession, but the absolution. Roasted for days over his performance in Question Period...
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Nathan Cullen to MPs: Grow up!
So New Democrat House Leader Nathan Cullen likes a lost cause, does he? The NDP rising star has set himself the Sisyphean task of restoring decorum to Parliament. Predictably, this latest in a long...
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Never mind House of Commons decorum: Aim for smart
Reform Question Period? Absolutely, you say. All too often this 45-minute daily showcase of democracy devolves into buffoonery unfit for the locker room. “I wonder how many Members of Parliament are...
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Political parties should not fear free speech in Parliament, says Tory MP
OTTAWA — Yet another Conservative backbencher in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s caucus came forward Tuesday to argue for more political freedom — pleading with the Speaker to recognize that MPs’...
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Parliament losing power to keep tabs on government: Tory MP
OTTAWA — A former member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet has warned that Canadian parliamentary democracy is being jeopardized by the “command and control” system that is removing the right...
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Federal politicians say non-partisan climate group is ‘safe space’ behind...
OTTAWA — An all-party committee of federal politicians interested in learning about climate change science is continuing to meet behind the scenes on Parliament Hill, with discreet participation from a...
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Tory Chong joins all-party “climate” caucus
Former Conservative Minister Michael Chong has teamed up with the other four parties in the House of Commons on a new “climate change” caucus. The initiative was championed by Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan,...
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The bill that would save Parliament
The title of the bill that Conservative MP Michael Chong will introduce next Thursday in the House of Commons, “An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms),”...
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