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Parliament needs facelift |
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Written by -- associate news editor Rodney Venis
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
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RODNEY VENISCANADIAN PRESS
The first is to spend more than one billion dollars to repair the Parliament Buildings.
The second is to do nothing and take the chance the whole lot comes down on the heads of hapless Members of Parliament one day.
Admittedly, it does sound like a no-brainer. The only problem with the second choice would be finding enough survivors to declare a national holiday in celebration of the only change in government most Canadians could agree on.
Kidding aside, Canada’s most prized historical symbol is less Pearson, Trudeau, Diefenbaker and King these days and more Ricky, Julian, Bubbles and Red Green. According to the Canadian Press, high fencing and construction sheeting cover portions of the building to keep falling masonry from cracking the heads of passing tourists while giant steel cables securing large planks keep most of the towers from buckling. Brown see-through webbing is wrapped around other spots, “looking like giant nylon socks over the stone.”
Throw in a massive pair of lederhosen to go with those monster knee-high stockings and the Parliament buildings look like the set of an Austrian fetish film. Perhaps the only bright spot is one can shamelessly indulge in clichÈ by saying the very brick and mortar of Canadian democracy is (dramatic pause, cue “Adagio for Strings”) literally crumbling.
The reason for the current Parliamentary masonry crisis probably won’t surprise most people: successive governments with no stones. It’s understandable -- spending money on renovations probably ranks up there with MP pay raises, new taxes and the Calgary Flames when it comes to things average Canadians can’t stomach. So, as Ken Elder, a retired government architect, told the Canadian Press, the problem’s been put off and put off, with no one willing to endure the inevitable snap of knee-jerk public criticism, to the point where the Hill is a one-billion-dollar “eyesore.”
There’s a public image issue here -- nothing says tinpot, second-rate power to foreign visitors like a seat of government held together by duct tape and crossed fingers. And, to be crass, it’s an embarrassment when Canadian soldiers are purportedly standing up for the nation’s ideals abroad, but the house that sent them is falling down.
But it’s even basic more than that -- citizens get the government they deserve. In this post-Watergate era, many voters view their elected officials and the machinery they service as untrustworthy, decaying, dated and weak, so it’s hardly shocking the Parliament buildings would reflect that view.
Fixing the Hill won’t drive corporate money, petty partisanship, lip service, and sound-bite policies from the public square. But it would give MPs a place they can be proud to work and that, at least, is a place to start.
-- associate news editor Rodney Venis
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Last Updated ( Monday, 21 July 2008 )
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