I was walking my dog the other day. We got into our usual conversation about politics.
She is usually quite insightful but, with it being summer and all, I guess she has been falling behind on the news.
"What's happening in the provincial legislature?" she asked.
"Nothing" I answered.
"Nothing?"
"Well, they aren't meeting right now. They haven't been sitting since late July. And they are not sure when they will be sitting again" I replied.
"Not sure?"
"Well, at the end of the July session, Liberal house leader Mike de Jong said that the government had not decided whether it would follow the legislative calendar reconvene in October or wait until the following year. They could wait to start up again until next January with a whole new throne speech and such.
"His reasoning was that it takes a lot of work to prepare legislation for consideration in the house. They were going to see how things went this summer before deciding. I haven't heard anything yet."
"They get to decide when they get to work?" she asked.
"Well, yeah, sort of" I replied.
"That is pretty sweet!" she said with a slight woof at the end to add emphasis.
"The MLA's do work when the government isn't sitting." I added "It is just that they don't pass legislation. But they are hard at work doing other stuff. Especially if they are a Minister. Lots of decisions to be made.
"Still it can sound like a pretty good gig."
"Okay" she said "if the provincial legislature isn't sitting, what about Parliament? Are they doing anything?"
"Well, no." I said "Prime Minister Harper prorogued Parliament. He shut it down."
"Seriously?" she asked in an incredulous way which is really hard for a dog to do.
"Yup." I answered "It seems that he felt his government had done all of the business that they were going to do and that there was no point in keeping the MPs in Ottawa any longer.
"Of course, the whole Senate expense scandal might have had something to do with it. The government was taking a beating on that one."
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"Turns out that a bunch of Senators that Prime Minister Harper had appointed to cushy Senate positions were lining their own pockets by charging expenses to the Senate that they shouldn't have been." I replied "And the irony is that Prime Minister Harper wanted to shut down the Senate when he first got into politics because he thought it was ineffective and a waste of taxpayer's money."
"You mean to tell me that the politicians that thought the Senate was a waste of money were caught wasting taxpayer's money?" she asked.
"Yup"
"Do you think that they might have been doing it on purpose to prove the point?"
"I don't know." I answered "It would be a pretty deep and devious strategy to pursue if that is what they were doing. You would have to credit the party strategists with some very long term thinking if that was the case."
"Oh" she said "So, if both the provincial legislature and parliament are shut down, who's running this place?"
I paused a few moments and said "Probably the bureaucrats. The Deputy Ministers and Assistant Deputy Ministers. It seems that they are the ones with the power in the first place."
"So, why do you have politicians then?" she asked.
"Good question." I answered "I suppose that they are there to provide guidance and direction for the bureaucrats. Tell them which direction to take, which opportunity to exploit."
She sighed and asked "So what else is happening in the world?""
"I suppose we could talk about Syria." I answered.
"Syria?" she asked "What's happening there?"
"A civil war. Lots of Syrians are fighting other Syrians for control of their own country."
"Seriously?" she asked.
"Yes" I answered "And they have moved from just using conventional weapons to other forms of destruction such as poisonous gas. This means that all of the other countries in the world are getting antsy and are thinking about stepping in to stop these attacks."
"So, you're telling me that as long as the Syrians keep killing each other using only conventional means - guns, grenades, missiles - nobody minds but gas attacks are a whole other thing?" she asked.
"Well, yes." I said "I mean nobody likes the idea of people shooting people but the international community was hemming and hawing about trying to put a stop to it prior to the gas attack."
"You know something ..." she said.
"What?" I asked.
"People are weird."
"On this one, I would have to agree with you." I said. "Let's go home."
