Kindness In the Legislature

What kind of example are our leaders?

A Victoria politician comments:

"In some ways, it is understandable that MPs lose their cool from time to time and resort to heckling or making speeches designed more to embarrass than to inform. However, while it is understandable, it is NOT acceptable. Party volunteers put in hundreds of hours to get MPs elected and voters put their trust in us to represent their views in Ottawa. Canadians deserve responsible legislators, not school yard bullies"

The Kindness in Legislature initiative sits at a visioning stage and has been developed to date to encourage a higher quality of interaction and respect among our country's leaders by exploring more creative, cooperative and collaborative problem-solving approaches. This development and this website writeup have been instrumental in contacts and collabouration with the U.S. Congress and the Scottish legislature in 2002. The world is getting connected, but it still changes slowly it seems.

Our Vision

We have offered some of our ideas here as stimulation to folks in other parts of the world who may feel as we do, and who may want to add to these ideas and get an initiative organized themselves. We support you and do not mind if you beat us to the mark!

Essentially, we consider that all members of parliament or any legislative body should be able to disagree with each other and still offer respect to each other. There are great movements in the world today, in so many quarters, that are seeking to create greater awareness of creative, cooperative, and collaborative problem-solving approaches.

Our proposed program revolves around the goal of a yearly award[s] to the legislative member[s] who exhibits the highest level of kindness and respect to their peer colleagues, regardless of party affiliation. We shall be guided by the advice not only of the press gallery, but also the Legislative Pages who report to the Sargent-at-Arms.

Our secondary goal is to redirect negative press and focus journalists on the positive. We wish to usher in an era where our leaders become the people we look up to. By holding the public spotlight on their behavior, we will encourage them to improve the quality of their interactions with each other. 

We would even go as far as supporting the idea of a major change in the seating arrangement of the B.C. Legislature or other legislatures in the world. This could apply to any legislative body in North America. The idea would be to change the seating so that members would sit alphabetically by constituency in a horseshoe-shaped arrangement, instead of facing each other in the present rigid and adversarial manner. This would hopefully eliminate the partisan cheering sections that lower the level of debate and promote kindergarten behaviour. 'Our research shows that some countries are starting to move in this direction, most notably Scotland and New Zealand. For information on the Scotland example, see www.scottish.parliament.uk/, or watch the parliamentary business live at www.scottishparliamentlive.com/

In closing on this important and fascinating subject, we quote recent comments by journalists and politicians:

...from a journalist in Victoria B.C. in November 2000 ... 

"...the Parliamentary system is essentially sport, which is essentially a watered-down version of war, which are essentially guy things. I pass no judgment on the right and wrong of governing a country on the 200-year-old principles of half the population, but I think those who long for Canada to run on dramatically different terms are losing interest." 

" In some ways, it is understandable that M.P.'s lose their cool from time to time and resort to heckling or making speeches designed more to embarrass than to inform. However, while it is understandable, it is NOT acceptable. Party volunteers put in hundreds of hours to get M.P.s elected, and voters put their trust in us to represent their views in Ottawa. Canadians deserve responsible legislators, not school yard bullies."

...from the Speaker of the Ontario legislature, in October 2000 ... 

"...Ontario's legislature is fast becoming the worst behaved in the country ..." and ..." The people of the Province of Ontario want us to ask tough questions, but I think they also want to have some kind of decorum." ... and from an opposition leader ... "ill-behavior breeds disrespect."

We look forward to hearing other ideas regarding this subject, whether in response to our thoughts as outlined, or to outline what you are planning to do in your legislative jurisdiction.

For more information, contact Craig Harrold at (604) 538-7806 or Roger Colwill at (250) 598-0077, r.colwill@shaw.ca

...encouraging respectful interaction and more creative, cooperative and collaborative problem-solving approaches in Legislature...