CASE OF CONTEMPT

Trumped-Up Tempest Over Mace Shifts Focus To Greater Issue

That renegade MP Keith Martin has really done it now.

The Victoria-area Alliance MP is in serious doo-doo for touching the mace
of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

The Grits are outraged, the NDP thunderstruck, the Tories blue with anger
and the Bloc Quebecois, sticklers for decorum, appalled at this affront to
Parliament.

Martin faces suspension from the House, one of the most serious penalties
for an MP. So what has he done to invoke all this righteous indignation?

The mace, for those of you entertaining impure thoughts, is the gilded club
once used to protect the Speaker from assault back in the days when the
British Parliament could be a dangerous place.

It hails from the same tradition that dictated government and opposition
benches be far enough apart that MPs couldn't easily draw a sword and kill
each other in the heat of debate.

Now it sits upon a pedestal on a table in the centre aisle while the House
is in session.

Martin picked up the mace to protest what he called a "poison pill"
amendment that effectively killed his private member's bill before it could
be freely voted upon by the House.

"Parliament is not a democracy any more," Martin shouted, then put the rod
down and marched out of the House.

The MP wrote later he made the symbolic gesture to "draw attention to a
system that is so undemocratic that MPs are now voting machines, with
little opportunity to work for the people."

Martin's lack of remorse served only to make his opponents even more
apoplectic.

While the Liberals frothed, the public couldn't help but chuckle a little
at the comic undertones. After all, when politicians stand on pomp, they
can't help but appear, well ... pompous.

Amused citizens giggling in confusion and media pundits speculating upon
the gesture's significance were soon put in their place by a curt missive
issued by Liberal Government House Leader Ralph Goodale.

He indignantly asserted that, far from killing off Martin's bill, the vote
to refer it to a committee will actually "keep it alive."

Goodale accused Martin of failing to be a team player by ignoring the work
of a special committee that had already been set up to report on the issue
- -- on the advice of an Alliance MP no less.

"Martin insisted upon his own, one-off proposition," Goodale claimed. "He
wanted it dealt with right away -- his way or the doorway ... ."

Goodale may be technically correct, but his sneering tone and dismissive
attitude are all too familiar to Canadians weary of the Liberals' penchant
for casting their own cynical manoeuvres in the best possible light.

What he doesn't seem to have grasped is that the symbolism of Martin's
gesture has struck a far greater chord with Canadians than the trumped-up
tantrum raging through the ranks of Liberal MPs.

Martin is a hard-working MP who has made a significant contribution to both
the Alliance Party and Parliament.

He served as the Alliance's foreign affairs critic before coming fourth in
the race in which Stockwell Day became leader. Martin may be outspoken, but
he's no cheap stunt artist like NDP grandstander Svend Robinson.

His private member's bill called for the decriminalization -- not
legalization -- of simple possession of marijuana, a measure for which
legislators have voiced widespread support.

Whether we agree with the bill or not has ceased to matter.

Martin claims private member bills "are the last bastion of democracy" in a
House where committees are used as "make-work projects" for MPs, who must
vote according to the dictates of their leaders, rather than their
constituents.

His protest resonates far more strongly among disgruntled Canadians than
the cluck-clucks of ruffled MPs who say the gesture didn't insult the
government, but the very symbol of parliamentary democracy itself.

Parliament will likely vote today whether to kick Martin out of the House
for his contempt of parliamentary decorum.

Martin, who hasn't been making life any easier for himself by accusing the
government of being "fascist" and a "dictatorship," will take some lumps.

Meanwhile, the cynical and tired Liberal regime displays its contempt for
Canadians -- and democracy -- on a daily basis.

A shocking new poll reveals some 70% of Canadians believe their political
systems are highly or somewhat corrupt.

The Liberal majority can swat Martin like a fly by suspending him for his
dramatic antics.

The question remaining is how it will deal with the contempt so openly
displayed by a majority of Canadians.