I've been watching the kerfuffle in the Canadian Parliament over the last few days regarding "Elbowgate". Now before even getting into the serious discussion about Prime Minister Trudeau's unintentional bump into the boob of an NDP MP, I want to ask a basic question. At what point did we decided that appending "gate" to anything makes sense for everything. Watergate, the fount of this expression, was a deeply covered up conspiracy. There is no cover up here. It's all on video! Live!
Now down to the more significant issue. Lost in all of this nonsense about an inadvertent brush to a breast, is the fact that it happened during one of the most significant debates we are likely to see in our legislature in this decade, perhaps in this generation. The true cover-up is that the media seems more interested in a tit-for-tat touch, as Elizabeth May calls it, than they are in the underlying debate around Physician Assisted Dying.
As one of the people very intimately impacted by this bill, I am deeply offended that something so trivial as an arm bump could draw so much attention away from this most significant of issues before the house. I am even more offended that people are playing politics with it, at a time when truly deep and thoughtful debate is needed on the bill at hand. What gives politicians the right to play petty with something so important?
Let me say this. Nobody is right here; nobody is wrong here. Nobody was assaulted anymore than they would be in a crowded elevator or during the rush for a super deal on Boxing Day, perhaps even less so. Now, thanks to a foolish media and an even more foolish Parliament, critical issues are being lost to the Canadian public. The NDP were wrong, horribly wrong, to use simple, childish tactics to delay debate on Bill C-14. The Conservative Whip was wrong to go along with such tactics. And the Liberal leader, our Prime Minister, frustrated all to hell with this stupidity, was wrong to go in and elbow him out.
Here is my last question. ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS? Stop playing silly games. Stop blowing a simple bump all out of proportion. And stop fucking around while debating a bill which will directly, and powerfully, impact my life, and my death. GET IT!!
I was just discussing this with a couple of people who were also missing the point. NONE of the parties acquitted themselves well here- and it serves to delay something that is literally life and death for Canadians now. I see it as a reluctance on everyone's part to actually confront something so deeply uncomfortable for so many people that they will have a childish time wasting melee on the floor of this Nation's hallowed Parliament instead of getting down to the business of addressing the needs of their constituents. I have already contacted my MP to express my deepest dismay and urge them to serve their citizens, as they promised to do when sworn in. I also asked for a meeting to put a face to the people they are not serving currently and to remind them of who is being affected by this delay.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post.
"gate" now means extreme controversy; think it should only apply as a political innuendo because of Watergate, but it's used across the board to heighten the effect.
ReplyDeleteSurprising to see how childish the US presidential debates and accusations are. It's about pointing fingers at each other over personal insults, nothing about policy for the people.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thought the media was supposed to be unbiased. Why do newspapers get to flood their pages with pro articles for a preferred candidate and hate articles and suppositions against the nominee they don't like? Media was supposed to be neutral. Why do they even get to endorse a candidate?