So true

great article
Hébert: The 24/7 information beast favours bite-size news
Published On Mon Dec 6 2010Email Print Share6Rss Article


By Chantal Hébert
National Columnist
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The only parliamentary debate on the latest extension of Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan was held during regular office hours on a November Thursday, a time in the week and in the parliamentary season when the Hill is a hive of media activity.

None of the party leaders spoke. But, for the first time since the government announced it would devote hundreds of soldiers to the training of the Afghan army, diverging visions of Canada’s post-2011 role were extensively laid out by proponents of the deployment and the development options.

Arguing from different corners, the Liberals’ Bob Rae and the NDP’s Jack Harris each gave a comprehensive rendition of the reasons why their respective parties sit on opposite sides of the fence on this issue.

With the notable exception of the news junkies who spend their days riveted to CPAC’s live parliamentary feed, most Canadians are unlikely to have been aware that a House debate took place, let alone to have been apprised of its highlights.

It might as well have been held in a remote cave in the dead of the night.

In the days leading up to the presentation by the Bloc Québécois of an Afghan-related motion, the politics of the government decision were dissected in various media quarters, including this one.

The subsequent vote on motion was also covered — mostly from the angle that it was a test of Liberal unity.

But the substance of the policy argument, as debated by the elected politicians who have a say in the decision to commit Canadian men and women to a war theatre, was ultimately not deemed to be all that newsworthy.

It is hardly the first time that this Parliament drops off the media radar as it airs out a high-profile policy.

Last spring, an NDP bill designed to ensure that future Supreme Court nominees are bilingual enough to hear arguments in either official language went almost completely unnoticed until after it passed final reading in the Commons.

Those are just two of many examples and there would be more if the current government had a majority.

In a majority Parliament, for instance, the recent Liberal decision to oppose the government’s anti-smuggling bill might have elicited only a media shrug, as it would have no impact on the fate of the legislation.

Even in an arguably more unpredictable minority setting, the fundamental business of Parliament is increasingly marginalized, not only by the daily theatre of question period, but also by the changing nature of the media in general and the parliamentary press in particular.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, a 24/7 news environment offers less rather than more space and time for the extensive parliamentary reporting of the past.

The demands of feeding a round-the-clock information beast usually favour bite-size news to the detriment of meaty debates that need more time-consuming media ministrations to be properly digested.

The advent of new technologies has also greatly expanded the Canadian political stage.

Premier Danny Williams happened to resign just as the Afghan debate was getting underway in Parliament. The news took everyone by surprise. But it was only a matter of minutes before the media armada was turned around and had set its virtual course for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Parliament used to be the centre stage of the political beat in Canada; now it is on the way to becoming a mere backdrop for the coverage of national politics.

Pierre Trudeau once famously said that MPs were nobodies once they were 50 feet off the Hill. But given Parliament’s ongoing slide into relative obscurity, it should come as no surprise that some of the members of Parliament who are about to leave the federal arena have come to feel that they are also nobodies in the House of Commons.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.