Thomas Mulcair, the lone NDP MP from Quebec, probably has his days numbered after this incident. This is one of those *where to begin* cases for me, and it really looks badly on all parties in the House.

Personally, I really, really wish that MPs of all stripes would stop heckling — it does nothing to help anyone’s cause and makes the House look like a collection of baboons. That goes for Conservative MPs as well!

On top of that, I’m currently toying with the idea or value of whether the House should lift at least some of the coverage that MPs enjoy from defamation laws, such as not protecting MPs who make such statements during Question Period, or if something is defamatory, having the Speaker make the offending MP retract their question immediately. I think it might go a long way to bringing civility back into the House since it would eliminate a lot of the ridiculous statements that are embedded in QP questions (and which ultimately make it onto the evening news and broadsheets).

Finally, I think we have to take note of the fact that the Mulcair incident came from the NDP. This is criticism for my socialist colleagues, but it should be noted that I’ve seen Tories act just as shamefully (and I’m sure the Liberals do too, although I haven’t witnessed any events that come to mind) on occasion. However, the collective younger, organized (/unionized) or online New Democrats have a long and proud history of acting just as shamefully as the Outremont MP did this week.

I am not sure of what the motives truly are in each case, but it does come off to the outsider as being very self-righteous and dogmatic — terms that the group probably wouldn’t like to be associated with but frankly fit quite nicely. If you read the article about Mulcair, you’ll discover that he’s trying to protect a man that he feels is going to encounter great harm once deported back to his native land because he practices sodomy. This is a cause that, if true, I would support; no one should physically suffer at the hands of government or private citizens for such reasons and I respect Mulcair bringing this before the house. Where he goes over the line though is when he start implying that disagreeing with him not only makes one a homophobe but a racist — as he did with with the Tory MPs present. It demonstrates the lack of respect that many New Democrats have for opposing points of view or interpretations of the issue/situation in question. Read around the Liblogs or Blogging Tories; we have our faults but many of us (sadly not all) at least appreciate that other parties are ultimately trying to help the country/it’s citizenry even if we personally feel that they don’t see the whole picture or are misguided.

To suggest though that disagreeing with a political opinion automatically makes you retarded (or a “knuckle dragger”, which is the same thing in my book) or a war criminal, or anything else that the New Democrats in particular like to label opponents as is not just unhealthy for democracy but unhealthy for peace…something that many New Democrats have a heart-felt desire for.

Again, I’ll state that most of us (self included) on the Tory side are not innocent of breaking these rules in moments of weakness, however in our defence, we generally show an appreciation for the fact that not everyone thinks exactly as we do and that productive dialogue can occur if we stop making every opponent into the mindless monsters of our greatest bane.