How a Bill Becomes a Law

“At the end of the day, in my opinion, they’ve made up their mind and this is how we’re going to vote. One person is not going to make a difference, one MP is not going to make a difference.”



In some respects, I feel bad for David Wilks. The video that will ultimately destroy his political career doesn't involve bigoted comments, cocaine, or underage girls - it's a candid discussion with 30 constituents about how Ottawa works.

In it, Wilks voices his displeasure with his party's budget, while lamenting that a whiped vote means he has no choice but to support it.





Wilks could easily have blown off this roundtable, recognizing no one attending was ever going to vote Conservative. There are certainly more enjoyable ways to spend a sunny morning in Kootenay-Columbia than walking into a room full of discontents. Instead, Wilks listened and interacted with the people he represents, and he should be applauded for that.

That said, the man has no one to blame for this controversy other than himself. If he truly supports the budget - as he now claims to do - he should have thanked his constituents for their feedback, said he'd consider what they said, then explained to them why he supported the budget.

If he truly opposes the budget - as he said he did yesterday - he should vote against it. Wilks is wrong when he says one MP can't make a difference. John Nunziata and Bill Casey brought more attention to the budgets they opposed than they ever would have by meekly supporting them. Michael Chong's opposition to the Quebec Nation resolution may have prevented Harper from going further down that road. I also like to think that the more acts of defiance we get, the more likely we are to see an attitudinal change in Ottawa that gives a greater say to individual MPs. Some may disagree with me, but I think that would be a welcome shift.

And while it should never be the primary reason for opposing your own government, Nunziata, Casey, and Chong all made names for themselves, were heralded for their decisions, and were rewarded by their constituents at the ballot box.

In comparison, all Wilks' weak-kneed approach ensures is that he will never make it to Cabinet, and that he now has a reputation of placing his party ahead of his conscience and his constituents.

My 5 cents on the federal budget

For years the Liberals warned you of Stephen Harper's hidden agenda. Just wait until he gets a majority, and you won't recognize Canada.

For years, Conservatives quietly whispered to their base that they couldn't go as far as they wanted because of that damn minority government. The Liberals won't let us, the Senate won't let us!

So after waiting for nearly a decade, we finally got to see the long anticipated Harper majority budget. And what was the flagship change he needed a majority to bring in?

The elimination of the penny.

OK, so it wasn't exactly the "transformational" budget we'd long feared or hoped for, depending on our allegiances. But it does provide a good look at what kind of Prime Minister Stephen Harper truly wants to be.

This budget should tell us once and for all, that he's not a guy who wants to fundamentally change Canada. Sure, he's tossed a few symbolic gestures to the base, in the form of CBC budget cuts, the death of Katimavik, and a warning to environmental activists. But Harper remains the head of the biggest spending government in Canadian history, even after accounting for population growth and inflation.

The budget also shows us he's not hunting for a legacy, quite yet. There are some "big picture" reforms in this budget, but they're mostly fine tuning - a speedier immigration process, changes to the innovation agenda, pension reform. These are all worthy initiatives if they work, but they likely won't ever find their way into history textbooks. They're also the sort of things a Liberal government would do.

So, there you have the real Stephen Harper. A largely low key and pragmatic Prime Minister willing to toss symbolic gestures to his conservative base. A man whose greatest legacy at this point is the elimination of the penny.

Rest in Peace: Penny (1858-2012)