For Huh?
The Western Star editorializes about the Amazing Disappearing Legislature:
This government has never been much for facing daily questioning of its actions and nothing has changed this year ... except an opportune excuse popped up.Which prompts a healthy dose of skepticism from Huh?:
I would expect some facts to back up this accusation, such as the number of days the current government sits compared to previous gov'ts.Here you go, Huh? This cleverly colour-coded chart shows the number of sitting days of the House of Assembly, by year, and by part that was in power for most of that year. Pale colours indicate election years, when the House normally sits less anyway. The current year is left uncoloured, since it isn't over yet.
During the Wells years, the House sat, on average, 79 days each year.
In the Tobin-Grimes years, that fell to 50.
In the Williams years, it has fallen further still, to 46.
And of those declining number of days, Himself is taking part in them less and less as the Williams years drag on.
Glad to be of service, Huh?.
In the Tobin-Grimes years, that fell to 50.
In the Williams years, it has fallen further still, to 46.
And of those declining number of days, Himself is taking part in them less and less as the Williams years drag on.
Glad to be of service, Huh?.
posted by WJM @ 5:09 PM
2 Comments:
I'm glad that someone is actually quantifying these things. What a sorry state our democracy is in - these people act like they're running a private corporation.
My recollection from personal experience is that more often than not the House sat much more than 79 days between 1989 and 1996.
That was also a time of five days a week and plenty of night sittings just to get through the volume of business on the agenda. On top of that there was a public accounts committee which worked regularly etc etc.
In 1989, the election ended on April 22, the government was sworn in on May 5, and the House sat through May and into June. It came back again in the fall in October and sat through to December, if memory services.
The House also sat two sessions in 1993, the election year.
The House was far far busier and members worked far harder than the current crowd does.
They also made a helluva lot less, incidentally. That's one of several reasons why I Paul oram should have been ashamed of himself for his pathetic display as he quit. The poor fellow doesn't know what either hard poilitical work or tough media scrutiny really is.
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