I am sorry, Underway but I can't agree with what you are saying.
This has gotten emotional for the Liberals, not for the CPC which is only insisting on members introducing private members bill (which this is BTW - it's not a government introduced bill) following the procedure and not getting a bye just because they are ill.
First of all, this is not the first, but the umpteenth time this gentlemen tried to have this private member bill passed. Every time before, it died on the agenda - like 99.9% of private member bills - with people on all sides of the aisle at the time voting or positioning themselves on both sides of the issue. Nad the last time, it came to a vote and was defeated. This issue BTW, comes out of his personal fascination with it - nothing else. I don't hear any clamour anywhere in Canada to change the words of O Canada. If issues were rated by importance to Canadians, this would surely rate bottom of page 987 in the list.
So now this gentlemen gets terminally ill - and I have great sympathy for what he and his family are going through - and the House honours him unanimously by making him Speaker for the day. Fine. Nice honour. Within the purview of the House, respectful and at the same time,
non-influential on the agenda of the nation.
But, no. His caucus colleagues (this did not come from him, I am personally convinced) feel sorry - probably realize this would be a nice gesture to him and convinced him to introduce his bill again so they could support it. They (the Liberal caucus) probably felt that it was a matter of little importance - like his one day tenure as Speaker.
But unfortunately, it touches on a National symbol - the Anthem - and whenever you try and change anything in a national symbol, it evokes strong emotions in people (look, even a few posts ago in this forum, someone is still attached to the Red Ensign as Canada's flag :nod
. So you don't do it just like that, to make someone feel good.
Anyhow, the bill is introduced, and like all private members bill it is given a small time slot (in this case - one hour) for full disposition. Now here, two possibilities exist: Either the Liberal House leader knew that it would elicit a strong response and require more time - but wanted to use this to make the conservatives look heartless when they certainly move to follow the rules, in which case they, Liberals, are playing politics with a dying man's wish - or they honestly believe that this would be disposed of nearly unanimously because "it 's a minor matter without consequences". I suspect it's this second case, but that makes the House Leader stupid where nationalism is concerned. I can't say I am surprised: nationalism has been discarded as irrelevant by the Libs ever since the days of Trudeau the father, who believed that nationalist sentiments were "passé" and did not matter - save when you want to counter Quebec's nationalism. Ever since, the Libs, as party (not individuals) has been devoid of pursuit of any nationalist agenda -and rather prefer to eliminate national symbols.
I any event, all the CPC has done, is refuse to extend the hour of debate on that same day since the debate could not be completed in the allocated time. And I agree with that: There are much more important issues to be properly debated than this one. This means that another time slot had to be found later. Then, because they are not sure that the member could be in attendance for final reading at that later time, the Liberal House Leader tried to have the Sponsorship of the bill passed to another member of the Liberal party (a minister no less), which requires unanimity and would be unheard of for a private member bill. Many "no" were shouted from the opposition side, which ended that attempt (but we don't know if these no came from only the conservatives or if some NDPers also said no, or even if there were some no from the Liberal side).
The only thing I can say is this: Had this gentlemen not been dying, none of the actions of the CPC would have attracted any attention, and the bill dying off on the agenda (if it had even ever been brought up again), would have attracted no attention whatsoever.
So who is playing politics in Ottawa? Everybody, including the Liberals just as much as everybody else. politics differently? Bull!