Letting “real words” enter the record
After the last couple of hours (spent watching TV), I understand how a person could be drawn to a life as a courtroom spectator. Apart from the moth to a flame image, I mean.
Today, bored with the football offerings, I ventured into the hinterlands: CPAC. High on the “dial”, as we used to say in those years before remote control. On tap, “House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security” dealing with the particular situation in Toronto last June. I’ve got a personal interest in the topic, and today I had a chance to watch the way in which politicians squirm when asked direct questions.
I don’t believe we will ever receive a true accounting for the weekend “from beyond the Pale”. Outside of the magic fence, rules of law and order were set aside. Expediency, proclaim certain members. Outrage, respond others. In the current context, any bipartisan committee presents an occasion for grandstanding.
However, I did hear from certain members of the public who came in direct contact with the force (not forces) of law and order. When the chair tried to bowdlerize the testimony and had to retreat when the members of the committee voted to allow “the real words” to enter the public record, we had a moment of cinéma-vérité and at our house, we applauded.
In the same way that one of the witnesses had to state for the record that public protest is a right, without need for justification, we realized that nobody heard us. I’m cynical, but this may be one of the only times that certain members of Parliament will be able to speak in an unscripted forum. Now if a few more citizens would just watch and learn.
