I agree completely with the notion that members of parliament should be open to various points of view and find it regrettable that the political parties and their supporters have become increasingly polarized. I can still recall a scene that I witnessed in the House of Commons almost 50 years ago. Robert Stanfield, the Opposition Leader, responded to a Liberal bill by stating that the bill had merit and that his party would support it on second reading and then work to improve it during standing committee examination of the details. How eminently sensible and how sadly different from today’s world where ideas from “the other side” are all too often rejected automatically. Wishing for parties that were less partisan is one thing. But Wilson-Raybould’s world view would go far beyond that in promoting a House of Commons with more independent members and a commitment to consensus-seeking.
Given her views on the matter, I find it ironic that Wilson-Raybould was unwilling to consider any other points of view when it came to the SNC Lavalin affair. The federal Cabinet wanted to make use of a legal option known as a deferred prosecution agreement – an approach that provided a prompt resolution of the issue rather than a lengthy trial period of uncertain outcome, with an increasingly negative impact on Lavalin and its workforce. The collective responsibility of the Cabinet, a convention of our parliamentary system, dictates that members of the Cabinet must support its decisions (even if they do not agree privately). If they cannot do so, they should resign as a matter of principle, or should be dismissed from the Cabinet. Yet Wilson-Raybould apparently felt that she knew best and was shifted to a different portfolio (in what was widely seen as a demotion for her failure to be a team player) and then later resigned from the Cabinet.
By all accounts, Jody Wilson-Raybould is an accomplished individual and it is regrettable that her federal government experience ended the way it did. But I can’t help feeling that this ending (or some variation of it) was inevitable given her admission that she somehow expected the centuries-old parliamentary system to accommodate her world view.