Every Wednesday morning when the House of Commons is sitting, the MPs from each political party huddle up in their own room on Parliament Hill. This is called a meeting of the national caucus. As they have the two biggest caucus memberships, the Conservatives and the Liberals meet in the two biggest rooms, in the Centre Block, on either side of the Hall of Honour. (The Hall of Honour is the hall that runs right through the middle of the building from the front door of the place to the Library of Parliament at the back.)
They’ve always started these meetings at 10 am on Wednesday morning but the Conservatives, upon taking office last year, decided to get going at 9:30 am, presumably because being in government means more deliberation. Everybody breaks at noon or shortly thereabouts.
Reporters hang about the Hall of Honour, then, starting at about 9 a.m. as MPs from both parties begin drifting into their national caucus. (Regional caucus meetings — groups of MPs from one particular province or region are held beginning around 8 am or so, before the national caucus.) It’s a good time to pidgeonhole an MP or to get a quote or opinion from a Minister on a particular issue. MPs can avoid the press throng – there are enough back doors in and out of caucus rooms that, for example, one never gets a chance to say hi to Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor (a notorious user of the back doors out of any room in Parliament) or the Prime Minister. When they leave the room at noon, there are even more reporters thronged about, looking for comment and advice on an important issue of the day.
At noon, from time to time, the leader of the Official Opposition will emerge to a microphone that has been set up where he may make a short statement and then spend a few minutes answering questions. A microphone is also set up outside the government caucus room every week, ever hopeful that the Prime Minister of the day will come out for a few questions. But Stephen Harper, like Paul Martin before him, rarely avails himself of the opportunity to say hi to us.
So what’s it like inside the caucus rooms? Well, this is a closely guarded secret — or at least it’s supposed to be. Most newsrooms, CTV’s included, have eyes and ears with BlackBerrys inside the Liberal caucus and there always seems to be a few MPs there who are often happy to give us a blow-by-blow of what’s going on inside. You won’t be surprised that this has often been very frustrating to the party leadership from time to time, who emerge to that microphone outside only to be questioned by reporters about the supposedly confidential remarks they gave just minutes before.
There were Conservatives, while in Opposition, who did the same thing, though, it must be said, they seemed less enthusiastic. But once in government, the Whip came down and Conservatives, upon entering the caucus meeting room, are required to deposit their BlackBerrys at the door. They are the submarine caucus, running silent and running deep every Wednesday morning for two hours and a bit.
I have tried many times to convince a Conservative MP to violating caucus confidentiality but I must report that all the charm I can muster has been relatively ineffective.
Now, Garth Turner, on the other hand, needed little charming from any reporter to reflect upon discussions in caucus meetings and, for that, the Ontario caucus, with the approval of the national caucus, booted him from the Conservative side of the House.
You must know by now, of course, that Garth recently decided to join the Liberal caucus and, yesterday, attended his first Liberal national caucus.
And so he tells us that a closed-door meeting with the Liberal caucus is much like a graduate seminar with really cool people …
“…Two hours of drinking ideas left me sated. It was renewing, refreshing, just what I’d been hoping for … this room of engaged people … Inside the national Liberal caucus I was struck at how collegial it was, a tone set by Stephane Dion. I was heartened by the ideas I heard flying around and the obvious willingness of people writing legislative changes and policies for the next election, to embrace mine. This bodes well, I thought. This is what caucus should be. This is where concepts and visions gain political life.”
whereas the Conservative caucus, in Garth’s estimation, seems more like your grade nine math class with a disciplinarian at the front of the room …
“..the dour group meeting at the same time, in the same building, fifty feet away across a corridor. For the better part of a year I came to know caucus every Wednesday morning as a time when Conservative MPs gathered to listen to PMSH give an opening speech and a closing speech, with ministerial statements, threats from the whip and orders from the house leader in between.
No debate then. No discussion.