Rhetoric at legislature gets heated as session nears its end

As the six weeks of the spring sitting have gone on, the barbs traded back and forth in the Legislative Assembly have been getting sharper.

In the past week, the speaker has had to stand several times during Question Period to calm things down, saying on Thursday, “Please do not make personal comments. It’s getting out of control right away again.”

He warned the MLAs to respect the ruling he’d made just the day before.

After Question Period on Thursday, Government House Leader Jeremy Harrison called out NDP Leader Ryan Meili for his behaviour.

“(Meili was) calling the premier a coward in the house in addition to every manner of gutter politics that he could come up with over the course of the last 30 days of sitting,” said Harrison.

“Meili can say whatever he wants about Minister (Paul) Merriman and me, I don’t care, but look, this is a guy who lives in a glass house and is casting stones.”

In Harrison’s opinion, the NDP has been bitter, personal and vindictive this session. He said it’s a change from previous years where he’d been able to find a decent, and in some cases even friendly, working relationship with NDP members.

Harrison thinks the warnings from the speaker on most days were directed at the Opposition but did admit there’s been “challenging behaviour” on both sides.

In an end-of-session interview, Meili said he doesn’t think the pointed rhetoric in the assembly was coming from his party.

“If you watch closely and see the back and forth, we’re very assertive and aggressive in the questions we’re asking because we have hard questions to ask. The sort of yelling and bullying and garbage, we don’t really like to engage in that any more than we absolutely have to on the heckling side,” said Meili.

At one point the NDP had been making comments about seals in the assembly, and Meili said that was poking a bit of fun at the way the government members would clap for statements their party members would make that, the NDP believed, didn’t merit any applause.

Meili said anytime you start getting to the end of session, the speaker is getting up more.

“The time wears on and we’re all sick of seeing each other and it gets a little more intense,” Meili said with a bit of a laugh in his voice.

Friday is the last day of the session. The two sides agreed to a compressed spring sitting of six weeks instead of eight because of the travel advisory around Regina, so members from outside the Queen City would spend less time away from their families.