Friday, November 18, 2011

NDP MP Pat Martin swears at Conservative closure of debate

 Pat Martin a Manitoba New Democratic Party MP used distinctly unparliamentary language in a tweet. He may swear by the New Democratic party but he swears at the ruling majority Conservative party. To quote Martin with appropriate omissions: "This is a f--king disgrace ... closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot sh--."
  Martin did not apologize for his outburst but claimed that his language expressed his frustration at the government's tactics. Closure is rarely used in Canada and usually when the opposition is using tactics to deliberately hold up legislation. Martin noted that he is a construction worker by trade and he said that this is the way that they communicate with each other.
    I worked as an inspector on pipeline construction years ago and I can attest that in my experience Martin is telling the truth about construction workers'  language at least in the past. Naturally several Conservative MP's called the language completely inappropriate and expressed their strong moral disapproval. One MP even wants the house speaker to rule on the language since Martin made his tweet while actually in parliament. Of course the Conservatives and much of the media seem to concentrate upon Martin's use of language rather than the inappropriateness of the Conservative use of closure. For more see this article.


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