By Lloyd Mackey

THERE WAS no lack of choice for the coverage of interesting events around The Hill this week. The story we chose to follow concerned the activities of the Canadian Council of Churches and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada around The Hill.

The church bodies had some advice for parliamentarians, based on their collective theological and community service commitments. But each of the "non-religious" events had their own lessons to teach, inadvertently or otherwise, about matters of morality, justice and ethics.

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So we will briefly review those items ...

1. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney was providing testimony at the Oliphant Commission hearing looking into business arrangements he had with Karl Heinz Schreiber after Mulroney left office in 1993.
2. Two Filipina immigrant caregivers formerly employed by the family of Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla gave testimony before the House of Commons immigration committee. Their appearance -- and Dhalla's -- at the committee followed Toronto Star stories alleging that the caregivers were badly treated by the MP and/or her family, during their employ.
3. Down the street from The Hill, Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien was being tried on charges connected with his alleged attempt to persuade a mayoralty rival to drop out of the race, in 2006.

Then, almost unrelated, except for the commonality of politics, there was an election in British Columbia. Your humble scribe had to be interested, being from the west coast and all.

The return of the BC Liberals with a modest majority and a few new faces provided a sense of relief for me. One of my continuing predilections is to tell anyone who will listen on the federal scene that BC sets a good example on the matter of political alignments.

A poorly-kept secret about the province is that its citizens have long practice in electing governments formed from people of both the centre and the right. Political relationship building, despite periodic colourful dustups, allows for a fair amount of goodwill among people with a range of policy positions or practice.

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Enough to say, at the moment, that the federal Conservatives and Liberals do well to cast an eye westward occasionally, to see what they can learn.

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This brings me to the Forum on Faith and a Sustainable Economy, which took place on Tuesday in the Wellington Block, which is part of the parliamentary precinct.

A fair number of politicians and/or their assistants dropped by to hear such speakers as Graham Saul of the Climate Action Network, Roy Berkenbosch of the Kings' University College in Edmonton and Marion Pardy, vice-president of the Canadian Council of Churches. They and their compatriots talked about a range of issues, tying together the themes of community, theology and the church.

If I may be permitted a plug, a fuller account of the event and some of its spinoffs will be running soon in the national edition ChristianWeek and will likely be available on their website.

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I will wrap with one item from the Tuesday Forum that perhaps puts some of the foregoing into a thought-provoking perspective.

The lunch hour feature was a panel meant to draw MPs from the four parties, each proving capable of articulating some facet of the faith/political interface.

The four were Rick Dykstra, parliamentary secretary to the immigration minister, John McKay, the Liberal shadow cabinet member responsible for relating to faith groups, Yves Lessard of the Bloc Quebecois and Pierre Ducasse -- not an MP, but special advisor to NDP leader Jack Layton.

I don't know if it was because these MPs were interacting in a faith-based setting, but their behaviour and demeanour toward each other was exemplary. Not that they did not have a few good-natured digs at each other, but they exhibited a respect and care toward each other that, if utilized, could help bring more civility to the parliamentary process, and save a lot of the time now spent in unnecessary clashes.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

May 14/2009