Every now and then we make an effort to clear the backlog of newspapers sitting on chairs in our office in the Baxter Building. And like prospectors panning for gold, we usually stumble across a nugget or two that makes the effort worthwhile. This week it was a column, on the end of the latest session of Parliament, by Lawrence Martin in the Globe and Mail. The piece, 'Harper's angry-man syndrome dominated Parliament' , (June 18/07), at first got a cursory skim-through. Blah blah, the usual, blah blah, Stephen Harper is bad, the Conservatives are bad, if only they were more liberal everything would be good, blah blah. But as we turned the pages, a nagging something kept saying "Go back." We've learned to listen to that little voice, so back we went. Blah blah, Stephen Harper is bad, the Conservatives are bad, blah blah. Same old... But 'nagging something' said keep reading. So, again, we read the column. Slower, line by line. "He took on the
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.