Spare the interns, send out the ministers

Here’s an idea: Instead of parties sending out interns to stage protests, perhaps we could expect that parties would send out the men and women duly elected under their party banners to comment on their behalf.

For instance, in the case of Mr. Trudeau’s announcement, perhaps the Minister of State for Democratic Reform could’ve stood in front of the cameras immediately afterwards to respond to the Liberal proposal. Or perhaps the PMO could’ve handed Tim Uppal a sign and had him stand in the background of Mr. Trudeau’s appearance. Either approach would’ve been a little less unbecoming.

(None of this is to denigrate those with partisan allegiances. Partisanship is a perfectly defensible, often even admirable, choice of lifestyle and as a concept it is integral, and ultimately beneficial, to our system of mutual governance. The problem here is really nothing more than silliness, an unfortunate side effect that afflicts some partisans.)