First, let’s ban clapping

Adam Chapnick has a crazy idea. (One that Stockwell Day actually tried briefly when he was leader of the Canadian Alliance. Or so Paul assures me.)

In order to work, efforts to reinvigorate parliament, re-engage the country’s youth, and restore public faith in democracy must target the system as a whole. An ideal first step, one that should resonate politically and publicly, would be to ban heckling, in all its forms, from parliamentary discourse … Less heckling would inevitably lead to more thoughtful discussion, and would eventually restore a degree of dignity to a parliamentary process that has become a stale public relations exercise instead of a platform for reasoned debate. A collective penalty would force MPs to police themselves and would turn rogue representatives who refuse to behave civilly into party outcasts.