Once upon a time, I worked for a newspaper editor who was fiercely protective of his reporters when they faced complaints about the fairness of a story.
Stirling’s rule-of-thumb was that if the story had competing sides complaining, it was a sure sign that the story was balanced.
While I appreciated his defence of reporters (he grilled us about our notes before he signed off on our defence), I was also dubious about the line of defence.
If both sides are disgruntled, maybe the story is wrong.
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In an odd case of what goes around comes around, Stirling’s rule now seems to be the modus operandi of this Conservative government in Ottawa.
It may be a new low, or at least a comedic turn, in how the value of legislation is judged on Parliament Hill.
When rail freight service legislation came before the Senate transport committee for public hearings last week, it was an orphan.
Shippers who had been lobbying for years for legislation that would rein in railway power and give shippers more defined rights were unanimous that Bill C-52, the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, was neither fair to them nor necessarily gave them more marketplace rights against the overwhelming power of the railways.
Most of them reluctantly said they prefer this flawed bill to nothing in hope it could be strengthened in the future.
Still, they were not happy.
The railway executives who appeared were less happy, convinced that they operate in a free market where the lions lie down with the lambs and fair commercial deals are always available to shippers if they simply can be more precise in what cars they need and when they need them.
The government should butt out. New laws or regulations are the last thing a well-functioning commodity shipping industry needs.
Liberal senator Art Eggleton, a former Toronto mayor and Liberal MP with little instinctive knowledge of the commodity or shipping industry, listened to both sides and came to a logical conclusion.
This legislation is meant to fix a problem and yet no one involved in the problem thinks the government got it right, so let’s send the bill back for a rewrite to get it right. Shippers need more power and they’ve waited for years, so what’s another few months to make it better?
The Conservatives on the committee invoked the “Stirling defence.”
The complaints from both sides prove it is a good bill, said senator Stephen Greene. The bill is “perfectly balanced because the two sides to the issue disagree with the bill for different reasons. It is perfectly balanced.”
Alberta senator Betty Unger made the same absurd argument.
“When both sides are not completely happy, it has to be right.”
That’s an interesting measure for legislation, but since the legislation aimed to correct the imbalance between shippers and carriers, shouldn’t they at least be satisfied?
This sounds like a current resurrection of the Brian Mulroney view of the world during the Charlottetown Accord debate in 1992 when growing opposition led to the view that the critics were wrong and the government had struck a balance.
That didn’t work out so well.
