The Quiet Accord: How Canadian MPs Actually Get Things Done

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin

“Canadians agree on more than we often realize. Rather than scoring points and tearing each other down, we should work as hard as we can to prioritise agreement.”

• Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, House of Commons, December 8, 2015¹

A few winters ago, I was loitering outside the House of Commons foyer, lukewarm tea in hand, waiting to brief an MP on Port Modernization. It was a typically grey Ottawa afternoon, the kind that makes you question your life choices. The television cameras were off, packed away after another performative Question Period. Yet in that unscripted lull, I watched something remarkable. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, known for her sharp-elbowed debate style, was deep in conversation with the NDP’s health critic, Don Davies. They weren’t sparring over policy; they were swapping toddler daycare horror stories. Standing with them was Liberal backbencher Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who, after listening intently, grabbed a napkin and scribbled down a contact for them in his riding who ran a 24-hour facility.

No staffers livestreamed it. No hashtags trended. It was a fleeting moment of simple, human problem-solving. And that, in miniature, is how Ottawa really works.

What makes the evening news is the 30-second flame war, clipped for outrage and force-fed to our dopamine-hungry social media feeds. That curated sliver of reality paints a portrait of a Parliament hopelessly broken, a gladiator school where the only goal is to inflict political wounds. It’s a powerful narrative, and it’s dangerously incomplete. Beyond that distorted lens lies a parallel universe, an ecosystem of quiet handshakes, late-night text messages, and hard-won compromises that shape our lives in concrete and profound ways.

This isn’t a naive plea for everyone to just get along. Partisan conflict is a necessary feature of a healthy democracy; it sharpens ideas and holds power to account. But the relentless focus on conflict obscures the more vital, if less dramatic, truth: a vast amount of legislative heavy lifting is accomplished through cross-party collaboration. This cooperation is neither accidental nor sentimental. It is engineered by the very structure of our parliamentary system, a system that, for all its creaks and groans, still nudges rivals toward common ground.

Today’s deep dive maps the machinery that keeps Parliament functioning, even when it appears to be tearing itself apart. We will showcase the real-world victories you’ll never see on TikTok, explore the institutional pressures that make cooperation a pragmatic necessity, and examine the threats that put this quiet accord at risk. This is the story of how, when the cameras turn away, your elected officials actually get things done.

The Real-World Wins (And Why They Matter)

The most compelling evidence for this quiet accord isn’t found in political theory, but in the statute books and in the tangible benefits that flow to Canadians. These are not minor tweaks or symbolic gestures; they are significant legislative achievements, born from moments when Parliament chose to drop its sword so that citizens could pick up the spoils.

A Lifeline in Crisis: The 9-8-8 Hotline

The Problem: For decades, Canada’s mental health crisis response was a tragic patchwork. In a moment of acute distress, a person had to remember a 10-digit, region-specific number, navigate a phone tree, and hope for a timely answer. The alternative was 9-1-1, an emergency service designed for police and paramedics, which often resulted in stigmatizing and sometimes dangerous wellness checks by law enforcement. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) had long reported that a simple, memorable, three-digit number was a critical missing piece of the national mental health infrastructure.

The Spark: The push for a national hotline was deeply personal for Conservative MP Todd Doherty. In 2020, still grieving the loss of a close friend to suicide years earlier, he rose in the House to table Motion M-54. His voice thick with emotion, he shared his story and argued that a simple, three-digit number was not a partisan issue, but a moral imperative. "It's a conversation that for too long has been held in the shadows," he said. "Let's bring it into the light."²

The Process: The motion’s power lay in its undeniable simplicity and humanity. It was immediately seconded by NDP MP Charlie Angus, another fierce advocate for mental health. The Liberal government, recognizing the groundswell of support, embraced the initiative. Health Minister Patty Hajdu committed to working with the CRTC to designate 9-8-8 as the national number. The Bloc Québécois played a crucial role, ensuring that the implementation plan included robust, provincially-managed French-language services, particularly in Quebec. The process involved complex negotiations between federal and provincial governments, telecom companies, and over 400 independent distress centres across the country. It was a logistical marathon, but the all-party consensus provided the political will to see it through.

The Payoff: The 9-8-8 service went live nationwide in November 2023. In its first six months of operation, it fielded over 300,000 calls and texts—an average of more than 1,600 interactions per day.³ Dr. Colin Macpherson, a psychiatrist with Quinte Health, noted, “Every call we take represents a sliver of hope during someone’s darkest hour. We are finally meeting people where they are, without judgment and without delay.”⁴ That hope exists today because a Conservative MP’s personal grief was channeled into a motion that every other party recognized as bigger than politics.

Building a New Social Safety Net: The Canada Disability Benefit

The Problem: For generations, one of the most glaring holes in Canada's social safety net was the lack of adequate income support for working-age people with disabilities. Provincial programs were a patchwork of insufficient aid that often left recipients far below the poverty line. In one of the world's wealthiest countries, nearly a quarter of persons with disabilities lived in poverty.

The Spark: The drive for a federal benefit was the culmination of decades of tireless advocacy from groups like Disability Without Poverty and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. In Parliament, the cause was championed by MPs across the political spectrum, but few were as relentless as the NDP's Critic for Disability Inclusion, Bonita Zarrillo. Drawing on her own family's experience, Zarrillo consistently used her platform to pressure the government to move beyond promises and into action.

The Process: The Liberal government introduced Bill C-22 to create the framework for a new Canada Disability Benefit. The initial bill was criticized by advocates as lacking teeth and timelines. This is where the collaborative nature of a minority Parliament kicked in. As part of their supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals, the NDP made strengthening and passing the bill a top priority. In committee, MPs from all parties worked to amend the bill, adding timelines for implementation and ensuring the benefit would be indexed to inflation and could not be clawed back by private insurance companies. The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois, while critical of the government's pace, supported the bill's ultimate goal. In June 2023, the amended Bill C-22 passed the House of Commons unanimously.

The Payoff: The Canada Disability Benefit Act is now law.⁵ While the detailed regulations and payment amounts are still being finalized, the legislation creates a legal obligation for the federal government to provide a direct income supplement to hundreds of thousands of low-income, working-age Canadians with disabilities. It represents the most significant expansion of Canada’s social safety net since the creation of the Canada Child Benefit, and it exists because decades of advocacy found a Parliament where all parties agreed that poverty is not an acceptable condition for citizens with disabilities.

Squeezing the Grocery Giants

The Problem: By early 2023, Canadians were reeling from rampant food inflation. The cost of basic staples like lettuce, bread, and pasta had skyrocketed, stretching family budgets to the breaking point. Simultaneously, the country’s major grocery chains, Loblaw, Sobeys, and Metro, were posting record-breaking profits, leading to widespread public fury and accusations of "greedflation."

The Spark: The NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, made the issue a central plank of their political messaging, demanding a federal investigation into price gouging. This pressure created a political opening for the governing Liberals to act. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, a multi-party body, voted to launch a formal study and summon the grocery CEOs to testify.

The Process: The March 2024 committee hearing was pure political theatre, but it was effective. MPs from all parties formed a united front. Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull fired the shot heard round the produce aisle: “Canadians feel like the doubling of your profits has been literally at their expense.”⁶ Conservative MP John Barlow drilled down on the opaque pricing practices between suppliers and retailers, while the Bloc’s Yves Perron questioned the lack of competition in the Canadian market. The public grilling generated immense media pressure and provided the political momentum for legislative action. The hearing directly propelled key amendments to Bill C-59, the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act. These changes, supported by the Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement, massively overhauled the Competition Act, giving the Competition Bureau the power to block anti-competitive mergers and increasing penalties for price-fixing.⁷

The Payoff: While grocery prices remain stubbornly high, the legislative landscape has fundamentally shifted. The major grocers, under intense scrutiny, agreed to a "grocery code of conduct" to improve transparency with suppliers.⁸ More importantly, the strengthened Competition Act gives regulators real teeth to challenge corporate concentration in the future. The era of unchecked power in the grocery sector is over, not because of one party, but because a multi-party committee channeled public anger into concrete legislative change.

Banning Conversion Therapy Nationwide

The Problem: The pseudoscientific practice of "conversion therapy", efforts to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, has been condemned by every mainstream medical and psychiatric association as harmful, ineffective, and a violation of human rights. Yet, for years, it continued to operate in the shadows across Canada, inflicting deep and lasting trauma on vulnerable LGBTQ2+ people, particularly youth.

The Spark: The legislative push came from two separate, but philosophically aligned, tracks. Liberal MP Rob Oliphant and Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner had both been working on private member's bills to address the issue. The real catalyst, however, was the powerful testimony of survivors. People like Kristine Henderson and Matt Ashcroft shared harrowing stories with parliamentary committees about the psychological abuse they endured, putting a human face on the practice’s devastating toll.

The Process: The Trudeau government introduced Bill C-4, a comprehensive ban that made it a criminal offence to cause someone to undergo conversion therapy, to promote or advertise the practice, or to profit from it. Recognizing the urgency, the parties agreed to an unusual level of cooperation. The Conservatives, under then-leader Erin O'Toole, grappled with internal division, but ultimately the party’s justice critic, Rob Moore, announced they would support fast-tracking the bill. In a remarkable procedural move, the House agreed to skip the committee stage and pass the bill through all remaining stages in a single day in December 2021. It passed the Senate with similar speed.⁹

The Payoff: The bill received Royal Assent just before Christmas, making Canada’s ban one of the most comprehensive in the world. Every attempt to "cure" someone of their identity is now a criminal offence. The law stands as a powerful testament that on issues of fundamental human rights, moral consensus can still triumph over partisan ideology.

The Architecture of Compromise: Why the System Nudges Rivals to Collaborate

These victories are not random acts of kindness. They are the predictable outcomes of a system designed, intentionally or not, to foster negotiation. While the American system often seems geared for gridlock, the Canadian parliamentary model has several key features that create powerful incentives for cooperation.

Minority Math: This is the most potent driver of collaboration. Five of the last seven federal elections have produced minority governments. For the party in power, the arithmetic is brutal and inescapable: you have 170 votes in the House of Commons, and you need more. This reality forces the government to negotiate with opposition parties to pass any legislation, including the budget, which is a confidence vote. Failure means the government falls. This dynamic fundamentally alters the relationship between parties. The government cannot simply impose its will; it must persuade, bargain, and concede. Landmark Canadian policies, from the creation of universal Medicare under Lester B. Pearson’s minority (propped up by the NDP) to the recent dental care and pharmacare programs, were born directly from the mathematical necessity of minority rule.

Committee Culture: In the U.S. Congress, committee chairs wield immense, almost dictatorial power. They can single-handedly kill a bill by simply refusing to put it on the agenda. In Canada, committees are far more collaborative. While the chair (usually from the governing party) controls the agenda, they cannot unilaterally bury a bill or shut down debate. Committees are where the legislative sausage is truly made. MPs from all parties sit together for hours, hearing from expert witnesses, debating clauses line-by-line, and proposing amendments. An amendment survives not by fiat, but by persuasion. An opposition MP must convince government members, or fellow opposition members, that their idea has merit. It is in these unglamorous, windowless rooms that relationships are built, trust is earned, and the fine print of our laws is hammered out.

Constituency Casework: The most overlooked lubricant of the parliamentary machine is the daily grind of constituency work. Every MP, from the Prime Minister to the newest backbencher, runs an office that functions as a triage centre for citizens battling the federal bureaucracy. The issues are deeply personal: a delayed passport preventing a family from attending a wedding, a stalled Employment Insurance claim for a laid-off worker, a desperate plea to expedite a family reunification visa. When an NDP MP’s constituent has an urgent immigration file stuck in limbo, they don’t deliver a fiery speech in Question Period. They send a quiet text to the Liberal Immigration Minister’s chief of staff. These small, constant acts of reciprocal favour-trading build a reservoir of goodwill and personal relationships that transcends the partisan divide. That trust, built on solving a constituent’s problem on a Tuesday, can be what makes a difficult legislative negotiation possible on a Thursday.

Big Ideas That Shift the Overton Window

Sometimes, cooperation isn't about incremental compromise, but about a bold, disruptive idea from the political margins that fundamentally reshapes the entire conversation. These ideas often fail in the short term, but in doing so, they shift the "Overton Window", the range of policies the public and political establishment are willing to consider.

Elizabeth May’s Mission Possible: In the 2019 federal election, the Green Party, led by Elizabeth May, was struggling for oxygen. To break through, she unveiled a climate platform of breathtaking ambition. It included a pledge to pass a "Just Transition Act" that would guarantee income support and retraining for every worker in the fossil fuel sector, and a goal to transition Canada to a 100% renewable electricity grid by 2030. The reaction was swift and dismissive. Critics in other parties and the media derided it as economic fantasy. The proposal contributed to internal tensions that saw May step down from the leadership months later.

But the idea didn't die; it planted a flag. Three years later, the political landscape had changed. The Liberals, governing in a minority, signed a supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP. A central condition of that deal was aggressive climate action. The government’s 2022 Emissions Reduction Plan included a new, hard target: a net-zero electricity grid by 2035.¹⁰ What was once a "radical" Green fantasy had become the official policy floor of the federal government, pulled into the mainstream by the gravitational force of minority politics.

Michael Chong’s Reform Act: In 2015, a quiet but significant power shift occurred in Ottawa. Conservative MP Michael Chong, a principled maverick, succeeded in passing his private member's bill, the Reform Act. The bill was designed to rebalance power between party leaders and their caucuses. It gives MPs in a caucus the power to vote to remove their leader, elect their own caucus chair, and approve or reject candidates running for the party. Chong argued passionately that leaders had accumulated too much power, turning MPs into "trained seals." He argued, "This bill hands MPs the keys to their own house."¹¹

The Reform Act was a structural tweak, not a headline-grabbing policy. But its effects are profound and ongoing. Every party caucus must now vote after an election on whether to adopt its provisions. The very existence of these powers acts as a check on a leader's authority. A leader who ignores their caucus does so at their peril. This strengthens the hand of individual MPs, empowering them to advocate for their constituents and engage in the kind of cross-party pragmatism that a leader’s office, focused on centralized control, might otherwise discourage.

The Fragile Accord: Threats on the Horizon (And How You Can Help)

This ecosystem of cooperation, for all its resilience, is fragile. It is under sustained assault from powerful forces that threaten to grind the gears of Parliament to a halt.

Algorithmic Outrage: The business model of social media platforms is based on engagement, and nothing engages like anger. Thoughtful compromise, nuanced debate, and incremental progress do not trend. Thirty-second clips of MPs shouting at each other do. This creates a perverse incentive for politicians to perform for the camera rather than legislate in the committee room. The loudest, most divisive voices are rewarded with clicks, shares, and fundraising dollars, while the quiet collaborators are starved of political oxygen.

The Tyranny of the Leader's Office: Over the past few decades, power in Ottawa has become increasingly centralized in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the offices of other party leaders. These central command structures use party discipline to keep their MPs in line, enforcing message control and punishing dissent. This heavy-handed approach can suffocate the independence of backbench MPs and stifle the very committee work where cross-party relationships are forged and compromises are made.

Staff Burnout and Institutional Amnesia: The unglamorous work of negotiation and legislation happens after hours, fueled by cold pizza and sheer exhaustion. Political staffers are young, bright, overworked, and underpaid. The burnout rate is astronomical. This high turnover leads to a constant state of institutional amnesia, where the long-term relationships and reservoirs of trust needed for complex negotiations are difficult to build and sustain.

These threats are real, but they are not insurmountable. The power to counteract them lies, in large part, with engaged citizens.

• Counter the algorithm: When you see a thoughtful committee exchange or a local news story about your MP working with an opponent, share it. Amplify the boring but important work. Starve the outrage machine of your attention.

• Reward courage: When your MP breaks ranks on a matter of principle or works across the aisle for a good cause, send their office a two-line email saying "thank you." Courage is a muscle; the more it's reinforced, the stronger it gets.

• Get involved: The system runs on people. Volunteer for a candidate, apply for an internship on Parliament Hill, or join a local riding association. Fresh hands and fresh energy are essential to keeping the machine turning.

Why This Matters

It is easy to be cynical about politics. It is, in many ways, the default setting of modern life. But cynicism is a luxury we cannot afford, because the stakes are too high. The evidence of a Parliament that still functions is all around us.

Someone you love, a friend, a family member, a neighbour, can dial 9-8-8 tonight and hear a calm, human voice in a moment of crisis, because Parliamentarians of every political colour lined up behind a Conservative’s motion. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities have the promise of a life with dignity, because all parties agreed to build a new social safety net. Your grocery bill is marginally less abusive, and corporate giants have less room to manoeuvre, because MPs from four different parties tag-teamed them in a committee room.

Democracy’s immune system still works, quietly, imperfectly, but undeniably. Behind every viral heckle lies an invisible network of handshakes and quiet concessions. The loudest voices may capture the headlines, but the quiet accord is what builds a country. Spotlighting that accord, rewarding the collaborators, and demanding more of it may be the most important civic duty we have.

References

1. House of Commons Debates, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 148, No. 4 (Dec. 8, 2015), at 1520 (Nathaniel Erskine-Smith).

2. House of Commons, Motion M-54 (Suicide Prevention), Tabled by Todd Doherty, Adopted Dec. 11, 2020.

3. Public Health Agency of Canada, "9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Line Data," updated June 2024.

4. Quinte Health, “9-8-8 marks one year of service in Hastings and Prince Edward Counties,” Press Release, Nov. 30, 2024.

5. Bill C-22, An Act to establish the Canada disability benefit and to amend the Income Tax Act, 44th Parliament, 1st Session, Royal Assent June 22, 2023.

6. House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food (AGRI), Evidence, Meeting 52 (March 8, 2024).

7. Bill C-59, Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023, 44th Parliament, 1st Session, Royal Assent June 20, 2024.

8. Reuters, “Canada’s grocery chains pledge to help cut food prices,” Oct. 5, 2023.

9. Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), 44th Parliament, 1st Session, Royal Assent Dec. 8, 2021.

10. Government of Canada, "2030 Emissions Reduction Plan: Canada’s Next Steps for Clean Air and a Strong Economy," March 29, 2022.

11. House of Commons Debates, 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, Vol. 147, No. 165 (Feb. 26, 2015), at 11535 (Michael Chong).