On the whole, I'd rather pound nails through my eardrums than listen to a podcast of Cross-Country Checkup, but I did hear a little of yesterday's program live on CBC Radio 1, and I distinctly heard Stephen Owen, lawyer, former federal MP and cabinet minister, argue that Parliament would work better and leaders be more accountable if MPs hired and fired their own leaders.
Too bad he didn't seem to push that idea when he actually was an MP. But I felt a little glow to hear someone even remotely connected to the Canadian political process acknowledge the existence of this notion. As faithful readers may have gathered, it's been an idée fixe of mine for years, argued out in 1867: How the Fathers Made A Deal and this essay.
