An analysis from The Economist estimates that one-fifth of all of the words spoken in our House of Commons originally came from digital asbestos. That same analysis puts us on par with Australia, whereas the UK Parliament’s House of Commons is about one-tenth (though it also found the House of Lords at a higher percentage). At first blush, this figure seems high, if only because supposed “AI-detectors” are not necessarily that accurate, and we have a high degree of rote speechifying in our Parliament, in large part because MPs especially rely on the talking points supplied to them by their leaders’ offices, while backbench MPs have access to speeches written by civil servants on the topic of certain bills (and yes, I do find this practice absolutely scandalous). On the other hand, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me because our parliamentarians are so reliant on scripts that they don’t write themselves that learning that those who prepare these speeches are offloading the process onto digital asbestos would be fitting—especially because the Carney government is so committed to boosting the use of this digital asbestos.
The solution to this, of course, is to ban prepared speeches, which we should have done decades ago. As I wrote in my book, there is a 1956 Speaker’s ruling about the only acceptable uses of prepared speeches that we need to return to, because the current state of affairs is untenable. There is no excuse for MPs to spend their days reading prepared speeches into the record that nobody pays attention to, only to fill time. You can get battle droids to do this job (and vote on command for the party line). If we want to reclaim our Parliament, the first step is banning these speeches and changing the speaking clocks so we don’t have MPs just filling time for twenty-minute stretches. Continuing with the status quo is just ridiculous at this point.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Russia’s attacks overnight Thursday killed eight and damaged a maternity hospital. President Zelenskyy warned Russia that he would make the coming winter deeply painful for Russia unless they can come to an energy infrastructure truce.
Noteworthy:
- The Canadian Shield Institute calls on the Maple 8 pension funds to invest just three percent of their assets in Canadian growth firms.
- Paul Wells talks to Jonathan Wilkinson about his new job in Europe, and the kinds of discussion the government is having with the EU about a closer alliance.
Is it any surprise that this is the guy trying to "negotiate" with the White House about Alberta separation?
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-09-25T01:36:01.140Z
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