The week in commentary: MyDemocracy.ca is great agree, or strongly agree?

Survey: Do you support a referendum on electoral reform OR do you want a free box of doughnuts?

That's roughly how sophisticated the Liberals' questions are on their MyDemocracy.ca survey. That's why, during question period, MPs from both opposition parties came together to make fun of the ruling party for its approach to electoral reform. Here are a couple of excerpts courtesy of the Globe Politics Briefing:

NDP MP Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, watching the Liberals' electoral reform process is like watching that bus in Montreal slowly sliding down the icy hill, mesmerizing disaster in slow motion.

Conservative MP Scott Reid: Based on people's responses, the website groups them as a guardian, a challenger, a co-operator, a fossilor a snowflake. I found out I am a unicorn. The shared values of unicorns include rainbows, sparklesand ranked ballots. My question to the minister is this:Will she now share with Canadians the identities of the academics who advised the Liberals to model their survey on the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts?

Ah, nothing like collective polite outrage to bring people together over the holidays.

Ban all chanting

Conservative leadership candidates who are not Kellie Leitch continue begging the nation for attention. Chris Alexander found himself in an odd spot when attendees at a rally in Alberta chanted "Lock her up" in reference to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Brad Trost put himself in an awkward spot by backing it on Twitter. Rumour has it all the other candidates have started a support group for Conservatives who have real ideas about policy.

"You can actually respect people and understand their frustration while also believing we should hold ourselves to halfway-decent standards in the way we talk politics," writes the ever-optimistic Tyler Dawson in the Ottawa Citizen.

Tasha Kheiriddin, writing for iPolitics, doesn't mince her words. "Dictators jail their political opponents. Extremists on both the left and right habitually call for the imprisonment of those who espouse policies they find offensive. It's a position that has no place in a free society here,or anywhere else. Even Trump himself has back-pedalled on his own rhetoric, saying he won't prosecute Clinton despite having earned millions of votes by promising to do so."

In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hbert rips into Chris Alexander for not standing up to the crowd. "Alexander left diplomacy for elected politics less than a decade ago. At the time he was considered a star recruit. But the go-along-to-get-along attitude that may have been an asset in diplomatic circles has not served him well in politics. This is not the first time he has missed an opportunity to show that he is neither tone-deaf nor spineless."

Accommodating people with disabilities

For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Paul Sawka wrote about the need for employees to give people with disabilities a chance. "There are many people with disabilities who want a job and are able to work. Did you know that most times we will stay longer at a job than other people? And we take less sick days. We are so proud when we have a job," Sawka said.

At the Globe and Mail, Rick Hansen notes that despite one in seven people living with a disability in Canada, accessibility is a major issue. "Canadians see a large gap between how accessible private buildings currently are and how accessible they ought to be," he says. "The public also views one of the biggest obstacles to making accessibility a reality as the cost and difficulty of either designing fully accessible new buildings, or renovating those that aren't."

Perhaps we should put people before profit and make sure those living with disabilities in Canada won't have to fight for basic rights. Just a thought.

Etc.

Black students in our schools need to have more support, writes Phillip Dwight Morgan for the CBC. "While boards across the country endeavour to root out the unfair treatment that many students of colour particularly black boys face in the classroom, mothers are still often the ones tasked to protect their kids inside their schools, from the outside."

At iPolitics, Sheila Pratt says it's time to re-open the Somalia probe. A drug used by both Canadian troops and Somalis to treat malaria has been said to cause psychological damage.

And Elizabeth Renzetti in the Globe and Mail asks if the tweets of a seven-year-old girl in Syria can "shock us into action."

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