In this age of partisanship at all costs, the spirit of political co-operation and compromise is something that seems to have fallen out of favour in political discussion.
We've heard a little more about it south of the border since U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election. With a looming debt crisis and the political reality that extremist in the Republican Party did not do it any favours at polls, American politicians have been talking a lot more about what they call bi-partisanship approach.
But with the deep divisions in today's American politics, any sense of co-operation is likely to be short-lived.
Here in Canada where we once prided ourselves as being a nation of consensus, there has been little co-operation on the federal scene.
The warfare between the Liberals and the then-minority Conservatives in the last Parliament was positively tribal. And it's likely worsened since Prime Minster Stephen Harper's Conservatives majority government that's been eager to ram through changes in huge omnibus bills.
Even here in co-operative-minded Saskatchewan, one can find two or three cases of mindless and stubborn feuding for every example of reasonability.
For example, Premier Brad Wall deserves credit for at least exploring a Heritage Fund as promoted by the NDP in last year's election. But such rare incidents of consensus have been overshadowed by the massive labour law changes and an irrational refusal to consider that the elimination of the Film Tax Credit might have been an economic error,
It leaves one with overall impression that compromise is something that doesn't happen much at the Saskatchewan Legislature. The deep political divisions are a reality in province where there seems to be a lot of distance on the political spectrum between the NDP and the Saskatchewan Party.
However, there have been a couple occasions of late, the Sask. Party government and the NDP Opposition have seemed to be able to find common ground on a couple of rather important issues.
The first is in regard to greater protection of night-shift retail workers, a private member's bill called Jimmy's Law, tirelessly promoted for a year now by NDP labour critic David Forbes.
In honour of Yorkton gas attendant Jimmy Wiebe who was shot to death 18 months in a robbery, Forbes promoted a series of security measures including requiring employers to have two people on during such shifts.
Labour Minister Don Morgan rejected that aspect of the proposed law as too onerous on small businesses. However, he did adopt Forbes's suggestions for increased video surveillance, minimal cash on hand and employees wearing lanyards with panic buttons.
Again, it wasn't everything the NDP wanted, but it was a case of both sides demonstrating a lot of wisdom and compromise.
This is how things should work in government.
Similarly, a change to government policy that will result in an online registry of older public buildings with asbestos is another example of government somewhat listening to a good Opposition idea.
NDP MLA Cam Broten pushed for a mandatory requirement that all school divisions and health regions legally provide this information on asbestos. This was the notion advocated by former building inspector Howard Willems, who died Friday of asbestos-related cancer.
Morgan's argument, however, is that many school divisions and health regions can't possibly know what's in their older buildings. For that reason, it is better to have an online guideline and for anyone involved in renovation or demolition of such older buildings to assume asbestos insulation is a possibility.
One suspects that the government may be little too worried about lawsuits and costs of compliance.
That said, we are better off to have some level of awareness of asbestos than none at all. At the very least, it's a good first step.
And such positive change only happen when politicians actually listen to each and decide to co-operate.
