The Royal Canadian Parliament Hill Softball League

While it makes sense that there will be differing opinions in the House of Commons, there is no written rule that parties have to disagree, or that a representative needs to think more about the colour of their election sign than the issue at hand.

It is tempting, and natural, to think like those who are “on your team”. In fact, sports fans have been shown to see close calls differently than the fans supporting the opposing team. The home team’s fans are raised out of their La-z-Boys advising the TV that the ref is blind; a thousand kilometers away, otherwise similar fans reach for another handful of Munchies, unaware of any such injustice.

In Parliament, we can use human team-think to counter itself. Once a week, MPs could be required to join their assigned team in the Royal Canadian Parliament Hill Slo-pitch League, a team of mixed party colours.

New team bonds will be formed when the Ottawa Policy Rangers take on the Rideau Hall Capital Punishment. Even a bottom of the barrel rec league game is an emotionally intense event for many people. And we know that shared emotionally intense events are some of the best bonding agents for humans. Conservative MPs could not help but to consider NDPers to be their own. When it comes to business time, they would be more likely to relate to each other as caring, empathetic beings.

The House Party of Canada mandatory beer league proposal may not work, but the worst case scenario is actually still an improvement. Team fees for softball are only about $50/player, a good deal for the joy we’d all get from watching MP beer league bloopers, finally getting some value from all the salaries of the dead-weight backbenchers who have no voice anyway.