{"id":2222,"date":"2017-07-18T12:37:38","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T16:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/akcollege\/?p=2222"},"modified":"2025-12-18T10:11:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T15:11:30","slug":"started-john-nater-bpapm-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/2017\/started-john-nater-bpapm-07\/","title":{"rendered":"How it all started for John Nater (BPAPM ’07)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n How it all started for John Nater (BPAPM ’07)\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
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The below information was taken from The Hill Times article written by Rachel Aiello<\/a>. Published Monday, July 10, 2017 12:00 AM.<\/em><\/p>\n

For rookie Conservative MP John Nater, it all started at an auction sale in his hometown of Mitchell, Ont. He was in his early teens and his MPP Hugh Edighoffer, a former speaker in the Ontario legislature, was selling some of his collection of books, including 30 years worth of Hansard from Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI bought all 300 or so hardbound copies of his Hansard for ten bucks,\u201d Mr. Nater tells The Hill Times<\/em>. \u201cThat was probably my first introduction to the procedure and practice side of things and I\u2019ve just been interested in it ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

His parents helped cart them home in the family pickup truck, and he\u2019s still holding onto the ones in good condition.<\/p>\n

Mr. Nater, now 33, says he\u2019s been keen on government and politics for as long as he can remember, and after poring over the hundreds of pages of his auction find, his penchant for parliamentary procedure was solidified. He\u2019s since went on to publish an academic paper on the evolution of the Thursday Question in 2014, and now has about two weeks of work left to complete his doctoral dissertation on government caucus meetings.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI completely accept it as nerdy. I\u2019ve always had an interest in government and politics,\u201d says Mr. Nater, who before being elected in 2015, served on his local municipal council, worked as a public servant at the Treasury Board Secretariat and Correctional Service of Canada, and completed a master\u2019s in public administration from Queen\u2019s University.<\/p>\n

Now, as the MP for Perth-Wellington, Ont., he\u2019s been able to use his procedural chops to challenge the government\u2019s usage and changes to the House rulebook, and to raise numerous points of order or questions of privilege with the House Speaker.<\/p>\n

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\u2018To actually be able to participate in that and potentially someday maybe be a footnote in one of the future editions of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice is a pretty honourable experience, something that is quite amazing for a farm boy from Logan Township to be part of,\u2019 says John Nater. Photo courtesy John Nater.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cTo actually be able to participate in that and potentially someday maybe be a footnote in one of the future editions of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice is a pretty honourable experience, something that is quite amazing for a farm boy from Logan Township to be part of,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Nater says he had considered running federally for a while, and when the time came for the riding\u2019s nomination in 2014, the timing wasn\u2019t ideal\u2014his wife had just given birth six weeks earlier to their first child, Ainsley\u2014but the two decided \u201cthere\u2019s no perfect timing in life,\u201d and so he filed his papers.<\/p>\n

He won the rural riding with 42.9 per cent of the vote, or by 2,775 votes. Ainsley will be three at the end of the month, and they\u2019ve since had a second child, Bennett, who just turned one.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s finding it fascinating to get to be a part of the world he\u2019d been reading about and observing for years, Mr. Nater says his schedule as an MP has put completing his PhD in political science from Western University on pause for now.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been chipping away at it since 2009, and says he\u2019s has about two weeks worth of work left to get his draft dissertation in shape to defend it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf I had two weeks of uninterrupted time I could probably finish \u2026 but the 2015 election came into play and I haven\u2019t found that two weeks of time yet,\u201d says Mr. Nater, adding that he\u2019s told his wife Justine that he wants to get it done \u201csooner rather than later,\u201d ideally, within this Parliament.<\/p>\n

For his dissertation, Mr. Nater has spoken with cabinet ministers and MPs that were in government between 1984 and 2011\u2014the Parliaments of Brian Mulroney, Jean Chr\u00e9tien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper\u2014 about how government caucus meetings during those years were organized and operated, the influence individual Members of Parliament had, how issues were advanced, and examples of where the government\u2019s policy direction changed as a result of concerns raised within caucus meetings.<\/p>\n

For his 2014 study and report on the Thursday Question\u2014the weekly post-Question Period time where the House leader for the official opposition asks the government House leader what will be on the agenda for the week following\u2014Mr. Nater analyzed the 278 times a Thursday Question was asked between January 2001 of the 37th<\/sup> Parliament and September 2013 of the 41st<\/sup> Parliament, and found that it\u2019s grown to be more of a long-winded political partisan tool than the original intent as a brief, direct, House management function. He presented his findings called: \u201cIt Being Thursday: The Weekly Business Statement in Minority and Majority Parliaments<\/em>\u201d at the Canadian Legal Sciences Association\u2019s 2014 annual conference, at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one aspect where there hasn\u2019t been anything written on it in any great degree. It\u2019s mentioned in O\u2019Brien and Bosc<\/em>, it\u2019s mentioned in the procedure manuals, but there\u2019s actually not any literature out there on it academically. So it was something that piqued my interest and spiked my curiosities,\u201d says Mr. Nater.<\/p>\n

As for his work in this Parliament, Mr. Nater has been able to use his procedural aptitude to raise a number of points of order or questions of privilege, including on the Thursday Question; over regarding relevancy of debate during Committee of the Whole; and on the appointment of the new clerk of the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

He also played a prominent role at the opposition-spawned Procedure and House Affairs Committee filibuster in March over the government\u2019s House rule changes. Over the 80 or so hours of the standoff at the committee, Mr. Nater made 122 interventions, according to the committee transcript. He enjoyed the experience so much he compared it to summer camp.<\/p>\n

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Conservative MP John Nater compared the multi-week PROC filibuster to \u2018summer camp.\u2019 The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThat was kind of like summer camp for politicians in a way. It was quite the experience \u2026 some people saw it as a bit of a punishment or unfortunate duty, but I actually quite enjoyed that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And his perspective on how the House of Commons is functioning procedurally so far in this Parliament? Mr. Nater says more could be done to better the overall workings that don\u2019t require amendments to the Standing Orders, like more effective scheduling of votes, or optimistically, better collaboration between the three House leaders when it comes to setting the House agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can always improve how we operate,\u201d says Nater, who acknowledges it can be frustrating sometimes to see how things could be running smoother. He says based off of their use of procedural maneuvers, the Liberal government are coming off as novices when it comes to matters of the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they are using checkers instead of chess,\u201d says Nater.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s one of what\u2019s likely just a handful of MPs that have read the often referenced O\u2019Brien and Bosc<\/em>\u2014the latest edition of the House of Commons procedure and practice handbook, colloquially named after its editors, past House clerks Audrey O\u2019Brien and Marc Bosc\u2014in addition to other procedural manuals, like Arthur Beauchesne\u2019s Parliamentary Rules and Forms of the House of Commons of Canada<\/em>, but has yet to be offered a formal role amongst the Conservative House leadership team. For now he says he\u2019s happy to offer his takes with colleagues in the opposition lobby or while walking the Centre Block corridors. He\u2019s also the vice-chair of the House Official Languages Committee.<\/p>\n

And even a procedural whiz like him is finding out new rules all the time, like, did you know you can\u2019t use potatoes as props in the House?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems silly, but it\u2019s written down,\u201d says Mr. Nater.<\/p>\n

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The below information was taken from The Hill Times article written by Rachel Aiello. Published Monday, July 10, 2017 12:00 AM. For rookie Conservative MP John Nater, it all started at an auction sale in his hometown of Mitchell, Ont. He was in his early teens and his MPP Hugh Edighoffer, a former speaker in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2276,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222\/revisions\/2276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/bpapm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}