Ask politicians about their chosen vocation and they'll likely tell you it's a noble art.

A down-and dirty, kneeling-in-the-trenches, noble art. 

And it would be hard to disagree.

Debates in the House of Commons have stooped to mean-spirited farce ... not verbal sparring and jousting so much as a flurry of partisan sucker punches.

Relations between the governing party and the opposition parties are toxic enough that one wonders whether counselors should be brought in.

It's bad enough that former federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has mused about whether our entire structure of governance - parliamentary democracy - is being fatally poisoned by the venom being sprayed around Ottawa.

Mr. Ignatieff is an award-winning journalist, historian and novelist, and now a professor of political science at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.