Welcome to 2010 and The Further Decline of Democracy
| 1/2/2010 | Posted by Patti under Canadian Politics |
Well here we go again, the start of a new year and Harper has once again shuttered Parliament for his own partisan, butt protecting purposes. He’s trying, well actually his spokespeople since he’s too arrogant to bother addressing the people he never listens to anyways, to present this closure of parliament as ‘routine’.
One of his mouthpieces used the example of Chretien proroguing Parliament four times. He failed to note that was four times in TEN years in power. Harper has been in power FOUR years and has prorogued Parliament THREE times, twice in the last year. There is nothing routine about this flip of the bird towards the seat of our democracy.
Just what was Governor General Jean thinking when she allowed this arrogant pup to not only shut down this session but to do so over the phone? The message he sent her was clear, you are my puppet and I don’t even care enough about Canada’s democratic processes to even appear to go through the motions.
As GG, Madame Jean is also Commander in Chief of our Canadian Armed Forces, a role she appears to take rather seriously. She needs to realize that responsibility is more than inspecting or visiting troops or wearing the uniform on Remembrance Day. She has a responsibility to uphold the values of the country those men and women fight to defend.
GG Jean had the power to say ‘no’ to his ‘request’ and certainly had lots of reasons not to grant it.
On the day she apparently so casually allowed Harper to dictate the closure of Parliament four more young Canadians, one who looks barely old enough to shave let alone fight, and a journalist died in Afghanistan. On Christmas Day an attempt to bring down an airliner headed into the US failed. Had it succeeded, the death and destruction would have landed on southwestern Ontario.
The perpetrators of those acts are part of an insurgency which finds roots and safe haven in weak and failed states. States without effective democratic governments and people who are empowered to hold the feet of the government to the fire to keep them safe.
The Governor General has a duty and a responsibility to make the tough decisions which stops a Prime Minister of any political stripe from abusing his power. Allowing him to prorogue last year so soon after an election and to avoid a potential constitutional crisis — the vote of confidence he ran from — could have created was questionable.
Allowing him to prorogue at this time and allowing him to run from the motion passed by the majority in the House ordering the government to produce unredacted documents to those investigating the detainee issue, that is unforgivable.
The Governor General has abdicated her responsibilities to the Canadian people and in doing so allows a not so benign dictator to abuse the powers of our democracy.
I find it hard to believe that even Conservatives are not questioning the lengths Harper will go to avoid taking responsibility for his or his minions behaviour. Surely grassroots Conservatives are not so hungry to stay in government they condone a leader who is such a control freak he muzzles his cabinet and caucus with an iron fist to bend them to his will and when he can’t do the same to the Opposition, he shutters Parliament?
Surely grassroots Conservatives want to know if the leadership had a hand in the RCMPs abrupt public announcement during the 2006 campaign of a criminal investigation which clearly swayed the outcome of the election even though it proved to be an investigation without merit?
Surely grassroots Conservatives want to know if the in and out scheme used during the 2006 election campaign did constitute electoral fraud? Surely they want those responsible if it was brought to justice just as much as they wanted those responsible for the Sponsorship Scandal brought to justice? The election Harper abruptly called in 2008 terminated the work of the Ethics Committee and their attempt to get to the bottom of the issue.
In that election the majority of those who voted elected someone other than a Conservative. Keep in mind only about 40% of eligible Canadians voted in that election which means only a small percentage of Canadians actually voted for the Conservatives. Under our system of government, Harper could only remain Prime Minister as long as he could maintain the confidence of the majority of those in the House of Commons.
When he clearly failed to recognize the depth and importance of the economic recession he had attempted to deny was even taking place during the election campaign, he lost the confidence of the House. He galvanized the Opposition parties into taking clear action and presenting a viable alternative to calling another election so soon after the previous one. That sent him running to the Governor General to buy himself time to present some real action or at least the promise of real action to the people.
So, here we are a year later. We now have a record deficit staring us in the face. A Prime Minister and Finance Minister who are trying to claim there will be not increases in taxes to deal with this but are not yet saying what is going to be cut in order to rebalance the books. Not sure many are truly buying that line, especially Conservatives.
They travel around giving speeches about how well Canada has weathered the global downturn like they had created the policies which laid the groundwork for Canada to do as well as we did — which really hasn’t been great. The fact is had Harper attained a majority before the downturn hit, he was bent on undoing the very policies which in the end served to protect us, policies the Liberals created.
The economy and how to deal with it is up for debate. At this point, the Liberals haven’t produced a clear vision of what they would do any differently so the Conservatives were getting a pretty easy ride.
Then the Afghanistan detainee issue arose. Now, unless the government really has something to hide on this issue, they apparently could have done some mea culpas, disclosed what had happened in 2006-2007, showed how they had fixed the problem and life could have moved on. They could have given full disclosure to the Military Complaints Commission who were charged with investigating the matter and chances are Canadians would have heard little about the issue.
Instead, control freak Harper and his minions set out to try to intimidate those called to testify, refused to release complete documents (even though the members of the commission have high enough security clearances) and generally worked to impede the operation of the Commission to the point that Opposition MPs had to take up the struggle. Witnesses who did testify were branded by the Conservatives as traitors, liars, Taliban lovers and non-supporters of our troops amongst other choices.
Frustrated at every turn by the governments stonewalling, the Opposition parties passed a motion imposing the supremacy of Parliament which Harper vowed to ignore. The stage was set for what would have been a rather interesting test of Parliamentary will. Something Harper had long thundered about the absence of from the Opposition benches during his time there.
Once more, Harper ran to the GG and shut down the House rather than face the music. For a guy who loves to wrap himself in the flag and pledge his undying love and respect for our men and women in uniform, it’s too bad he doesn’t have even an ounce of the courage and leadership they display every day when they go out on patrol in Afghanistan.
This country needs a democratic leader, not a tinpot dictator.
Nice Work, Patti. Well Written.
Harper once said " Canada will not be the same place when I have finished with it " and he was right !@!
It's a sad situation alright but the disdain Harper shows for our democracy pales in comparison to the disgraceful lack of interest shown by Canadian people – formerly good people who have allowed themselves to be bought by a small cut in the GST, who are becoming so mean spirited that they are complicit in the character assasination of good men like Mr Dion and Mr Colvin and who will I feel certain, live to rue the day they give this bully a majority.