Manon Corneiller in today's Le Devoir has a scathing evaluation of the Stephen Harper and his majority government, with a sidelong attack on our parliamentary system. In the US, she notes, the president has no guarantee of getting his program through, since the House and Senate can--and frequently do--block what he wants to do. But a majority government in Canada can do whatever it damn well pleases, as wel have been seeing lately.
This is fundamentally undemocratic, of course. Corneiller adds that this is nothing new: a year ago Jeffrey Simpson even published a book about Jean Chrétien called The Friendly Dictatorship.
What is new is the extent to which Harper has pushed "control, centralization, intransigence, intimidation and the exploitation of each weakness in our system to attain his ends, " she says. And she ends with a telling anecdote: in 2010 Harper took off at high speed across the landing strip at Tuktoyutuk on an all-terrain vehicle. When asked if he had necessary permission to do so, he answered simply: "I make the rules."
It seems to this anti-monarchist that ERII follows more rules than this guy does.
Cartoon by Tom Dolighan.
2 comments:
When Steven Harper headed a minority government, there was no guarantee that he couild get his program through, just as in the States, the president has no guarantee in a minority situation.
A majority in America in house and Senate would allow the governing party to 'do whatever it damn well pleases'.
we don't have dictators in Canada, we have elections with all parties allowed to run.
More and more, as certain politicians respect the principles of democracy less and less, we have elections that choose our dictator. This is made worse when you have supposedly respectable people like the Premier of Saskatchewan claiming that coalition governments, part of the bulwark of our Westminster parliamentary system, are illegal and unconstitutional.
Post a Comment