Globe and Mail editorial: Silent Parliament, forgotten roots

[tuvor]

Today, Parliament sits silent, shuttered by one man. It is a sad day for Canadians who see how estranged their government has become from the country's democratic lifeblood. Not only that: Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament is an abrogation of the principles he and his party arose to defend.

Canada has a parliamentary government, by the executive (the prime minister and the cabinet, as delegated by the Queen and her governor-general) but accountable and responsible to the people, via its representatives (the House of Commons). This, in short, is our democracy, established after considerable struggle. But it is not a convenience or a steady state, and it has been tested by overreaching executives from its inception. From time to time, an unease about that grasp has moved Canadians to action. For instance, in the late 1980s, an era of backroom constitutional deal-making, it helped prompt the birth of a new party, and these words in one of that party's foundational documents:

“Many of our most serious problems as a country can be traced to the apathy and non-involvement of Canadians in public affairs, and to decisions that too frequently ignore the popular will…. We believe in accountability of elected representatives to the people who elect them, and that the duty of elected members to their constituents should supersede their obligations to their political parties.”

Stephen Harper wrote that. The words are from the 1988 platform he penned as policy director for the nascent Reform Party.

This was no mere platitude...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/silent-parliament-forgotten-roots/article1442586/

[glarius]

1. For God's sake....it is so obvious...Harper will say or do anything

to get what he wants! He pretended to be a middle of the road kind of guy to gain the trust of the Canadian people. He knew that if we knew who he really was, he would never have become Prime Minister. The man is not only a control freak, which has been pointed out many times during his "reign", but he is actually a dictator...bent on remaking Canada in his own image.
We should be thankful that the man is so supremely self-obsessed that he made blunders along the way...the worst of which was proroguing parliament twice in one year. This, I hope will be the straw that broke the camel's back.