A parting message

In addition to announcing his retirement, Inky Mark has gone public with some well-deserved criticism of the top-down politics exemplified by the Harper Cons:

The day he announced his retirement from politics, Manitoba MP Inky Mark took a veiled stab at the centralized power in the Prime Minister's Office, suggesting members of Parliament needed to stop toeing party lines and work for their constituents so that "people actually do have a say."
...
"There is no check and balance," Mr. Mark told the National Post. "The tone of the country is based on the leadership of the political parties. The way the leaders operate sets the mood of the politics in Parliament.

"And until we establish some checks and balances in the system so that people actually do have a say in the House, there really [are] free votes and that people can really represent the people who send them to Ottawa, nothing will change."

It's only a shame that Mark's own example (which as noted in the article included several noteworthy votes where he bucked the Cons' instructions) hasn't managed to convince a few more MPs to follow suit. But hopefully his parting message will be noticed by his constituents and other politicians alike as they decide whether or not Harper's one-man rule should be replaced by more respect for Parliament and the views of constituents.