The reviews are in

Carol Goar:

For the past 35 years, Liberal and Conservative prime ministers have weakened Parliament to strengthen their own grip on power. Harper has gone further than any of his predecessors, capitalizing on an ineffective opposition and a tuned-out populace.

If you think this slide toward one-man government is fine, a shuttered Parliament is no problem. If want to preserve the fragile safeguards that remain, it is.

The stakes go beyond the here-and-now, beyond Harper's political tactics, beyond the ill-tempered, unproductive wrangling in the House of Commons.

If Parliament loses its legitimacy, your children and their children will have no institution capable of reining in an autocratic leader or a government that is out of control.

If people with talent, fresh ideas and clear principles give up on Parliament, the best hope of fixing it will be lost.

It may not bother you if democracy is diminished.

It does trouble Canadians who believe the rights their forebears fought and died to protect are worth defending.