- Dan Leger worries about the consequences of the Cons' faith-based government:
Despite the big majority and many years left in its mandate, the government seems to operate in a constant state of fear and insecurity.- And sadly the Cons offered a jarring case in point today, proclaiming that they intend to hack away at future health-care funding levels contrary to their election promises.
How else to explain the attempts to closet Commons committee hearings behind closed doors? What else would explain denying every single amendment proposed by the opposition, restricting debate and invoking closure on so many bills, muzzling the public service or employing "reprehensible" dirty tricks to undermine a sitting Liberal MP? In Harper’s Ottawa, even cabinet meetings are scheduled and held in secret.
...
How about debate? To the current government, parliamentary debate is mere distraction. No sooner is a bill introduced than the government invokes closure and the legislation is hustled down the track. Some people think democratic debate is fundamental to parliamentary rule. The government wants us to believe that we can now do without it.
Judging by their success in the election, a lot of Canadians took a leap of faith on the Tory promise to create a new era of accountability after the misdeeds of the bad old Liberals. They were supposed to make government more democratic and responsive. It hasn’t turned out that way. Government has become ever more remote and hostile.
- Alison does some digging on the history of Campaign Research - and it shouldn't come as much surprise that the Cons' dirty tricksters have been on the receiving end of government largesse as well as partisan spending.
- Finally, John Geddes chronicles how CAPP earned itself a veto over museum exhibits about the tar sands.
They're cowards. Slugs hiding under a rock behind closed doors. The light of the truth burns them and makes them actually have to WORK for their inflated salaries, and those of their many many partisan staffers.
ReplyDeleteI think that this finally provides conclusive proof that our system of govenrment is deeply flawed. We have a system in which approximately 20% of our adult population elects a dictatorship which the rest of us are simply forced to live with. Anyone who doesn't advocate for some significant reforms to our system really must not be interested in democracy, liberty, and the long-term survival of the nation.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the same self-obsessed Cons will have plenty of means at their disposal to prevent any systemic reform long after they've lost any trace of legitimate power. (Want PR as a means of better reflecting voter preferences and encouraging cooperation and compromise? They'll have a Senate majority to block it for ages even after they finally get turfed from power.)
ReplyDeleteAs disastrous as their stay in office has been, we haven't yet begun to see the damage they figure to do.