Here, on how Mark Adler's C-520 looks to undermine public participation in all Canadian political parties - including the Conservatives who are pushing it.
I'll add here one point which didn't make it into the column. While there's obviously a need for independent institutions to act impartially, there's also a need for them to have some familiarity with the systems they're charged with overseeing. And if the Cons succeed in ensuring that regulators can't have any personal knowledge of what they're supposed to be regulating, the result may be far more damaging than the type of unsupported assertion of partisanship that's encouraged by Adler's bill.
For further reading...
- Alex Boutilier offers an introduction to the bill.
- David Doorey writes about the lack of protection for political views in many workplaces across the country.
- And Lawrence Martin worries that the effect of the bill will be entirely partisan (at least as long as the Cons remain in office).
Nice column. I also think that the right in particular has for some time now been in the business of strategically depressing political participation in general. But I think mentioning that would have opened a can of worms too many for one column to handle.
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