How could the Governor General possibly do this?
Let's suppose I'm the mayor of Ottawa. I spent my entire term kicking babies, shutting down libraries and getting drunk. Everyone hates me.
It's the day after the election. The polls demonstrate that I'm going to lose by a landslide. The Election Returns Officer has the poll counts, ready to be announced. I go over to him and I say, "Listen, I want you to not announce the vote totals for the next two months. I'll just go on quietly being mayor and making decisions without the will of the people behind me."
And the Returns Officer says .... "Yes"?
What?
I'm not living in a democracy right now. I never have, of course. The country has always been ruled by a slight minority which possessed a majority of seats in the House of Commons. But this is even worse. Even by the rules of our representative Parliament, this is a violation of democracy.
This is just as bad as the Returns Officer in the analogy above. The Governor General has a letter sitting in front of her that says Stephen Harper does not have the confidence of the house. All she has to do is sit back and make him face the counting. Instead she's used her royal power to set this count aside.
We're being ruled by a leader who has no respect for opposing viewpoints and no accountability.
I don't what we're living in now, but it's nothing at all like a democracy.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
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4 comments:
My sentiments exactly.
I just dropped by the Edmonton anti-democracy rally. They rallied in front of the not-yet-open NDP constituency office of democratically elected MP Linda Duncan (although I wish it had been through Prop. Rep.). Lots of horns honking in support. I fear for the direction of this province.
We have a hypocrital lying (I was going to say prime minister, but that word seems too... democratic) executive branch of government.
Well, Greg, let me explain something about democracy. Democracies respect the will of the people through voting. The public voted in October, and chose not only to return the Conservatives to power, but to do so with a strengthened caucus and a weakened Official Opposition.
Decent democrats accept the will of the people. Delusional babies like Dion and Layton, to use your schoolyard metaphor, cry "no fair" and write a letter to the teacher demanding they be chosen for the track team despite being far too slow.
But I feel a little sorry for you, because without God, politics is religion, and your religion has let you down.
The democratic election of which you speak elected 143 right wing MPs and 165 odd left wing and left centre MPs. That means, despite the vote splitting, there are more left wing MPs than right wing.
Pick an issue. Abortion? Death Penalty? Gay marriage? Healthcare? The right wing party sits on one side, the left wing parties sit on the other. Why on earth would the left wing parties let the right wing party dictate terms?
This is how our democracy works. We elect representatives. They pick a government.
The silly thing is that if Harper hadn't antagonized the left wing parties by threatening to retroactively bankrupt them, they probably would have let him slide in to government. Sheer stupidity on his part and his party will likely take him to task for it.
There are plenty of red tories in the Conservative caucus, and plenty of social conservatives in the Liberal caucus.
Ah, the old "The knives are out for Harper" canard the left and the Globe always fantasizes about. I think I heard that one in 2004...and 2005...and 2006...explain to me how you come to this conclusion, when he hit 44% in the polls today!
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