Monday, June 08, 2009

That's your Democracy Dying

And it's whimpering away, quietly in the night.

Minister Raitt, quoting leading bankers at a meeting of Council of Chief Executives:
“They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, ‘Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,’”

Is this a real quote? Is it even close to accurate? Is it paraphrasing a more subtle, veiled message?

John McCallum, Liberal finance critic, had this to say of the quote:
“That’s absolutely ridiculous. Can you imagine a bank president standing up in a room like that with more than 100 people in the room and saying something like that? It makes no sense.”

Yes, John, I can believe it.

I have no trouble at all believing that very wealthy people are indeed in control of our economy and our country.

There is nothing the least bit incredible about that.

And the fact that both Harper and Ignatieff are enslaved to their election funds is no surprise either.

Look what happened to Stephane Dion. He wasn't part of the business elite. He wasn't anointed by the wealthy. He received no funding and his bid for power ended.

We know who you people are. We know what you're up to. It's nice to have you out in the open, though. Thanks for that.

h/t Galloping Beaver

Recommend this PostProgressive Bloggers

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indeed. It is outrageous for a small group of large unaccountable corporations to be deciding Canada's future, but it is out of the bag and I wonder if many Canadians will notice that part of the story, wonder and finally discuss it.

Reading your post suddenly made me realize they may know our limits as well. Something tells me Canadians won't be lead into anything they don't want and one thing they don't want is an election. If a summer election is called a bit more of our democracy will disappear, which serves the 2 party system.

Anonymous said...

McCallum's defence is so pathetic it's a real surprise to see Liberal bloggers repeating it.

Of course the warning would be slightly more subtle than a Sopranos episode, but that doesn't take much.

The Liberals need Bay Street's money and they can't get it if they piss off the bankers while their asking for it. It's as simple as that.