Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Tories begin to gag on PM's duct tape

During the years that Stephen Harper was leader of the Opposition, and then a minority prime minister, his staffers worked around the clock to keep duct tape over the mouths of many of his MPs and for good reason.

In 2004, when the Conservatives were poised to beat Paul Martin’s Liberals, the Tory campaign went off the rails when some backbenchers shot off their mouths.

First, Cheryl Gallant compared abortion to a beheading. Then, Randy White said the Conservatives would overrule the courts on same-sex marriage.

This lined up with the Liberals’ attacks on the Conservatives as scary weirdos. The desperate Liberals hammered their point home with vicious attack ads and saved their bacon.

Harper reacted by exercising greater control over his MPs, which paid off in the election of 2006.

As prime minister, he turned the screws tighter, letting young staffers in his office deliver telephone tongue-lashings to those who stray from talking points, even dressing down cabinet ministers.

That level of control was possible because MPs understood it was necessary.

Now that the Conservatives have a majority, it is getting harder for them to see why they should be walking around with duct tape over their mouths.

Two weeks ago, Saskatchewan MP Brad Trost, who has bridled at message control over abortion, declared that he would speak his mind from now on.

A few days later, Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, whose daughter was murdered in 2002, said that murderers should be provided with ropes in their cells, so that they could hang themselves. He later apologized.

On Monday, MP Stephen Woodworth held a news conference to discuss the rights of the unborn. Before he could finish, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson sent an email to reporters pointing out that Harper has promised to block such debates.

Woodworth won’t accept the duct tape, but Harper made it plain that anyone who wants to stay in his good books had best keep the tape in place.

On Tuesday, during a debate on the Conservative bill to kill the gun registry, Larry Miller compared Liberal supporters of the registry to Adolf Hitler.

As Michael Den Tandt wrote Friday, Miller is a hard-working constituency MP, a gruffly charming former beef farmer who listens to his people.

He looks like a fellow who can tell the front end of a steer from the other end, but he is over his head when he starts comparing his opponents to Hitler.

The Liberals didn’t bring in the gun registry as part of a plan to commit genocide and Miller had to apologize for his idiocy later in the day.

“It was inappropriate to use his name,” he said.

The next day, though, he told a hometown reporter that he wasn’t really sorry: “I apologized to anyone who was offended, but the truth is the truth and what he (Hitler) did at the time was his men went around and collected all the guns from the Jews. So I was just pointing out the similarities. That didn’t happen in Canada, but it could have.”

No, Mr. Miller, it couldn’t have, because the Liberals aren’t Nazis, and you make yourself look foolish by linking them.

Miller will have no grounds to complain when some junior staffers pop by his Hill office on Monday with a roll of duct tape.

After they’re done with Miller, they ought to visit the much grander offices occupied by Nicholson, although Nicholson is powerful enough to dodge them.

While Miller was in the House, the justice minister was testifying down the hall at Justice committee, explaining the logic behind Bill C-26 — the Citizen’s Arrest and Self-defence Act, which was inspired by David Chen, the owner of the landmark Lucky Moose Food Mart in Toronto’s Chinatown.

Toronto Police charged Chen in 2009 after he tied up a shoplifter who ripped him off.

Tory MP Brian Jean asked Nicholson whether a homeowner would be justified firing warning shots at someone trying to steal an ATV from their yard.

“Every case is decided on its own, but the individual who has people, for instance, coming on to their property, stealing, destroying or trying to take possession of their property, the individual who shows a firearm — again, it’s what is reasonable under the circumstances,” said Nicholson.

Don’t listen to him. If somebody tries to steal an ATV from your yard, leave your shotgun in its locker, grit your teeth and call the police.

Nicholson angrily defended his comments later in question period, insisting that the Liberals were sticking up for “the bad guys” by questioning him.

Nicholson could benefit from duct tape when he gets worked up like that, but Chen has learned his lesson.

In 2010, when a judge wisely threw out the case against him, the shopkeeper was asked what advice he had for those dealing with thieves: “The advice is, be careful, call the police early, as soon as possible.”

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen 
Author: Stephen Maher 

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