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.]

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

A Canadian Spring for Harperland?

Now that Stephen Harper has had his Wizard of Oz moment, can a Canadian Spring be far behind?

The curtain has been well and truly whipped away from the PM’s self-promoting deceptions and he is revealed for what he is: a power-tripper on a mission to give Canada an extreme makeover that only the super-rich and the semi-comatose could endorse. And he is doing it with virtually no debate, creating something of a new phenomenon in Canadian politics; sole-source public policy.

We have Peter MacKay to thank for the official revelation — belated though it was. The minister of defensiveness has finally dished after weeks of embarrassing prevarications. It turns out the whole Harper cabinet was in on the F-35 whopper, an exercise that both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General saw for what it was — a studied deception.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office had an even better description of the same process stateside. The Pentagon’s top weapons’ purchaser, Frank Kendall, said the plan to buy the F-35 was “acquisitions malpractice.” In this country, two sets of books were produced – one containing the real scoop, the other the “communications” version for the Great Unwashed. It turns out interim Liberal leader Bob Rae was dead right — the PM and cabinet knew they were lying to Canadians about the true costs of the F-35 during an election and Stephen Harper is ultimately accountable.

This is not “strong, stable government” a la Harper’s PR mantra. It is oppressive, dictatorial regime-building that would do any petro-state proud.

It is also the de-confederation of the country and the death spiral of independent information bearers. The war machine is more important than the social safety net. Canada can apparently have $45 billion jets and $800,000 military fly-overs, but must rein in the Old Age Supplement and cut food inspectors. The PM can blow $45,000 in public money on a baseball junket (why on earth was Harper’s official photographer along for the ride?), but 19,000 public servants must lose their jobs. And if these institutional thugs lose a seat in an election they lust after, there’s a plan B – gerrymander the riding, as they may well do in Saanich-Gulf Islands, where Green Party leader Elizabeth May knocked off former cabinet sock-puppet Gary Lunn.

As for Parliament, what’s Parliament? Something to ignore, shutter, or the favored option, to geld.

“Stephen Harper hates me” say the blue buttons of PSAC. I don’t know if they have it right. But there is a compelling argument to be made that he is at least contemptuous of Canadians. The buffet of proof offers ample choice, but let’s start with this morsel. Parliament voted unanimously to end the combat mission in Afghanistan. No mixed message, no subtleties, no hedging. Yet the PM now says “all options are on the table” and that Canadian special forces may stay in-country beyond the unanimously agreed upon end of the mission. The point is unmistakable: Harper sees himself as above the institution that used to be the pinnacle of our governance. He had to choose between Parliament and the Pentagon and chose the Pentagon.

And speaking of contemptuous. The polls tell us that 75 per cent of Canadians want more, not less environmental protection. In response, the prime minister has gutted environmental legislation like a fifty-cent fish. From his first weeks in office in 2006, his filleting knife has been busy. He cancelled the Kyoto Commitments, pulled the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change off the Environment Canada website, and struck the phrase “sustainable development” from the civil service lexicon. For good measure, he axed the position of Ambassador for the Environment, dumped the Ambassador for Circumpolar North, and eliminated the Science Advisor to the prime minister.

Bill C-38, hilariously described as budget implementation legislation, continues the assault on the environment with the blunt instrument of Harper ideology. Consider what’s gone and what it’s been replaced with.

Gone, the National Roundtable on Environment and the Economy, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. In their place, Harper offers truncated timelines for environmental review, enough discretionary language about cabinet’s powers to neuter regulatory agencies and render the government all but bullet-proof from legal appeal, and equivalency provisions allowing for provincial governments to assume Ottawa’s responsibility for environmental assessments.

How long will it be before British Columbia, the jurisdiction that asked that provinces be allowed to take over reviews from Ottawa, reverses former federal environment minister Jim Prentice’s decision to turn down Prosperity Mines in order to save Fish Lake?

As John Bennett of the Sierra Club put it to me, “Budget 2012 and C-38 Budget Implementation Bill wipe out decades of Environment law and policy. The federal budget is hiding radical change in environmental protection in Canada. It goes further than advertised and further than industry had asked for. It is a clearly ideologically based withdrawal of the federal government responsibility to protect the environment.”

Care for some more, ahem, budget implementation? How about the furtive elimination of the one oversight office that kept an eye on Canada’s civilian spy service, CSIS? With the elimination of the office of Inspector General, Stephen Harper has given Canadian spooks with dubious records on reporting to their civilian “masters”, a free hand. With no more Eva Plunketts, Maurice Archdeacons, or David Peels, no one will be watching the watchers.

Sorry, not quite accurate. Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety minister, assures everyone that the work of the Inspector General will be taken over by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC.) Even for Mr. Toews, this is a more than usually inane observation. SIRC does annual reviews, not daily oversight and has no real authority over CSIS. Its work is so pro forma that the PM has not even bothered to replace former SIRC Chairman Arthur Porter after he resigned last fall when his murky association with a former Israeli agent and arms dealer was made public. Toews says doing away with the Inspector General’s office will save money. At least he didn’t quote Yeats.

The Harper government’s aversion to accountability will get a boost from another telling initiative – the liquidation of internal auditors from four regional development agencies, including the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, the Federal Economic Development Agency of Southern Ontario, and Western Economic Diversification Canada. The auditing function will now be moved to the Office of the Comptroller General in Treasury Board, ostensibly for an annual savings of $2.5 million.

Here’s the rub. Auditing will now be less effective because the budget of the Treasury Board Secretariat was itself cut by $7.6 million this year. More work and less workers means government can spend with less accountability. You know what that means. Gazebo heaven.

Still, there are real signs of a national revulsion beginning to build against what is happening in Canada. Some polls have placed the NDP (the party that didn’t support General Wolfe on the Plains), ahead of the fading Conservatives. Mr. Harper’s backbench is not quite as docile as it once was. It stirred itself over the proposed Internet snooping bill and a few brave souls even defied the PM’s edict that no government MPs should attend Barack Obama’s Prayer Breakfast. The media is beginning to be less worshipful of the PM’s alleged strategic brilliance and more concerned about his demagogic tendencies. And even fellow travelers on the political Right are taking note that the man who turned the government of Canada into the Harper government is now turning the Conservative Party of Canada into the Harper Party.

“I’m astounded, frankly astounded, by the degree to which parliament and cabinet acquiesce in following, without any apparent questioning, the PM’s lead,” former PM Joe Clark said in a recent interview. Clark’s view? Stephen Harper has taken the country down the wrong road internationally with a narrow focus on militarism and trade. As for the domestic situation, Clark says Harper has attacked Canadian institutions and doesn’t respect either his party or parliament the way that his predecessors did.

Even for those ardent camp followers inside the Harper government, the former PM’s words should give pause. The largest majority government in Canadian history became a caucus of two in the twinkle of an electoral eye. Those who follow the Godfather blindly have a way of sleeping with the fishes before their time – at least in a democracy.

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Michael Harris

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