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.]

Friday, December 28, 2012

Canadian democracy stumbled in 2012

It's difficult to believe that in less than a week we will be welcoming a new year. For many parts of the world, 2012 was a year of dramatic change as citizens made progress on their path to democracy. Yet in some countries such as our own, democracy took a few steps backward.

For the first time in their lives, Libyans experienced a civic and national election this year. After decades under Moammar Gadhafi's rule, they got a real taste of democracy and participated in choosing the representatives they wanted to lead the country.

Citizens lined up for hours to cast their vote and dip their index finger in indelible ink to ensure that no one voted twice. At the time, with the election results in Etobicoke Centre in Toronto in question because it appeared that some citizens may have voted more than once, the indelible ink made a lot of sense.

I was among several hundred Canadians who experienced first-hand a national parliamentary election in Ukraine this year. I will never forget the frail, elderly voters who made their way up three flights of stairs to exercise the democratic right to choose their MP. The notion of accessible polling stations hasn't yet made its way into legislation that governs elections in Ukraine.

Canadians also got to witness parliamentary democracy - or depending on your point of view, a lack of it - at work.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government introduced a 400-page omnibus bill - its second this year - that was supposed to implement its spring budget. In keeping with his government's fashion, all but the kitchen sink was thrown in to the budget legislation for good measure and the bills rammed through Parliament in marathon sittings that allowed little or no debate.

Bill C-45 deals with spending priorities and tax policies, which is normal for a budget bill. However, there are literally hundreds of pages dedicated to "various measures." Buried deep inside this bill are amendments to the Fisheries Act, the Canada Labour Code, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Indian Act and, in the wake of the end of the Canadian Wheat Board's role as sole marketer of wheat, changes to the Grain Act that allow the Grains Commission to impose cost recovery fees on farmers.

In the midst of Parliament's debate on this bill, public opinion research was released showing that satisfaction with Canadian democracy is at an all-time low. The online survey of 2,287 Canadians found that just 55 per cent are very or somewhat satisfied with how democracy works in our country. This is a sharp 20-point drop from an identical question asked in 2004.

No wonder. At the moment it would appear that Harper's Conservatives see Parliament as a nuisance. Committees meet in secret, and opposition MPs aren't to reveal what is learned. And it is clear that most of Parliament's power has been centralized into a prime minister's office that is determined to control governing party MPs and even its cabinet ministers.

Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of politics at the University of Manitoba, describes the power and effectiveness of Canada's Parliament being "at the bottom of the heap."

"It has lost tremendous ground in terms of public support and confidence," he says.

So why should Canadians care about parliamentary democracy and whether the Harper government introduces two several-hundred-page omnibus bills? After all, the prime minister has a mandate from the people of Canada to govern.

But as Canadians we need to remind ourselves that we elect members of Parliament, not a government or, for that matter, a prime minister. We live in a parliamentary democracy which is "a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them."

Each time precedents, procedures and even laws are tossed out the window by the prime minister in the name of political expediency with little or no debate, it chips away another brick in our democratic foundation.

University of Toronto professor emeritus of political studies Peter Russell describes Canadian democracy as very weak. Canada has moved to "presidential prime ministerial parliamentary government," he says, and unless Canadians do something soon to save their parliamentary democracy, "they will have presidential government, period."

Democracy in Canada isn't quite what it used to be. Maybe next year we will start to pay attention.

Original Article
Source: the star phoenix
Author: Pat Atkinson

No comments:

Post a Comment