There's the British Parliament. And then there's Canada's "Potemkin" Parliament. The name "Potemkin" derives from Grigori Aleksandrovich Potyomkin, a favourite of Catherine the Great of Russia. He reputedly gave the order for sham villages to be built for the empress's tour of the Crimea in 1787.
Potyomkin's name has become an adjective. Dictionary definitions of Potemkin describe an action or stance that has "a false or deceptive appearance, especially one presented for the purpose of propaganda; "a pretentiously showy or imposed façade intended to mask of divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition."
Canada's parliament, indeed, our entire parliamentary structure, has been reduced to a Potemkin village -- a sham.
Canadians' existential confusion about their system of government is taking the country into uncharted territory. Poll after poll show a majority of Canadians regularly confuse their parliamentary system with the American presidential-congressional system.
This inaccurate but endemic assumption has allowed successive governments to gradually toss out the foundations of Canada's British parliamentary heritage, one by one. By stealth and incrementalism, they have turned upside down the British traditions of parliamentary democracy where the government of the day answers to Parliament and is effectively hired and fired by Parliament.
Now, in Canada, it's the other way around. Now, it's the government of the day who hires and fires Parliament, routinely proroguing it or summoning it or dissolving it to serve its own political timing and interests.
This abuse of democracy has reached its apogee under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives. In 2008, Harper staged an effective coup d'état. He managed to convince Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean to ignore the fact a clear majority of MPs had signed an agreement to govern as a coalition and instead prorogue parliament so he could continue in office even though he had lost the confidence of the majority of the elected representatives of the people.
The abuses of parliament- and parliamentary government -- now proceed ad-infinitum by a party that was the choice of a mere 24.3 per cent of all eligible Canadian voters in 2011.
Parliamentary committees meet in secret. MPs cannot speak openly about what they discuss behind closed doors in case they embarrass or contradict the government. The government routinely bundles its entire annual legislative agenda into massive omnibus bills hundreds of pages in length with little or no information and then invokes closure complete with all-night "legislation by exhaustion" routines. It abolishes vital commissions, agencies, scientific research bodies and programs with no reference to or debate in parliament. To satisfy the oil and gas lobby, it ravages Canada's parks and wilderness areas with impunity, fires world-renowned scientists and experts, simply throws away parts of Canada's historical heritage, attacks its civil servants and pushes aside the opinions and views of a growing majority of Canadians.
Every tear in Canada's democratic fabric has emboldened Harper to go further faster. He prorogued parliament again in 2010, determined to shut down any opportunity for the opposition to probe the possible torture of Afghan detainees - a war crime if true. He also wanted parliament shut to avoid any potential political embarrassments during Canada's hosting of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver the same year.
Whenever there's heat, Harper wants out of the kitchen. To date, he has prorogued Parliament four times.
Like other members of NATO and the Atlantic Alliance, Harper was under pressure from the opposition to recall MPs to debate potential military intervention in Syria. But shortly after the House rose in August, the prime minister announced he would prorogue parliament, delaying the return of Parliament a full month from Sept. 16 until sometime in mid-October at the earliest - presumably to keep himself and his government out of the flames enveloping the Senate regarding the expense scandals of some prominent Conservatives.
In yet another calculated slight to Parliament, the prime minister simply tasked his reliable old stalwart, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, to simply telephone Official Opposition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, to inform them that neither they, their MPs, nor parliament were needed. The government had determined its course and that was that.
Go home.
A note on Baird. It was he who, as government House leader during the first 2008 prorogation, took to the streets near Rideau Hall while Harper met with the governor general and promised mob violence should Harper be refused his prorogation.
"We'll go over the heads of the members of Parliament; go over the heads, frankly, of the Governor General; go right to the Canadian people." Baird yelled into a bullhorn, surrounded by a crowd of angry supporters. He called the proposed coalition "a pact with the devil" and " an unholy alliance" presumably because the separatist Bloc Quebecois was, while not a member of the coalition, pledged to support it in office.
Contrast this tin-pot dictatorship behaviour to what went on in the British House of Commons last week. In stark contrast to Canada's Potemkin Parliament, British Prime Minister David Cameron put his government's life on the line by facing parliament and requesting its support for military action against Syria. He was defeated as 50 of his Tory/Coalition MPs joined Labour leader David Miliband's caucus to oppose war.
The last time a British prime minister was defeated over an issue of war and peace was in 1782.
Shocked but statesmanlike, Cameron accepted the will of parliament. "It is clear to me that the British Parliament does not want to see British military action," Cameron told the House. "I get that and the government will act accordingly."
There's statesmen and democrats. And then there's the Canadian Conservatives.
Original Article
Source: v1.nationalnewswatch.com
Author: Frances Russell
Potyomkin's name has become an adjective. Dictionary definitions of Potemkin describe an action or stance that has "a false or deceptive appearance, especially one presented for the purpose of propaganda; "a pretentiously showy or imposed façade intended to mask of divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition."
Canada's parliament, indeed, our entire parliamentary structure, has been reduced to a Potemkin village -- a sham.
Canadians' existential confusion about their system of government is taking the country into uncharted territory. Poll after poll show a majority of Canadians regularly confuse their parliamentary system with the American presidential-congressional system.
This inaccurate but endemic assumption has allowed successive governments to gradually toss out the foundations of Canada's British parliamentary heritage, one by one. By stealth and incrementalism, they have turned upside down the British traditions of parliamentary democracy where the government of the day answers to Parliament and is effectively hired and fired by Parliament.
Now, in Canada, it's the other way around. Now, it's the government of the day who hires and fires Parliament, routinely proroguing it or summoning it or dissolving it to serve its own political timing and interests.
This abuse of democracy has reached its apogee under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives. In 2008, Harper staged an effective coup d'état. He managed to convince Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean to ignore the fact a clear majority of MPs had signed an agreement to govern as a coalition and instead prorogue parliament so he could continue in office even though he had lost the confidence of the majority of the elected representatives of the people.
The abuses of parliament- and parliamentary government -- now proceed ad-infinitum by a party that was the choice of a mere 24.3 per cent of all eligible Canadian voters in 2011.
Parliamentary committees meet in secret. MPs cannot speak openly about what they discuss behind closed doors in case they embarrass or contradict the government. The government routinely bundles its entire annual legislative agenda into massive omnibus bills hundreds of pages in length with little or no information and then invokes closure complete with all-night "legislation by exhaustion" routines. It abolishes vital commissions, agencies, scientific research bodies and programs with no reference to or debate in parliament. To satisfy the oil and gas lobby, it ravages Canada's parks and wilderness areas with impunity, fires world-renowned scientists and experts, simply throws away parts of Canada's historical heritage, attacks its civil servants and pushes aside the opinions and views of a growing majority of Canadians.
Every tear in Canada's democratic fabric has emboldened Harper to go further faster. He prorogued parliament again in 2010, determined to shut down any opportunity for the opposition to probe the possible torture of Afghan detainees - a war crime if true. He also wanted parliament shut to avoid any potential political embarrassments during Canada's hosting of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver the same year.
Whenever there's heat, Harper wants out of the kitchen. To date, he has prorogued Parliament four times.
Like other members of NATO and the Atlantic Alliance, Harper was under pressure from the opposition to recall MPs to debate potential military intervention in Syria. But shortly after the House rose in August, the prime minister announced he would prorogue parliament, delaying the return of Parliament a full month from Sept. 16 until sometime in mid-October at the earliest - presumably to keep himself and his government out of the flames enveloping the Senate regarding the expense scandals of some prominent Conservatives.
In yet another calculated slight to Parliament, the prime minister simply tasked his reliable old stalwart, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, to simply telephone Official Opposition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, to inform them that neither they, their MPs, nor parliament were needed. The government had determined its course and that was that.
Go home.
A note on Baird. It was he who, as government House leader during the first 2008 prorogation, took to the streets near Rideau Hall while Harper met with the governor general and promised mob violence should Harper be refused his prorogation.
"We'll go over the heads of the members of Parliament; go over the heads, frankly, of the Governor General; go right to the Canadian people." Baird yelled into a bullhorn, surrounded by a crowd of angry supporters. He called the proposed coalition "a pact with the devil" and " an unholy alliance" presumably because the separatist Bloc Quebecois was, while not a member of the coalition, pledged to support it in office.
Contrast this tin-pot dictatorship behaviour to what went on in the British House of Commons last week. In stark contrast to Canada's Potemkin Parliament, British Prime Minister David Cameron put his government's life on the line by facing parliament and requesting its support for military action against Syria. He was defeated as 50 of his Tory/Coalition MPs joined Labour leader David Miliband's caucus to oppose war.
The last time a British prime minister was defeated over an issue of war and peace was in 1782.
Shocked but statesmanlike, Cameron accepted the will of parliament. "It is clear to me that the British Parliament does not want to see British military action," Cameron told the House. "I get that and the government will act accordingly."
There's statesmen and democrats. And then there's the Canadian Conservatives.
Original Article
Source: v1.nationalnewswatch.com
Author: Frances Russell
No comments:
Post a Comment