With the Conservatives quietly considering a proposal to hold up to five regional televised debates in the upcoming federal election to contrast Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s experience with rookie Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau the debate about the debates has started. Hoping to exploit Trudeau’s shoot-from-the-lip style, some Conservative insiders believe
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Democracy Under Fire: Balancing Act Important For Democracy
A guest artile by Jared Milne I’m currently reading Brent Rathgeber’s excellent book “Irresponsible Government: the Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada”, which describes the methods that Canadian prime ministers have used to consolidate power in the Prime Minister’s Office, and force their Members of Parliament to follow all of
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: An Open Letter to Tom Mulcair.
Dear Sir I am in receipt of you self congratulatory email boasting of how you have just signed the Fair Vote Canada’s Politicians’ Pledge,I congratulate you on doing so and would hope that many other MPs from all parties join you in doing so but have a number of concerns
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Vitriolic nastiness does not breed respect.
Stephen Lewis , the former Ontario NDP leader, United Nations ambassador and lifelong human rights advocate recently took aim at the “pre-paleolithic Neanderthals” in office and their role in the decline of Parliament, the suppression of dissent, the plight of First Nations, their blinkered climate-change policy and our plummeting world
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Electoral Reform – The Parties Position
Its sometimes hard to see where the parties stand on any particular issue given the hype, bafflegab and spin that issues from almost all of them at times and the ever changing positions taken depending upon their position in the polls or whether they are in power or not. As
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Its Silly Season in Ontario
With advanced polls opening for the Ontario Election today its definitely silly season in Ontario, we are inundated with totally meaningless TV ads from 3 of the Partys telling us how bad the other guys are and failing to give us any real idea of what their plan is. There
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: This and That – Distractions and Obfuscations
The ongoing Elections act cluster fk has successfully distracted from the latest omnibus budget from the Harper Regime, hardy a word has been seen about the 350 page “Harper Government Creating Jobs & Growth While Returning to Balanced Budgets With Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1.”. Yep, we are
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Winning at All Costs.
I think we are all sick of the win at all cost mentality of our political parties and their leaders, this mentality is not restricted to just the Harper Regime, although it is certainly most prevalent with that group of oligarchs, but can be seen with very few exceptions in
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Political Participation and Perception
In their latest report “By Invitation Only:Canadians’ Perceptions of Political Parties”Samara, the measuring democracy people, identified six key roles of political parties’ functions in three main areas. In a survey concentrating upon the areas of Elections, Engagement & Policy they asked their respondents to rate the performance of Canadian political
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Best of Both Worlds
A guest article by Jared Milne. Politically, 2013 wasn’t much different than previous years. In Toronto, Rob Ford accused his opponents of wanting to keep the “gravy train” going, while his opponents accused him of hypocrisy and failing to live up to his promises. In Ottawa, the Conservative government accused
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Response to Minister of Democratic Reform
Just two days before Christmas the GPC received a letter requesting a response on their ideas for electoral reform to be received before Jan 4th. The timing of the letter and the requested response makes the genuineness of the request suspect. We wonder who else was or will be invited
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Dysfunctional Legislatures
Is there any such thing as a fully “functional” legislature in Canada? I am starting to wonder. I do not follow all the various provincial maneuverings but it seems to me that many of our governing institutions across the country are in disarray. Certainly the only time our federal government
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Electoral Fraud Occurred!
But no results overturned……… Just hours ago the long-awaited Federal Court ruling on election fraud was released…In a clear and bold statement, Judge Richard Mosley wrote: “I find that electoral fraud occurred during the 41st General Election.” While his ruling stopped short of annulling election results, this is a powerful
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Take Your Shirt Off for Democracy.
I am not sure that any of the major political parties gets it, but Harper definitely does not, attacking the leader of a party as if he and he alone is responsible for decisions of policy or as if he alone would be responsible for proposing or passing legislation is
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: An exercise in futility?
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that my efforts in these pages to shed some light upon the various attacks upon our democracy, the ever increasing centralization of power in the hands of a few, our right to details of government spending and decisions, and our right to express
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Political Stereotypes
A guest article by Jared Milne. Right-wing Conservatives are hardworking entrepreneurs who stop at Tim Horton’s for a double-double on their way to work, get up early on Saturday to take their kids to hockey practice, and maintain their homes and their cars themselves. Either that, or they’re greedy corporate
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Let the Games Begin …… Again!
With our Federal MP’s now back in the House and the Ontario Legislature about to resume under a new leader I am not optimistic that we will see any change in the political gamesmanship and constant efforts of each party to trample each other in the blind rush for power.
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Cooperation between Political Partys
There has been much talk of‘cooperation’ between partys since the close results in recent byelections and whilst I have in these pages urged such ‘cooperation not confrontation’ in the HoC I wonder exactly how long such common sense will last and what form it will take in a practical sense.
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Elizabeth May: Parliamentarian of the Year.
When it comes to choosing MP’s who have earned special recognition for their contributions in the House the choices, in my opinion, are somewhat limited however that Elisabeth May has been voted Parliamentarian of the Yearby her peers clearly indicates her commitment to serving her constituents and Canada as a
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: A Western Point of View
A guest post by Jared Milne.When the federal Liberals governed Canada, Albertans were often frustrated by what they saw as pork-barrelling, a lack of transparency in government, few checks on the prime minister’s powers, and the demonizing of people …
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