There’s an excellent article by Lawrence Martin on iPolitics.ca about Harper’s methods, and how they’ve “brought Canadian democracy to new lows.”
…The case for painting Harper as an anti-democrat stems from dozens of actions, catalogued below. They can be roughly divided into three categories: Treatment of the parliamentary process; degree of information control; intimidation of opponents.
Here’s a bullet list of Harper’s actions Martin discusses in the article:
TREATMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS
- Prorogations of Parliament
- Contempt of Parliament
- Scorn for parliamentary committees
- Challenging constitutional precepts
- Lapdogs as watchdogs
- The Patronage Machine
- Abuse of Process
INFORMATION CONTROL
- The vetting system
- Public service brought to heel
- Access to information
- Supression of research
- Document tampering
- Media curbs
INTIMIDATION OF OPPONENTS
- Afghan detainees
- My way or the highway
- Personal attack ads
- A democratic party?
- Legal Threats