Parliament (pahr-luh-muh’nt): derived from Fr. “parlement,” speaking.
By that measure we no longer have much of a parliament, only a government. Closure on debate has now been invoked four times in twenty-five days as vast, badly-drafted bills are shoehorned through the House of Commons.
Closure is not a new measure, but using it on the very first day of debate, as it was last evening, is uncommon, and using it so routinely is, I believe, unprecedented.
Parliamentary committees, too, have been effectively shut down by the ruling Conservatives: in the past, when they were in a minority, the tactic was maximum disruption.
And the war on various independent watchdogs/agencies continues apace. One after another, they have been hobbled or neutered. Dictatorship, after all, doesn’t require independent assessment.
Harper’s Conservatives—elected by only 39% of those who voted—have shown themselves to be literally contemptuous of parliamentary tradition, and the rule of law.
In a nutshell, the Conservatives hate democracy. Canadians are just beginning to realize, I think, how viscerally and deeply this hatred runs. A bit rich having Bob Rae sound the alarm, but none of us can afford to be choosy at this point.
99%? At this point I’ll settle for 61%: those of us who care about Canada enough to reject, at every election, those who would dismantle it. Maybe it’s time for that majority to #OccupyParliament.
[H/t]