Irony ... and Double Standards

At first glance, I actually like the idea of creating a single securities regulator - the patchwork system in Canada is insanely complex and brutally expensive for taxpayers to maintain. It's also out of step with the rest of the developed world.

However, I don't trust the current government to create that system with appropriate checks and balances in place. Not when they've been trying to screw over anything that resembles accountability in Parliament.

Consider this: Instead of sending in the people required to testify before parliamentary committees, they're sending in Ministers - often unrelated to the topic to attack the committee.

“There is a new game being played," Mr. Hill said earlier in the House of Commons. "The tyranny of the opposition majority has turned its attention to the men and women who make up our political staff. Men and women who did not sign up to be tried by a committee – to be humiliated and intimidated by members of Parliament.

This is complete nonsense. If you work on Parliament Hill, either for the government bureaucracy or on behalf of sitting MPs, you are accountable to Parliament for your actions in the conduct of your job. Period. End of Statement. Anything less is a vile combination of dishonesty, cover-up and deceit - of Canada's government no less.

To argue that this is a "tyranny of the opposition" situation is ridiculous. It really boils down to Conservatives being frustrated because Canadians demand accountability, and they keep trying to subvert accountability ... at least when it applies to them.

Do you not see a double standard at play here? On all sorts of matters, the Con$ervatives are the "hang 'em high" party of harsh justice and individual "responsibility" ... until they get called to be accountable and then the tune changes.

So ... do I like the idea of a single regulator? Yes, absolutely - it might even be the first thing the HarperCon$ have come up with that I could consider supporting. However, in their "accountability for thee, not for me" mode of doing things, I can't trust them to come up with a system that will work. I fully expect there to be loopholes in the legislation that will let the Con$ and their corporate buddies to wriggle out from any real accountability.

Kenney Admits It

The HarperCon$ don't like Parliament.

"As a minister, I often get more done when the House is not in session," he said as thousands of Canadians were preparing to mount protests across the country against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to suspend Parliament until March 3.

"That's not to say Parliament is unimportant," Kenney told reporters after making an immigration announcement. "But from a ministerial point of view, I think any minister in any government will tell you that's probably generally the case."

Coming as I do from Alberta, I've heard this same kind of idiotic nonsense spewed from our provincial politicians for a long time. Under Ralph Klein, a process of steadily eroding the amount of time that the Alberta Legislature sits began, and an increasing sense of 'right to govern' took root among Alberta's conservatives. This same attitude has been at the top of the ReformaTories since day one - although this is one of the rare times where so senior a member of Harper's apparatus has come out and admitted that he finds parliamentary accountability to be problematic for the way that they want to govern.

The price paid in Alberta over the Klein years has been horrifying. Of all of Canada's provinces, we have consistently the lowest voter turnouts - the last provincial election some 20% of eligible voters decided over 80% of the seats in the legislature. This is an exception dangerous path to see emerging on the federal scene - and one that only benefits Harper - whose narrow form of partisan politics plays primarily on venality, ignorance and apathy.

Frankly, as a voter, I don't give a damn if it is "easier" for a minister to do their job when Parliament isn't sitting. Parliament exists to keep that same minister accountable to the public and on the public record.

For the first time in about two years, I see Jack Layton is finally starting to do his job:

Layton, who is advocating new parliamentary rules to curb the prime minister's power to suspend sittings, said on Friday: "Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are playing old politics – where partisan games matter more than the work of elected representatives.

"Canadians want and deserve better: a new politics that says there is a better way forward, an end to secrecy and arrogance and the beginning of openness and accountability," Layton added.

Not that I trust Mr. Layton that far, but I trust him considerably more than the thin-skinned autocrats that Stephen Harper has surrounded himself with who seem bound and determined to do everything in their power to render Parliament meaningless.

Patterns of Prorogation

So ... PMSH has once again prorogued parliament - only a little over a year after the last time he pushed that button.

Normally, the governing party prorogues parliament when it has accomplished the bulk of what it set out to do in the last throne speech. At that point in time, the government needs to adjust its direction and a prorogation is quite appropriate.

That is not what is happening with Harper. He's using prorogation not just as a political tool, but in fact he is using it in a way that guarantees that his government will never actually pass any substantive part of its legislative agenda.

In short, the Conservatives are legislatively bankrupt. They keep clobbering their own legislation mid-stride, and have to reintroduce it. I'm sure it makes for good propaganda - after all, they can continue to spout off their nonsense about being "tough on crime" and so forth without actually having to deal with the consequences of truly brain damaged legislation.

The fact is that not only is Harper scheduling himself an extended vacation at taxpayer's expense, but his party is out of ideas. They have no real legislative vision - they'd rather govern from behind closed doors as much as possible.

I've Said It For Years Now...

The ReformaTories aren't about democracy.

This makes the third time that Harper has prorogued Canada's Parliament for political reasons since 2006, not to mention a snap election in fall of 2008 - just to avoid an economic meltdown.

Harper likes to whine and moan about how the opposition won't let things get through the process in the house, and then he turns around and prorogues parliament (killing every bill that is in the house), and forcing Parliament to waste more taxpayer time and money re-engaging the same damned process over bills that he's going to have to re-introduce as first reading bills.

I won't say that I'm impressed with Canada's Governor General right now - she granted Harper a prorogation last year before Christmas so he could avoid a confidence motion, and now she's granting him one this year for what reasons? Because he can't stomach the idea that his legislation is getting amended in committee? Mme Jean should have told Harper to man up and go back and do his job. This is an unnecessary, uncalled for prorogation.

Parliament will be prorogued for two months until after the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the Prime Minister's Office announced Wednesday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas said a speech from the throne will be delivered on March 3, followed by presentation of the budget the next day. The session had been scheduled to resume on Jan. 25 after the holiday break.

Soudas said the prime minister spoke with Gov. Gen Michaëlle Jean over the phone earlier Wednesday.

The move to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament is widely seen as a strategic move by Harper to gain a majority on Senate committees while possibly also avoiding criticism over the Afghan detainee issue.

Give Harper a majority, and I think you'll see a side of the man that is only fit to bay at the moon.

Harper The UnAccountable

It's not like it's a secret - Stephen Harper's secrecy and heavy handedness makes him by far the most overbearing Prime Minister that Canada has had. (at least in this writer's memory)

To date, he has prorogued parliament twice, called a snap election once - all in a bid to continue clinging to power.

Rumours flying around Parliament Hill suggest that another prorogation is in the works - until after the Olympics - which would conveniently let the Afghanistan prisoner issue go quiet, and give the government more time to dispose of potentially embarrassing documents by declaring them "matters of national security".

“I can't imagine what reason they would have to prorogue the House,” she said, “especially when it's the Conservatives who make such a big deal of their legislation and their crime agenda and things being held up.”

Bills that have not received Royal Assent die when Parliament is prorogued. That means legislation, including the consumer protection act that the Conservatives have urged the Senate to pass without amendments, would have to be reintroduced in the new session.

Yes, therein lies the rub. The Con$ keep disrupting parliament, and then they turn around and whine that they can't get their legislation through. I think that tells us a lot about what they would do if they weren't limited by their minority status in the House of Commons - and it isn't good for Canada.

[Update]
Just consider what the HarperCon$ are doing in Copenhagen, especially in response to this little gem, which simply proves that they are going to continue to play denialist, and allow one of the biggest contributors in Canada to run unchecked.

After the business in Afghanistan, and now this, it's hard to see how Harper's actions on the world stage are in any way "in Canada's national interest".
[/Update]

A Little Refresher ...

[Update 19:30]
It's even worse than I feared according a Dominion Institute commissioned survey:

The institute drew up four basic questions:

* Who is the head of state?
* How can Canada's system of government best be described?
* Do Canadians elect the prime minister directly?
* Can the Governor General nix a prime minister's request for a new election?

The really sad part is how few people actually got the answers right:

About 75 per cent of Canadians believe incorrectly the prime minister or the Governor General is head of state, ...
Given a choice how best to describe the system of government, 25 per cent of those surveyed decided on a "co-operative assembly" while 17 per cent opted for a "representative republic."

Canada is neither. Only 59 per cent picked correctly — constitutional monarchy.

In a similar vein, 51 per cent wrongly agreed that Canadians elect the prime minister directly.

...
A full 90 per cent responded correctly that the Governor General does have the power, which Jean may yet be called on to wield if the opposition coalition does defeat the government with a vote in the Commons.

If a majority had responded anything other than in the affirmative about the Governor General's powers given what's been in the news in the last few weeks, it would have made the results that much more disappointing.

What's even more vile than those results is the way that the HarperCon$ are preying on the ignorance of so many.
[/Update]

Since Canada's government seems intent on lying to the public about the concept of a government formed by a coalition, I thought it worth a few minutes to dismantle the outright lies that are being foisted upon us from the PMO.

One of the talking points that has been thrown out there is that an opposition coalition is somehow analogous to a coup d'état.

This is blatantly false. I'll refer briefly to the Wikipedia article on the subject for a practical working definition:

a coup, is the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a part — usually small — of the state establishment — usually the military — to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.

The first point here is that a coup d'état is unconstitutional. So, let us consider the constitutional realities that are at play right now in Canada for a moment.

Wikipedia provides a reasonable (but incomplete) summary of the Governor General's legal powers. If one reviews Section III of the Constitution Act of 1867, it clearly vests the executive power of government in the crown, represented in Canada by the Governor General:

9. The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen.

10. The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General extend and apply to the Governor General for the Time being of Canada, or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator for the Time being carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in the Name of the Queen, by whatever Title he is designated.

This is the first part of the discussion that is important. The appointment and swearing in of the government in the House of Commons is performed by the Governor General on behalf of the crown. In a situation such as a minority parliament, the Governor General is presented with the potential for several different options - the party with the plurality of seats will likely be asked to form the government first, but as the King-Byng Affair of 1926 demonstrated, the Governor General may ask the leaders of other parties to form the government.

As far as I know, the coalition has taken no steps which undermine or violate the authority of the Governor General in this matter.

Now, let us move along to how the coalition has proceeded. Prior to Prime Minister Harper requesting, and being granted, a prorogation of parliament, there was to be a confidence vote in the House of Commons on Dec 12, 2008 on the motions related to the Fiscal Update that the Harper-led government had tabled in the House of Commons in late November.

In a Westminster parliament, a government that loses the confidence of the House of Commons collapses. The concept of a confidence motion is a recognized and accepted construct through which the sitting government will be tested. Although a government's collapse usually triggers a general election, it is not necessarily the case that happen. If the Governor General can be persuaded that one or more of the opposition parties can form a stable government for some period of time, the Governor General has the right to ask the opposition to form a government without triggering an election.

So, since the coalition was proceeding through a legitimate path to deprive the Harper government of the confidence of the House of Commons, it is hard to claim that a coalition is in any respect a 'coup d'état' in any meaningful way.

The second point that needs to be considered here is that in a Westminster Parliament, we elect our representatives, and we do not directly elect the Prime Minister, instead the Queen requests the person most likely to command the support of a majority in the House, normally the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons, to form a government. In short, Stephen Harper sits in the PMO at "Her Majesty's Pleasure", and by a series of quirks of convention belonging to a system that has evolved over nearly 1,000 years.


Since the Harper Conservatives were so willing to form a coalition to replace Paul Martin's government in 2004, it is mind boggling that today we find the same group of people complaining that a coalition would somehow be an illegitimate government.

In October of 2008, Stephen Harper asked Canadians to decide on a parliament. We duly elected our representatives with the full expectation that they would find a way to make the resulting House of Commons work. If that takes the form of creating a coalition government, that is an eminently valid expression of democracy in Canada and in fact would represent a government that is doing what most Canadians would want - a degree of cooperation among the leaders in the House of Commons.

I suspect that Harper is in fact fomenting a crisis for one of two reasons - he either wants "another kick at the can" in the electoral forum to secure a majority, or he is trying to create a crisis big enough to justify re-opening the constitution. In the latter case, I fear greatly what he would do, for he has shown himself repeatedly to be autocratic rather than democratic.

A Quick, Concise Review of Parliamentary Civics

Here

Read It.

Then go introduce the next twit spouting Con$ervative talking points about coalitions to reality.

Let's Talk About "Democratic" Government, Shall We?

So, now in an effort to save his skin, rumors are flying that Harper may prorogue parliament. (Garth Turner has picked up on the same rumour)

All this to avoid facing a confidence vote that Harper is apt as not to lose.

So desperate to hang on to power, Harper is prepared to suspend the business of Canada's government at a time when our economy is in crisis, even the Harper himself has had to admit that the fundamentals are not as sound as he so proudly proclaimed during this fall's election campaign.

Even in Alberta, where the word conservative is assumed to be synonymous with "infallible", proroguing parliament is apt to be seen as worse than falling to a confidence motion.

However, Mr. Harper may find this little tactic limited indeed, because Her Excellency, the Governor General may refuse to prorogue parliament at this time - on the basis that the session has just begun, and it would be difficult indeed for Harper to argue that the business of the government has been completed.

For a man who prattles on about democracy, Harper continues to prove to Canadians that he is about the least democratic leader this country has ever seen.

[Update]
One additional thought - for the first time I can remember, the leader of a minority parliament is unwilling to face a confidence motion over his government's actions. Where, pray tell, are the vaunted "principles" that Mr. Harper and his ideological allies have talked so much about in the past?
[/Update]

Lawrence Martin Summarizes Harper...

Quite nicely here:

If the Harper boys don't get their own way, they stamp their feet and start bawling at bad treatment from others and make big-time threats - forgetting all the while what they had put down in their own playbook.

If it were elementary school, the teacher would tell them to go stand in the corner.

Other than that, Martin makes more or less the same points and observations that I and others have already made about the past week's events - primarily that the HarperCon$ are the authors of the problems in the first place.

Dear Liberals:

It's way past time to do your job as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Sitting on the sidelines on one confidence motion I can accept - and even consider it brilliant tactics. Doing it every time there's a confidence motion just makes you look bad.

Propping up the HarperCon$ by tacit support is not doing the Canadian people any favours. This is a government that needs to be held to the fire - and if that means you stage the living hell out of confidence votes so that they only get through by one vote, then that's what you do.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but absenteeism from the House of Commons looks bad - sort of like skipping class did in high school. It's time to start showing up and being effective - and if that means shouting down this bunch of thugs currently sitting in the government benches, then do it.

If Mr. Dion isn't able to bring himself to do what needs doing, then it's time for him to step aside and let others take the helm.

Harper Shows Us What He Really Thinks

... and it's contempt for Canada - or at least our Parliament:

“As one Canadian political scientist I know likes to say, when we look at Australia, we suffer from ‘Senate envy,' ” Mr. Harper told Australian senators and members of Parliament, to their great amusement, in the opening lines of his speech this morning.

“In Canada, senators remain appointed, not elected. They don't have to retire until age 75, and may warm their seats for as long as 45 years. By the nature of the system, they're not accountable to voters.”

Please Mr. Harper, STFU! If you wish to reform the Senate, I suggest you begin by putting forward a proposal that doesn't royally screw up the balance of power and responsibility in our government's houses, and doesn't emulate the system of perpetual conflict that we see in Washington.

In the meantime, you might gain some traction at home by demonstrating a degree of respect for your colleagues in both houses of Parliament.

Of course, Harper's contempt for anything other than toadying sycophants has been demonstrated repeatedly - during the last election, and now in his international stage sniping at his colleagues in Canada's parliament. This is not a man who is ready to reform anything - he has neither the breadth or depth of vision to see beyond his own blinding ideology.

It is unusual for world leaders to wade into domestic squabbles when they have been given an international podium. But Mr. Harper regularly criticizes his opposition while abroad, and the Senate is one of his favourite targets.

Liberal senators, who hold a majority in the chamber, decided not to vote on a bill that calls for eight-year limits on Senate terms until its constitutionality had been tested in the courts.

But that bill and another that would create a process for electing senators were killed by Mr. Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament.

Take note here - Harper's pending bills WERE NOT killed by the Senate - they were killed BY MR. HARPER'S DECISION to prorogue parliament.

When the Con$ start braying about how the bad old Senate killed their legislation, remember to slap them around with that little fact.

[Update 11/9/07]
A few people are speculating that Harper may move to eliminate the Canadian Senate if he can't have his way with it.

It should be noted that doing so would be an extremely complicated thing to do, as the existence of the Senate is written into the core of the Canadian Constitution.

In fact, any legislative changes to the role and structure of the Senate would ultimately be bounded by the roles and responsibilities set forth in the Constitution of this nation. I doubt that Canadians as a whole have much appetite for another Con$ervative Prime Minister attempting to monkey with that document. (anybody else remember the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords?)

So far anything Harper has done to effect "democratic reform" has ultimately been little more than poorly disguised window dressing.
[/Update]