I’ve Been Pondering Canadian Democracy Again.

I’ve been thinking about Democracy in Canada again.  With two Provincial Legislatures currently prorogued and yet another omnibus bill in Ottawa I’m thinking that Democracy in Canada is in very poor health and someone is stepping on the IV line.

If we ignore the Senate for the time being, our government systems are pretty simple.  Periodically we have a vote to determine who will represent our ridings in the Legislative House.  These candidates represent various political parties and the party with the most seats is declared the government.

Generally the party with the most seats in the Legislature becomes the ruling party in the House.  It has happened that the party with the most seats has lost the confidence of the majority of members and the second place party has taken over the reins, but that is not a common occurrence.

The leader of the governing party is given the title of Premier in the provinces and Prime Minister nationally and is considered to be the nominal Head of State for their jurisdiction.  Our actual Head of State is currently Queen Elizabeth II because that is the way our system works.

Basically the way it works is that the Power comes from the Crown and is utilized by the Government which is selected by the People.

 

Now the people should be very important in this because there are so many of us, but we’re not.  The only time politicians are interested in us is when they are trying to get us to vote for them.

Now I said that the party leaders are nominal Head of States because in our system they are only considered to be “First Among Equals”.  What this means is that Stephen Harper’s voice carries no more weight in the House of Commons than Tom Mulcair’s or Bob Rae’s or Elizabeth May’s or even Rob Anders’ voice.

But this is basic civics, your kids will probably know this stuff better than I.

But we don’t live in a Democracy.  We live in a benevolent dictatorship.

The Supreme Soviet Harper Inner Circle (HIC) decides on what laws should be proposed and tells the Head of State.  The Head of State tells the membership and they in turn vote according to the dictates of their leader.  Pretty much sums it up, at least in a Majority Government.

Now we try to pretty it up with Committees and Private Member’s Bills but nothing happens unless the leadership of the Governing Party decides that it should happen.

What do I mean? 

Well, the last time we had an omnibus bill foisted on us there were almost a thousand amendments proposed.  Not one of these amendments was acknowledged.  They were all shunted aside and the omnibus bill was passed in the same form that it was originally tabled. 

Not one word was changed.

That’s pretty darn good for a document consisting of hundreds of pages and dealing with God knows how many issues.  The guys who wrote it up must be super geniuses.  Maybe they have business cards that say Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius or Jim E. Flaherty, Super Genius?

Did I mention that this particular omnibus bill was a Budget Bill?  So is the current omnibus bill in Ottawa.

What is so special about Budget Bills you might ask, well they are indeed special.  Traditionally Budget Bill votes are “whipped” votes.  Members are not allowed to vote their conscience or their constituents’ wishes.  They must vote to support their party.  For a traditional Budget Bill this is not such a big deal, it’s mostly nuts and bolts and about how the taxes get divvied up between departments, but omnibus bills have a nasty tendency to have lots of other things in them as well.

Our current omnibus Budget Bill contains the delisting of many lakes in rivers in Canada that were listed as “Navigable Waters” before.  What does that mean?

The Act applies to any interference of navigation – in, on, over, under, through or across – Canadian navigable waterways. http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/marinesafety/oep-nwpp-faqs-202.htm#a3

Among the rivers delisted is the Thames River in Ontario.  In Chatham there are docking facilities on the Thames right in the middle of the downtown area.  There are two draw bridges in Chatham to allow for tall masted sail boats to access this area.  Now the draw bridges will no longer have to be maintained and if someone owns property down river from Chatham they can build a bridge across and not have to worry if it impedes navigation as the Thames is no longer “navigable”.

Now the MP for Chatham Kent (Dave Van Kesteren) is a member of the Harper Party and he will have no choice but to vote in favour of this bill even though it is detrimental to his constituency.  There are other rivers in his riding that will be affected, but it matters not, he gets his marching orders and will do what the party says.

The irony here is that during the War of 1812, the Thames was an important battleground.  There was a going ship building industry in the area and the Thames was an important waterway, so important that the British tried to defend it.

The Indian leader Tecumseh died in one of these battles.  He’s mentioned in the 1812 ads we’re inundated with.

But since the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) is included in the Budget Bill for whatever reasons there will be no debate and no action.  No mere MP has a chance of standing up to the Party Leadership of his own party, especially not in the House of Commons.

In a Democratic country the Budget would include budget measures only.  Any changes to the NWPA would be handled in their own bill.  It could be discussed and debated and voted on, and if the local MP decided it was not in the interest of his constituency he could vote against it even if that vote would be cast against his own party’s bill.

You see, in a Democracy we would elect a candidate to represent us in the Legislature.  But that no longer happens.  Today we vote on which party gets to ruin run Canada for a few years and we get a party representative to tell us what a great job they are doing in Ottawa, or Toronto, or Edmonton or wherever.

It’s really too bad.  We have a pretty good country here and if we let the people run it we’d probably do okay.  Party politics is ruining our country and we are basically powerless to stop it.  Let’s face it, the government has always been run by parties and for the foreseeable future, they always will.  Only the government can change the way elections are run and they’re not going to kill the cow when they get the milk now are they?

Sorry about the civics lesson, if I messed it up let me know.  If you can see a solution to this morass, give me a hint.  A return to responsible government would really be refreshing…

Cheers! BC

An Open Letter To the Honourable Elizabeth May,

To The Honourable Elizabeth May

Member representing Saanich Gulf Islands

Jun 13, 2012

Dear Ms. May:

I along with untold thousands of Canadians would like to thank you for your efforts on our behalf.

Recently David Wilks said that one Member of Parliament cannot make a difference.  I hope David sees that one committed Member of Parliament can indeed make a difference.

I hope that your actions make the Members Opposite realize that they were elected to represent their Constituents in the House of Commons, not to be a representative of their Party to their people.  Maybe there are 13 heroes in that crowd.

We can only hope.

I would also like to thank you for reminding a grumpy old cat that there are still good people in the House of Commons, people deserving of the title Honourable, as in the Honourable Elizabeth May.  A title earned and deserved and not just a courtesy shown to anyone elected to the House.

I wish you well in your attempt this evening, and I wish you success in your endeavour.

In closing, I’d like to offer you a gift.  Another title. 

The Honourable Lady Elizabeth May,  Defender of Democracy.

Best wishes in all your future endeavours,

B.C.

Is Stephen Harper Dumb?

I think we have to make a note of the date.

Today is June 9^th, 2012.

For the First time in a long time, I find myself agreeing with an RAC (Reform/Alliance/Con), Mr. Bob Mills.  Mr. Mills said something that really made sense…

"I've always said that if you're smart you surround yourself with really smart people. And if you're dumb, you surround yourself with a bunch of cheerleaders. We don't need cheerleaders. -NRTEE member and former MP Bob Mills

Mr. Mills was elected as a Reformer, as a Canadian Alliancer, and a Harper Party member of parliament.  There are not a lot of people in that crowd that I agree with.

His comment was directed at our Fearless Leader, Stephen Harper.

Mr. Mills and other soon to be former members of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) were making their voices heard in light of the Harper Party plans to do away with the NRTEE buried deep within the omnibus bill C-38.

Officially, the Harper Party is saying that we no longer need the NRTEE and that their time is past, but it sounds more like they don’t like the message that these folks are telling them, so they’re not paying anymore.

Now I’ve been looking for the link but I can’t find it, I’ll swear that I heard Harper saying  something about how the government shouldn’t sponsor groups (like the NRTEE) that don’t reflect government policy.

Every group from the Fraser Institute to Green Peace has an agenda, the only way to find an unbiased panel is to set it up yourself and use experts with various view points to debate and decide.  You don’t have to use their reports, but be prepared to explain why those reports were discarded.

It is all part of Democracy, you review the facts, you listen to view points and you make a decision based in part on those view points.  You don’t limit debate, invoke closure, move committees in camera, muzzle scientists… these things are not Democratic. 

These are the types of things that Harper and Co. used to rail against, but my how times have changed.

I can’t wait for the rhetoric to start over Elizabeth May’s plan to force a prolonged sitting of the House by proposing hundreds of amendments to Bill C -38.  I’m sure she will be vilified by the Harper Party for attempting to hijack Democracy.

I applaud Ms. May for her efforts to try and restore Democracy in the House and I applaud the Opposition Parties for supporting her on her quest to break the Harper Party’s grip on power.

I just hope Ms. May can show people like David Wilks what can happen when you surround yourself with smart people and stand up for what is right.