I think I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard someone say that Stephen Harper was a Professional Rogue seeing as he prorogued parliament. While the sentiment expressed by that person is quite in line with what a lot of Canadians are expressing, I can't help but wonder where these people crawled out from. Canadian politics for the most part is a boring spectator sport. Our parliamentarians spend more time grandstanding and blaming each other for some silly thing than they do anything interesting. And I like it that way. I am very happy that I live in a country where the biggest parliamentary problem today is the fact that the Prime Minister pulled a cheeky move and shut it down until March.
I don't mean to suggest that I am in favour of what Mr. Harper pulled out of the hat; quite frankly, I am appalled at what he has done. My outrage has more to do with the way these elected people treat our institutions and the lack of realistic work being done by these people. These people get paid good money to go to Ottawa and spend time arguing about things and doing things to make life better for the rest of us. Now, these people have a 3 month vacation. A 3 month paid vacation. Its not like they are on strike or anything like that. They've just been given 3 months off to avoid the winter weather that plagues Ottawa it seems.
Our democratic form of government allows for procedures like prorogation in some circumstances. But they are not meant to be abused at every whim. It seems like the Prime Minister is using prorogation to try and avoid discussing various issues that are out there, chief among them the Afghan detainee inquiry. Instead of dealing with the issue in a sincere fashion (assuming all the things we hear from the government are to be taken at face value), the Conservative party has been busy sabotaging the inquiry and the (minority) government has been adept at slowing down the release of the documents that our diplomat in Afghanistan was sending to his superiors outlining his concerns that detainees are being abused. The only thing they have accomplished though is to make more people take note of it. I am sure they will still be talking about the detainee issue when parliament reconvenes in March.
The state of our political landscape makes me quite sad. We have a minority government that seems to be able to ride roughshod and see their agenda through. This is chiefly because the rest of the parties (who are all left leaning) don't have among them the common sense to keep the government in check. We have the Liberals who seem to have fallen from grace. They have had a string of second rate leaders who make Stephen Harper look good. The NDP doesn't count for too much here... if they had their way, we would be mired in a deficit 3 times what it is now and have unions flourish everywhere. We'd also probably be hurtling like a rock towards being a second rate country if they got their hands at power. All that leaves behind are the separatists. Thankfully, they are not much use to the country either. Thankfully, the secessionist tendencies in Quebec seem to be on a simmer and without that, the Bloc has precious little to do other than grumble about something or the other.
The sense of outrage shown by the opposition parties is spectacular though. The Liberals talk of the Conservatives lack of respect for the institutions of democracy. On the face of it, that sounds genuine. But the Liberals, when in power, have done exactly the same things. Rex Murphy's column in the National Post outlines his views on the circus and it is a good read for some background on the ill use of our institutions by both parties. The rest of them can talk about how they would be different, but I somehow doubt they would do any better had Canadians allowed them that much power in parliament.
As for the lay person out there expressing their outrage (or their support) at the act of prorogation, I wonder how many of them actually pay any attention to their day to day governance or whether they even vote in federal elections. People tend to express strong views when it comes to taxes and that makes sense; it costs you something. Surprisingly, many seem to have issues with prorogation as well (and some have a hard time saying it), though how it costs them, I am yet to understand. But I am glad they are at least paying attention.
At any rate, I am not happy with the stunt our PM pulled. And I would like my tax money back for all those days these MPs are going to spend not working. Because I could not do that at work and still keep my job.
I don't mean to suggest that I am in favour of what Mr. Harper pulled out of the hat; quite frankly, I am appalled at what he has done. My outrage has more to do with the way these elected people treat our institutions and the lack of realistic work being done by these people. These people get paid good money to go to Ottawa and spend time arguing about things and doing things to make life better for the rest of us. Now, these people have a 3 month vacation. A 3 month paid vacation. Its not like they are on strike or anything like that. They've just been given 3 months off to avoid the winter weather that plagues Ottawa it seems.
Our democratic form of government allows for procedures like prorogation in some circumstances. But they are not meant to be abused at every whim. It seems like the Prime Minister is using prorogation to try and avoid discussing various issues that are out there, chief among them the Afghan detainee inquiry. Instead of dealing with the issue in a sincere fashion (assuming all the things we hear from the government are to be taken at face value), the Conservative party has been busy sabotaging the inquiry and the (minority) government has been adept at slowing down the release of the documents that our diplomat in Afghanistan was sending to his superiors outlining his concerns that detainees are being abused. The only thing they have accomplished though is to make more people take note of it. I am sure they will still be talking about the detainee issue when parliament reconvenes in March.
The state of our political landscape makes me quite sad. We have a minority government that seems to be able to ride roughshod and see their agenda through. This is chiefly because the rest of the parties (who are all left leaning) don't have among them the common sense to keep the government in check. We have the Liberals who seem to have fallen from grace. They have had a string of second rate leaders who make Stephen Harper look good. The NDP doesn't count for too much here... if they had their way, we would be mired in a deficit 3 times what it is now and have unions flourish everywhere. We'd also probably be hurtling like a rock towards being a second rate country if they got their hands at power. All that leaves behind are the separatists. Thankfully, they are not much use to the country either. Thankfully, the secessionist tendencies in Quebec seem to be on a simmer and without that, the Bloc has precious little to do other than grumble about something or the other.
The sense of outrage shown by the opposition parties is spectacular though. The Liberals talk of the Conservatives lack of respect for the institutions of democracy. On the face of it, that sounds genuine. But the Liberals, when in power, have done exactly the same things. Rex Murphy's column in the National Post outlines his views on the circus and it is a good read for some background on the ill use of our institutions by both parties. The rest of them can talk about how they would be different, but I somehow doubt they would do any better had Canadians allowed them that much power in parliament.
As for the lay person out there expressing their outrage (or their support) at the act of prorogation, I wonder how many of them actually pay any attention to their day to day governance or whether they even vote in federal elections. People tend to express strong views when it comes to taxes and that makes sense; it costs you something. Surprisingly, many seem to have issues with prorogation as well (and some have a hard time saying it), though how it costs them, I am yet to understand. But I am glad they are at least paying attention.
At any rate, I am not happy with the stunt our PM pulled. And I would like my tax money back for all those days these MPs are going to spend not working. Because I could not do that at work and still keep my job.
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