- Our Dysfunctional Parliament

This was written in response to the Toronto Star article, “More polite but still dysfunctional”, Nov 22, 2008 04:30 AM , James Travers
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/541607

The Toronto Star allows only 1000 spaces in reply so I was unable to post all of this but only a small part.
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I think you [James Travers] have identified a very serious problem and the cause. Since Paul Martin's minority government Harper and the Conservatives have done everything he, and they, can, irrespective of decorum, to pull Martin down and cling to power. Their approach is completely new and different and, in my opinion, something that the Canadian people are really not totally tuned into, because, quite simply, no one and no party has acted in such a fashion before. There has never been such an extremist party in power in Canada. People may view the Harper and the Conservatives as the old Progressive Conservatives, (by name identification), who were moderate (in comparison) and employed moderate means, within the Canadian norms. The Harper and the Conservatives tactics are the Hallmark of extremists. These including walking out of the house, to the deliberate and well developed plans, (or conspiracies), by Harper and the Conservatives since in power with the only objective to maintain and increase their grip on power.

Their tactics which include: Secrecy, muzzelling and suppressing his cabinet and MP’s, restricting access by the Press, obstructing Access to Information, in-your-face confrontational approach as opposed to discussion, negotiation and compromise, responding in Parliament to legitimate and important questions for which the Opposition not only have a right to ask but have a duty to the people of Canada, with insults instead of answers that the Canadian people require, abusing power by making non-confidence motions confidence motions in order to force their narrow ideology on the people, to burying controversial and non-confidence type legislation that they have no hope of having pass in Bills of confidence, are all the Hallmark of extremism, in this case Right Wing.

The basis of our form of democracy is that their are a number of parties. These parties vie to form the government. But in exchanged they give the people what is beneficial to the people. That is, there is an exchange: you give us what we and a country needs and we will let you run the ship. This, of course, leads to an adversarial approach between parties and vigorous debate and holding to account in the House of Commons. Of course, this is precisely what it is designed to do and much of our society is premised on the "adversarial" approach.

However, our form of democracy works only when the Opposition and ultimately the Canadian people have knowledge of what the government is doing, i.e. transparency, and is able to hold the government to account, i.e. raising these issues in the House of Commons. The above cited tactics by Harper and the Conservatives thwarts this and, I suggest, this is no accident. For any open, free and tolerant society, the Purpose is: to build a nation where everyone can attain their potential and join together to help those that need help and protect those that need protection; through: informed, open and transparent discussion leading to a truly democratic solution for the good of all.

To me the solution is that the people of Canada become aware of what the Harper and Conservatives represent and they stand up and be counted. As long as the Opposition are so polarized it seems to me that Harpe will be able to get away with his scheme. I don't think it is a question of the Opposition Parties uniting, with leaders such as Jack Layton it is not likely to happen. The 62% of the Canadian people, who voted against Harper, will have to unite.

Lloyd MacIlquham