- Cyclical ‘Dictatorship’ – The Harper Rule

excerpts submitted to:
- Toronto Star, “If Harper fixed his moat would we ever find out?”, 9 Jun.’09, James Travers
- Toronto Star, "Political apathy fuelled by diminishing role of our MPs and a lack of transparency", 21 Jun.'09, Bruce Campion-Smith



Never mind cyclical ‘deficit’. How about a cyclical ‘dictatorship’. Harper seems to think so. Fortunately we must have an election every four year, Harper himself made that law (or do we??? I’m not sure, ask Harper, I’m sure he will be more than willing to tell us, I think, sometime, or not, who knows).

One of the biggest defenses against dictatorial rule is Freedom of Information. This, of course, was one of the first things that Harper attacked, and vigorously, when he took office. It was not inadvertent or ancillary to good government.

What we need is a political leader, and party, to champion transparency, integrity openness in government and freedom of information. Wait a minute, wasn’t ‘transparency’ Stephen Harper and his Con’s battle cry before they got elected.

Of course, Harper answers to the will of Parliament. So, we can turn to Parliament to protect us against dictatorial rule. And, then there is the Senate as well, with its sober second thought. Surely it will limit Harper and prevent him from implementing any right wing extremist ideologically based policies, especially those that lead to a de facto dictatorship. Harper himself told us that before he got elected. How could a dictator take over with Parliament and the Senate. Unless, of course, you dissolve Parliament when it goes to exercise its Will, call-to-arms a small but significant group of die-hard supporters, and abolish the Senate, or at least attack and hamstring it to the extent that it can’t protect itself, let alone Canada, all Canadians and our way of life. No Prime Minister would do such a thing. Would they?

Lloyd MacIlquham