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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Harper really is dangerous

By: William Neville

29/01/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 51

It has become increasingly clear that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament in December was a serious miscalculation. The public, perhaps not normally attuned to such things, has clearly understood that Harper's decision smells: It smells of the all-consuming political calculations that are a 24-hour-a-day preoccupation with Harper; it smells of an attempt to shut Parliament down at a time when opposition MPs are asking embarrassing but legitimate questions of the government on several fronts; and it smells of a contempt for Parliament and public accountability that, ironically, helped bring the old Reform party into existence -- the same Reform party, need it be added, that first brought Harper to Ottawa.

Harper has offered a series of justifications for closing down Parliament.

First, it was to allow the country to focus on the Vancouver Olympics, a fatuous suggestion if ever there was one. Then Harper rationalized prorogation as providing the government the time to recalibrate its programs and policies. Taken seriously, this would suggest that Harper's government cannot govern and recalibrate -- whatever that may mean -- at the same time.

As demonstrations against the government have occurred across the country, and as the Conservatives' standing in the polls slid dangerously close to the Liberals', a new explanation and justification has been floated. Last week, Harper's office sent a memorandum to all its parliamentary supporters listing all the wonderful things that ministers, Conservative MPs and senators are doing -- and, by implication, able to do -- because Parliament is not sitting.

Essentially, Harper is suggesting that government gets better the less Parliament does.

That argument has been made explicit by no less an authority than one of Harper's senior pit bulls, Jason Kenney, who last week commented, "As a minister, I often get more done when the House is not in session. That's not to say Parliament is unimportant, but from a ministerial point of view, I think any minister in any government will tell you that's probably generally the case."

Could the message be any clearer? Presumably with no Parliament at all, the Conservatives could do one hell of a job.

This is an extraordinarily pernicious doctrine. In fact, to call it a doctrine is to dignify it: It is pernicious nonsense. From a party that has made a fetish of wanting less government and more accountability, this confounds the convictions they have always professed to have. The truth, obviously, is that they love power and unchecked power especially. Little wonder that poll after poll suggests that a large majority of Canadians want Parliament sitting because, for all its imperfections, it is the only way in which a government -- this government -- can be held accountable on a day-to-day basis.

In any survey of modern history, one everywhere observes -- all round the world -- that when elected, democratic governments are overthrown one of the first acts of autocrats and usurpers is to close down the assemblies, parliaments or congresses and to dismiss them as inefficient or ineffective talking shops.

Elected bodies can be such things but that is not why would-be dictators close them down: They close them down because they rightly distrust democracy as slow, cumbersome, inefficient and inimical to autocratic minds and methods.

Despite his frequently made claims to being an economist, Harper has always lived on the avails of politics and is an archetypal professional politician who has had no significant career outside politics and, within which has been narrowly focused on ideology, strategy and tactics. Coming, as he does, from the one-party state of Alberta he has never shown any sensitivity to nor understanding of a parliamentary system whose functioning depends on recognizing the legitimacy of opposition, the existence of constitutional conventions and limits, or that there are lines that governments may not cross.

He demonstrated this ignorance a year ago in precipitating a crisis that almost brought him down, and he is demonstrating it again now over prorogation. He combines the stubbornness of the control freak with the ignorance of the know-it-all. Harper, in a sense that his sternest critics may never have imagined, is a dangerous man.

wnwfp@mts.net

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 29, 2010 A13

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51 Commentscomment icon

[edited] WHY does the general public identify with these kind of people? Some of this is the fault of the media. Excuses for being in Afghanistan, giving guarded support for climate change deniers under the guise of "balance",etc. fear of disorder, welfare "bums" and private terrorism are seen as reasons for increased state interference. On this point both the political left and right are equally guilty. The newspaperman(not person) who is willing to say "no" is a rarity.

Andrew Bonner

On July 3rd 1776 Thomas Jefferson was a "subject" of King George V. Independence Day is when Jefferson became an American, free from the dictates of a Monarch. The Americans still had slavery but so did every colony under the British flag including Canada. Slavery existed because those men were not prepared to defend to the death their freedom.

Slavery has run its course now and I don't use today's values to judge our ancestors. They were men of their time like we are men of ours.

Self-ownership and non-aggression are the two core tenets of libertarianism.

To Chris Buors - The period of US history to which you refer featured slavery. Are you suggesting an element of economic freedom you advocate is the right to own another human being?

Nice to see someone in the media call a spade a spade and questioning Harpers tactics. The fact that his actions were legal doesn't make it ok or right. Sir John A. MacDonald prorogued parliment to save himself too and was kicked out of office his first day back in parliment!!! Now Harpers using our tax dollars to buy his way back to respectability and blaming everyone else for his disfuntional government. He's stacking the senate and taking personal credit for our history of banking regulations. Fact is, parliment hasn't worked since he was first elected and he's the one to blame. He calls himself an economist but didn't see the crash coming and had little to do with Canada's ability to survive it. (He told Canadians to by stocks as the stock market was crashing! Anybody remember that!?!?). Now "REAL" economists say that the greatest threat to the Canadian economy is consumer debt and the shrinking middle class. So what does he do? Increase taxes to help big business and buffer his own spending.
Canada needs a real leader... sure wish there was one out there!!!

Seeing as this issue was featured on Global National last night, I'd like to advance a new theory about what caused the latest prorogation of Parliament. Most people think it was over Richard Colvin's explosive testimony re the Afghan detainees. Maybe it was. But something else was happening in Ottawa at that time that didn't draw any notice: the Liberals tabled a motion calling for an inquiry into the use of Agent Orange at CFB Gagetown. Seeing as this issue involves hundreds of thousands of Canadians vs. hundreds of Afghani detainees, I think it's potentially more damaging to the PMO because an inquiry would show Harper has been involved in an unprecedented cover-up. Taking care of the victims was one of Harper's election promises, after all, and this is why so many veterans voted for him. It might surprise you to learn that all Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces personnel were threatened with prison if they cooperated with a crew shooting a documentary on CFB Gagetown. Also, no reason has been advanced about why Greg Thompson, the Minister of Veterans Affairs who had himself pushed for an inquiry while in Opposition, resigned "effective immediately."
Excerpt
“Approximately 315,000 Canadian soldiers trained at CFB Gagetown during this period of time,” said the Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal Critic for National Defence. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians, who used this training area for recreation, may also have also been exposed to these chemicals."

Mr. Neville makes some excellent points. Of course if you are a Conservative the truth is hard to stomach.

PS. Anyone who thinks that Harper steered us through a recession is a fool. (Would you like to buy some swampland in SE Manitoba?) The net result of today's Canadian economy has nothing to do with any local political manoevering, and has a lot more to do with what has happened worldwide.

Suecee wrote: Harper is not dangerous in any way. He has restored democracy to the senate.

Suecee, I don't know if appointing a bunch of Tory lapdogs to the senate really conforms with what I'd consider "democracy"
Harper is alienating his western base by failing to deliver on his promise of senate reform. He says the Liberals are stopping him but the reality is he's taken no substantive steps towards a "triple-e" senate. All his proposed Senate reform bills simply set term limits, they don't call for elections. The most recent, bill S-7, was actually killed by Harper himself when he prorogued Parliament.

Fred McTaggart

We don't have a Misesian economy, we have a Keynesian one wherein everybody is plundering everybody else. Health care and education and everything else the government does has nothing to do with a free-market.

What we have is called fascism. The marriage of business and government. That's what happens when you have a Central bank that prints money from thin air and everybody circles the government Ministers in order to curry favor.

The government of Canada is our richest citizen and the greediest one at that.

That is all due to taxation and controlled markets. In short, our government is doing all the plundering on behalf of the special interests.

There would be no incorporation in a Misesian economy, no central bank and a Gold standard too.

Mises wrote Socialism in 1922 and showed why the system would never work: economic calculations are impossible in a centrally planed economy.

In Liberalismus 1929 (The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth)...Liberalism (original German title: Liberalismus) is an influential book by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises, containing economic analysis and indicting critique of socialism. It was first published in 1927 by Gustav Fischer Verlag in Jena and defending classical liberal ideology based on individual property rights.

We don't have property rights in Canada so we don't have a free-economy. We have a managed and very controlled economy.



Harper is not dangerous in any way. He has restored democracy to the senate. He has steered us through a global economic downturn so that our recovery is among the strongest. He insists that any climate measures be both realistic and affordable. Parliament has about two extra weeks off. conservative and Bloc MP's are at home listening to Canadians and working for us. Where are the rest of the clowns? Hanging around Ottawa looking for photo ops.

Thank you to William Neville for saying what many people think about Harper, but are afraid to state in plain language.

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