Canada says goodbye to Democracy?
Greetings,
Currently I am in Quebec, and I witnessed a thing on the Canadian national news (CBC) that really, really disturbed me.
Basically, the thing is this: The prime minister Steven Harper is the head of the conservative party, and he has about 42% of the seats in the parliament. The rest of the seats are taken by three parties, and these three parties obviously form a majority when they would be forming a coalition.
Harper, of whom I have heard he is called the but-licker of Bush, did not do enough to help the economy of Canada. At least, not in the eyes of the other parties in the parliament.
I do not know the details, the in's and out's, but I do know that my Euro is worth a lot of Canadian Dollars. Compared to the US Dollar, the Canadian Dollar is worth much less (Exchange Rates), and I enter a supermarket with a smile, so to speak.
Now, again, I do not know the in's and out's. Neither do I believe, that the democratic form of government is what it claims to be. However, there is a certain amount of reality in the system: after all, they have to keep up appearances. On top of that, most politicians do not have a clue as to whom they are really serving. It is from this [perspective, that I write my opinnion...
The opposition parties in theCanadian parliament didn't like what Harper was (not) doing concerning the Canadian Economy. I suspect that it has to do with what is happening everywhere: massive bail-outs, billions of dollars pumped into the indistries to "save jobs". But I could be wrong there.
In order to express their dissatisfaction with Harper, the opposition parties decided to form a coalition, making them de facto the rulers of parliament. Forming coalitions isn't tradition in this part of the world, but where I come from (the Netherlands), it is.
Mister Harper did not like this -completely democratic- move of the parties that simply do not like what he is (not) doing. Of course he diodn't, for as it turned out, the coalition had agreed to put a non-confidence vote against Harper. This means, that they factually were going to remove him from the office of prime minister.
Obviously, this all to the chagrin of Harper.
Now, watch this. As Harper sought his way out of this "crisis", he did a thing which you would expect in dictatorial regimes: he simply sent the parliament home.
Last monday, he would have been facing this non-confidence vote. What he did, he went to the representant of the english queen (Canada is part of the British Em[pire called the commonwealth) and basically asked her for permission to send the parliament home. The representant agreed, and so it went.
Harper went on national television, where he hailed up Canada as "the longest-lasting democracy of the earth" and claimed that he had gotten the confidence of the Canadian voters. Obviously, with his party not having the majority, this is a lie. He then went on and chastened the other parties for forming a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois, a party that seeks a souvereign status in North America rather than being part of the Canadian Entity.
This Bloc Quebeqois, even though I do not know the details so I go at my first level gut feeling, has my symphathy.
I am a member of the Frysian people, an ancient people with a 2500 year history on the land where I live, we were overtaken by the Dutch about 500 years ago, after which they made us part of their system and basically tried to eradicate us from our identity.
I symphatize with the Kurds, with the Tibetan people, with all people who are being taken over by others.
I symphatize with what they call in Canada "the first nation", the original inhabitants.
I also symphatize with the Quebec people, even though I know that they too live on land that did not belong to them in the first place. However, having said that, I feel symphathy for the Quebec people because they are struggling against the downpression of the rest of the country who identify themselves with England (note: not the UK as a whole) and try to eradicate the Frenmch identity of the Quebecois.
Whatever: one can not say that the Bloc Quebeqois is less democrativ than the other parties in the Canadian Parliament. Yes, there is actrually a quite large representation of the Bloc Quebecois in the Canadian parliament, showing the strong sentiment of the people here against the "english rule".
Mister Harper, on the other side, has called the Bloc Quebecois undemocratic. He said, that a democratic party should never allign themselves with what he calls "the seperatists", even though his own party has done the same in the past (as I heard).
He went on television and presented the coalition as "undemocratic". He then went on to explain his own undemocratic and outright dictatorial move to send the parliament home.
I was truly, truly shocked to see all of this at the CBC television. I was even more shocked to see, that many Canadians were buying into Harper's dictatorial rhetoric. I was shocked to see, how a coalition was presented as something undemocratic where in fact it is the most democratic form, in my opinion, and people buying into this...
Has Canada said goodbye to democracy, with mister Harper acting like a dictator? Is it not so, that the parliament is supposed to be the people's representants? To send parliament home because this parliament does not want the prime minister to continue his (non)policy, is a thing which you would expect from someone like Adolph Hitler, but not a so-called democratic prime minister.
Anyway, as said, I know democracy is just another lie. There is no real rule of the people. But there is, until a certain extend, since the matrix has to be in place. To see, that even this matrix is not respected, surely makes me wonder...
