Is Democracy Dead or Just on Life Support?
What’s happened to democracy in Canada? Is it still alive and kicking, on life support, or as many now believe, truly dead?
On the federal level we have a Prime Minister in office that believes he can simply dismiss the elected representatives of the people with a phone call any time the heat is too much for him. The public continues to rail against his undemocratic actions while the PM simply circles his hand picked team power brokers and does as he pleases.
It’s an attitude that has become more and more prevalent throughout politics in Canada. Examples of the growing belief by elected officials that they have “absolute” power can be found right across Canada and at all levels of government.
Take the example of the government of New Brunswick and its determined effort to sell off the provinces publicly owned power utility.
The Graham government in New Brunswick was elected on a platform that promised not to privatize NB Power. It was a platform plank that helped propel them into office. Now, in their first term of office the Premier and his Liberal caucus are hell bent on doing the exact opposite of what they were elected to do.
Tens of thousands of citizens have joined an online group opposing the sale and even though the group, on a per capita basis, is 6 times larger than one fighting the prorogation of Parliament, the Graham government is refusing to listen.
Protests are held on a daily basis at the Legislature and in front of MLA offices yet they refuse to listen.
Letters, emails, phone calls and public confrontations with members of the Graham government, by the hundreds, are happening daily yet they refuse to listen.
The volume of letters to local papers and the public opinion polls show that a vast majority of the public is opposed to the sale. Court challenges have been brought forward and native groups are seeking an injunction to stop the sale yet they still move forward with the planned sale.
What does that say about democracy other than sounding the death knell?
The Graham government is claiming they are not privatizing the utility because they are selling it to another crown corporation, even though that corporation is owned by the Quebec government, not the New Brunswick government. Clearly this is a case of quoting the letter of their platform over its clear intent”.
They are also claiming that their recent decision not to sell the transmission capacity is a case of them “listening to the people” but is it really? When you consider that they are not selling the poles but giving up all the capacity on those lines to Hydro-Quebec for eternity the self serving hair splitting taking place in New Brunswick is flagrant.
As with the proroguing of parliament, the actions of Premier Graham are clearly self serving. They are certainly not intended to serve the public interest.
In recent days elected MLAs in New Brunswick have even resorted to attacking the voting public to whom they should be answerable.
According to several witnesses, MLA Wally Stiles, a Cabinet Minister in the Graham government, told protestors outside his constituency office in Petitcodiac on Monday, “If you f--king a--holes think you are going to win this you had better think again! And I am f--king well going to run for the Liberal Party again!"
Stiles later got into an altercation with a resident in a local restaurant. The situation had to be brought under control by a retired RCMP officer who happened to be dining in the establishment at the time.
These sorts of incidents are becoming more and more prevalent among elected MLAs each day.
When the Stiles situation was brought to the attention of Premier Graham and members of his cabinet the only response came from Energy Minister, Jack Keir who, in addition to showing no concern about the actions of someone representing his government appeared to indicate that because this writer is a Newfoundlander I must be unemployed. Either that or when he said, “…Come on over, we'll see if we can help you land a job?” I have to wonder if he was actually offering me something to gain my silence?
Indeed, the sort of undemocratic and unprofessional actions we’ve seen in Ottawa lately are spreading like wildfire across the entire Country and it’s a slippery slope when those elected to office respond to their constituents, as both Premier Graham and his Energy Minister recently did, by saying they intend to do what they want regardless of the feelings of the public because:
“I'm not concerned. Politics wasn't a career for me.” – Minister Jack Keir
By Myles Higgins
