The North West Passage

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Since I named this blog ‘The North West Passage’, perhaps it behooves me to say a few things about the North West Passage from time to time.

This story on the CBC web site aptly describes why the True North Strong and Free is being claimed by other countries, including our neighbours to the south.

In my view, the only really praiseworthy thing worth mentioning that our P.M., Stephen Harper, is doing, is devoting more money and resources toward demonstrating our sovereignty over our northern territories. (Although that was actually Paul Martin’s idea, when he was P.M., but I digress.)

There’s rather a lot of things that Canada is doing, which are not mentioned in this article, such as establishing a deep-water navy base on the west side of Baffin Island, and establishing an arctic environment military training centre, to be staffed year-round.

I’m delighted by these plans. I’d love to see more things like this being done. Now if only Harper could stop treating the opposition parties like mortal enemies…

The following open letter, forwarded to me by a friend via facebook, is written by a retired professor of political science at Wilfred Laurier University. This seems to me the most sane and rational examination of the circumstance from the conservative point of view which I have read so far – especially his remarks about how Harper’s personality is the single biggest contributor to the political impasse we’re currently in.

Read on.

Canada’s guiding political values, expressed even back before Confederation, are “peace, order, and good government”.

It is no surprise, therefore, that one of our most enduring symbols of national identity is a police officer.

But let’s look at that last value. “Good government” is not just an euphamism for the ‘honest’ politicians we all wish for but tacitly understand we’ll never get. Actually, it has a specific legal meaning. It requires that the Prime Minister and Cabinet have the support of Parliament in order to govern. This is the reason why an election is triggered if a “confidence motion” is ever voted down. This is what makes minority governments so fragile. (This is also the reason why non-elected non-partisan heads of state like the GG are mighty useful people once in a while.)

The budget is normally considered a confidence motion, as is the vote to accept the Speech from the Throne each year. But any bill or motion initiated by the PM or by a cabinet minister can count as a confidence motion for this purpose. If a government bill is defeated, a vote of (no) confidence usually follows right away.

In order to prevent that from happening, Harper asked for, and got, Parliament to be suspended.

What a guy. Hats off to him for strength of will. But he still pisses me off.

Harper talks a good talk about the need to preserve democracy. And then he suspends parliament. All to avoid facing the MP’s that we democratically elected – who also happen to be the majority.

Sure, Liberal/NDP coalition may have their own aspirations for power too. That’s politics, after all. But they are not planning to curtail women’s rights (to sue their employers for pay equity), nor are they planning to suspend worker’s rights (i.e. the right of government workers to withdraw their labour when they get a crap deal from the employer (which, in the case of the public service, happens to be him)), and they are not planning to do nothing while most of Canada’s manufacturing and resource sectors are tanking.

Sure, the coalition needs the support of the Bloc Quebecois to work. This does not bother me. The dream of Quebec sovereignty has been dead for a decade. Even the Bloc knows that. Neither they nor the PQ put sovereignty on the top of their agenda anymore. Besides, they too were elected by people who didn’t want Harper. His fear-mongering over a deal with “separatists” (which his own party tried to do back when Martin was PM) will only benefit the separatist cause, by making Quebecers feel all the more alienated from the rest of the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have the most egotistical, bombastic, prideful, vain, self-centered Prime Minister in our entire history. He created the parliamentary impasse himself. He doesn’t deserve to be PM anymore. I want to see the coalition in power, or else an election.