I know that Santa tried his very best but it was never in the cards at this juncture of history to bring in a lottery system.  Too many things would have to change.  At the same time the current system  of electing representatives in Canada is intolerable.  The most popular electoral system in the world is something called proportional representation.  It is used at at least one level of government in over 160 countries.  There are procedural variations but basically proportional representation is a system that attempts to alot seats in a legislative chamber according to the level of popular support.  In other words if 25% of voters vote for a certain party that party should have about 25% of the seats in the chamber, in our case the House of Commons.  There is a growing number of Canadians who believe that Canada should adopt this system.  My friend Phil has correctly made that argument in comments he made to earlier posts.  In this article I want to first explain why our current system is failing Canada.   I will then go on to address the critics of proportional representation while laying out the variation I think best suited to Canada. 

Anyone who has ever sat in on an Anglican Church Board of Management meeting will be familiar with the words, ‘We’ve never done it that way before’.  Change is a scary thing to most people.  So why should we change our electoral system.  We have elections.  Governments get created.  So what is wrong?  In the United States, which uses the same system, the answer is a simple nothing.  America has a very narrow political culture and this is reflected in their two party political system.  The United States lacks a genuine conservatism and an indigenous socialism.  All Americans are some shade of liberal, from the classical laissez-faire liberalism of a George Bush to the reform liberalism of a Ted Kennedy.  With only two parties in play the single seat plurality system works just fine because it mimics a majoritarian system.  Once the universe of ideas expands the system begins to break down and cause problems. 

Proponents argue that the single seat plurality system (SSP) or first-past-the-post is preferable because it can produce a majority government with a minority of the vote.  The underlying assumption here is that majority governments are better governments because they are more stable.  The evidence in Canada shows that SSP fails to deliver on this approximately half of the time.  Half of all elections since 1921 when Canada’s political landscape began to expand beyond the Conservatives and Liberals, have resulted in minority governments.  Most of those minority governments have lasted two years or more with the odd exception.  Some like Mackenzie King’s 1921 minority lasted a full four years.  Provincially in Ontario, the only province with a healthy multi-party system, the final Davis Conservative minority government lasted from 1981 to 1985.  It is difficult in the face of the evidence to argue that minority government is inherently unstable.  Minority governments have often shown themselves to be very legislatively active as well.  Many of our most favoured policies such as our current health care system were the product of minority governments.  So good policy gets passed and elections are not held every other day, so what is so terrible about minority governments?  Of course you have to know how to govern.  A minority government forces compromise, negotiation and cooperation among the parties.  If you are a simple minded ideologue who cannot fathom that other people might have ideas and you must always get your own way then yes a minority government would be a problem (Not to mention any names but we all know who we are talking about here).    But those sorts of people should be discouraged from public office anyway.  Look what happened to Germany when they elected someone like that in the 1930s. 

The most consistent problem facing Canada is unity.  At times it has reached crisis level as in 1995.  SSP contributes to and exacerbates this very problem.  Our current system rewards regional parties and punishes national parties.  Let’s look at the 1993 election results.  The Bloc Quebeςois received 13% of the national vote to win 54 seats in the House of Commons and become Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (great irony); the Reform Party received 19% of the national vote to win 52 seats just behind the Bloc; the Conservatives received 16% of the national vote to win 2 seats.  Now you don’t have to be a mathematician or a political junkie to look at this and know that something is wrong.  The two regional parties (the Bloc in Quebec and Reform in the West) received 27  and 26 times respectively the number of seats in the House compared to the Conservatives with 3% less and 3% more respectively of the popular vote.  Therefore in our system it pays to focus on a regional agenda fanning the flames of distrust between the West and Central Canada and between English and French Canada.  If there ever was evidence of the absence of character of our elected representatives this is it.  Our electoral system is tearing our country apart and they refuse to change it because they receive petty personal benefits from it.  Any parliament can change the electoral system in a matter of days if they want to.  It requires only a simple majority vote in the House of Commons and Senate.  Shame on them that they have so little regard for the nation they purport to represent.  

The more obvious and general problem with SSP is its distortion of democracy.  Democracy is supposed to mean rule by the people or the mob depending on your view.  Aristotle, from whom I derived the name for this blog, saw democracy as the best of the worst systems of government.  It appears today that many who claim to defend it are really supporting what Aristotle called a Polity, rule by the many.  In reality we are actually an elected Oligarchy, rule by the wealthy and powerful.  SSP supports this system very well.  Proportional representation would weaken but not undermine it.  As you know from my previous post no electoral system meets my standard for democracy.  But proportional representation (PR) is a step in the right direction. 

The critics of PR say it leads to perpetual minorities but I have already established that minority government does not necessarily equate to bad government.  They argue, even in the face of the historical evidence in Canada that minority government in this country is relatively stable, that should PR be adopted this would break down and elections would be a constant fact of life.  The example of choice is invariably Italy.  Now it is true that at some times Italy changes prime ministers more often than I change my underwear.  There coalition governments have been known to be quite fragile.  But that is the result of Italian political culture and not proportional representation.  Anyone familiar with Italy knows that North Italy and Southern Italy are almost two different planets.  Critics never seem to want to talk about Sweden or Germany or The Netherlands, only Italy.  Governments are stable in stable political cultures and unstable in unstable political cultures.  So there is no reason to believe that Parliament Hill would become a grand national game of musical chairs because we adopt PR.

Does the tail wag the dog in PR systems?  This is another common argument.  Proportional representation gives too much power to small parties.  I have alluded to something of that difficulty in my previous article on the upcoming Israeli elections.  Yes smaller parties become necessary partners to form governments in this type of system.  This can be a problem in Israel particularly because it is a pure proportional system.  The entire country is one single constituency so that even a party with one or two percent of the vote can win a seat.  If we were to adopt PR here in Canada it would be absurd to attempt to make the entire country one large political constituency.  As now we would divide the country up in numerous constituencies, much larger than our current ridings.  For example we might take six of our current ridings and meld them together.  In that new riding the vote would be counted and six seats would be apportioned to the parties.  This is but one example.  We might divide Canada in any of a number of ways but divide we must.  If we take the six example I have used a party would need at least 10% of the vote in the enlarged riding to receive one of the six seats.  So in Canada we are not talking about parties with one or two percent seating members in the House.  Smaller parties would still have influence and a voice but would not wag the dog.  And as much as larger parties need the smaller parties to form governments the smaller need the larger to influence policy so it is in both interests to compromise, negotiate and cooperate. 

Proportional representation would benefit Canada by easing our regional tensions and expanding our democratic culture.  Liberals, Greens or NDPs in Alberta would finally be recognized and have MPs who sympathize with and share their views to appeal to as would Conservatives and NDPs in Quebec.  There is only one real argument against adopting this system:  The self-serving pettiness of the people who have the ability to make the change.

I have been a good boy this year.  Well I tried.  I tried to remember to be helpful and caring in my dealings with everyone.  I succeeded some of the time.  I hope you will add me to your nice list. 

I have only one thing that I am asking for this year, a new system for choosing our representatives in Ottawa and Ontario and for that matter around the world.  There are many electoral systems out there to choose from, some of which I like and some of which I think are bad.  But what I really want is not a new electoral system but no electoral system.  When people are forced to vote for one or another candidate, no matter what the system used, it always favours those with money and power to begin with. 

Santa what I want is a lottery system.  If we want democracy as we always say we do then this is the only system that can deliver.  But I don’t believe most people when they say they want democracy.   Most people believe our society is stratified (the politically correct term for a class-based society in a classless society).  Some are born to lead and some are born to follow.  You and I know that that is bogus, Santa.  We know that any average normal human being given the same information can make good decisions.  Maybe sometimes bad decisions too but no one can tell me the jokers there now have never pulled a boner.  So why not give everyone a chance, Santa?  Maybe having a single parent on social assistance contribute to the debate on a national child care program would have some benefits.  For instance, getting one!

The biggest problem with our current governments is their disengagement from reality.  None of them interact effectively with ordinary folk.  Oh they come back and live in their ridings but mostly they socialize with the local elites.  My local representative has never sat down with his wife to a meal at my nephew’s house and shown an interest in their struggle.  My nephew works a low pay job in a service industry.  He works long and hard hours to try to make ends meet.  His wife has a chronic illness that limits how much she can contribute but she does what she can.  Truth is with the medical expenses (prescriptions and such) they would be better off on social assistance.  Maybe if my member of parliament could see and understand that first hand he might make a more rational contribution to debates on alleviating poverty in Canada rather than the ideological claptrap he spouts now.  If there ever was a stupid policy it is one that makes people fools for trying to help themselves.  But this is indicative of the kind of policy being produced by our governments all the time.  So maybe it would be better for my nephew or his wife to engage in the debates and decisions themselves because they understand the situation, they live it.  Few if any of our elected representatives grew up in poverty.  Oh money was tight in my home as well and I sure knew the meaning of the word ‘no’, but there were others who were truly bad off.  And truth to tell I have yet to meet an MP that didn’t come from higher up the economic food chain than I. 

Part of the disengagement problem is the lack of diversity among our current representatives.  In any of the provincial parliaments across Canada and in the federal parliament at any given time most, sometimes as much as 75% or more, of the members are lawyers.  No need to repeat here the litany of lawyer jokes, you have all heard them I am sure.  That aside, even if all of the lawyers in the legislatures are good and talented people (gag), how is that representative of our society.  Most people in our society are not lawyers.  Now someone out there is thinking, of course they are lawyers, lawyers are the only ones who can understand all that stuff.  True, because lawyers were the people who wrote it in the first place.  If non lawyers started making policy maybe it would make more sense.  In actuality our MPs don’t write the legislation the bureaucrats do.  Politicians decide policy, what we want to accomplish.  Bureaucrats figure out how to do it.  A lottery system would create a parliament that reflected our society.  A parliament that reflects society cannot help but set goals and accomplishments that reflect the needs and visions of that society.  In the end that is what democracy is supposed to be. 

Some will say that ordinary people are just not smart enough, they don’t know enough to be able to govern effectively in a complicated world.  The world is only as complicated as we make it.  It is not the technical questions which divide us and create the chronic suffering of humankind.  It is the ethical, the principle questions.  What does our society deem just in dealing with those who face challenges in their lives?  What is a just health, education, social or security system?  What world do we want to see?  Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  This would be our chance to do just that.   Each of us is capable of making good decisions as I said above; we just need the information. 

Here is how it would work.  The names of all eligible Canadians would go into the pool.  Individuals who for specific reasons such as physical or mental infirmity etc. could not serve, would be excluded.  Also there would be a process to apply for specific exemption.  This is exactly how our grand jury system works.  Individual names would be selected at random to fill the 308 seats currently in parliament.  Those individuals would be notified by registered mail that they will be serving in parliament for the next however many years we decide.  It could be four or we might opt for shorter tenures.  Their employers would be expected to guarantee a return to their jobs when they are finished.  (Don’t even go there if anyone is thinking that that is an onus on employers given how many jobs in our society today are contract anyway.  I spent 5 years on renewable four month contracts before I was hired full time by the college.)  The prime minister and cabinet would be elected from amongst the selected group just as jury foremen are selected now.

This does brings up why I don’t believe most people when they say they want democracy.  I have heard it many times whenever this concept is brought up.  ‘But I don’t want to serve in parliament.  What about my life.  That is too much to ask people to do.’  As Shakespeare said, “There’s the rub.”  In western industrialized societies we only want democracy if it doesn’t inconvenience us.  Hell almost half of the population can’t even be bothered to go out and vote and their major excuse; ‘I’m too lazy to find out what is going on so I don’t know enough to vote intelligently’.  I have news for you, you just aren’t intelligent.  People get the governments they deserve.  If you want to take the time and effort to browse through the specialty shops and research the product before you buy it, you most often get a quality product.  Or you can just go to WalMart because its convenient and get crap.  Take the Stephen Harper mannequin we have as prime minister today.  Now there’s an example of cheap plastic crap.  (before anyone gets in a tither, the options currently are Mr. Potato Head and a wind up rat).  I want them all gone and in a lottery system they would be. 

So Santa, you see, if we can trust ordinary citizens, chosen at random, to determine the fate of a defendant in a court of law, why can’t we trust the same people to make intelligent decisions for the whole country.  In each case they are acting on our behalf.  Perhaps we should ask the question in reverse.  If we don’t trust them to make political decisions, how can we, in good conscience, put the life of a human being in their hands?  Here in Canada we don’t have the death penalty but 25 years and sometimes more, even natural life, is an important decision I would think  And what about those societies like the United states that do have the death penalty.  I know that you and I Santa have commiserated many times over that industrialized despotism.  There this very system is trusted to decide whether the state, in the name of its citizens, can take the life of an individual.  Is there ever a more demanding decision than the decision of life or death?

I hope you can fit this in your sack tonight.  I know I have given you a tall order.  So if you can’t deliver I understand.  I want you to make sure all the little peoples around the world are taken care of first.  So if you can’t get me this maybe you could just remind people on your travels to have faith in the human spirit and each other and just maybe my gift will create itself. 

Merry Christmas Santa.  The milk and cookies will be on the Chinese bar next to the tree as usual this year. 

Michael

This will be remembered as the year of the big story.  The Democratic primary fight pitting the first female candidate with a chance of being nominated by a major party against the first Black candidate; leading, as expected, to one of them winning the White House.  The presidential election culminated in the first Black man to become president of the United States.  The campaign season showed us new creative heights of sexism and racism dressed up with the proverbial lipstick.  Oil prices soared and a terrified public was told to expect them to climb even higher by the winter of 2008/2009.  Then the financial crisis exploded on society.  Oil prices plummeted to just below $50 a barrel.  Banks and financial institutions that were once the pillars of American capitalism collapsed, demanding public money to bail them out of their self-created disaster.  Not only demanding but expecting the public to simply hand over their hard earned money so that they could lend it back to us with interest.  The automakers followed suit.  Detroit, who for years refused to produce environmentally friendly and efficient vehicles, wanted the public to fund their stubborn ignorance.  The sense of entitlement in the ruling financial/industrial elite expressed itself in the crass reaction to any political oversight or confrontation.  The Detroit automakers and the Wall Street financiers sat before Congress and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse; either give us the money we demand or face the horror of the deconstruction of your entire economy.  There used to be a name for this behaviour.  Now what was it again?  Oh yes, I remember, extortion.  Congress bent before the deities of commercial Valhalla, sacrificing their dignity and our money to these sybaritic gods of greed.  When it rediscovered its backbone and tried to deny the Detroit 3, the High Priest in his White Temple, Pope George,  intervened and promised to save the American car industry himself.  An incoming president promises to withdraw troops from an ill-conceived illegal invasion of Iraq only to send them, in Nixonian style to another conflict in Afghanistan.  Redefining words in ways that would make Orwell envious, withdrawal has come to mean a permanent force of at least 50,000 remaining indefinitely in Iraq. 

I often remind my students of the ancient curse, may you be born in interesting times.  Well if any times can be considered interesting these can.  We, the great unwashed (mental note need a shower today), in each historic epoch look to the heralds, the troubadours,  the minstrels, of the time, the fourth estate, in short the media to guide and inform us.  Legends in my lifetime like Neil Sheehan, Tom Wolfe, Seymour Hirsch, Woodward and Bernstein, Edward R. Murrow and more too numerous to mention have illuminated the dark underbelly of our society in an effort to help us understand ourselves and our world.  Understanding precedes correcting.  We rely on these heralds to tell us what is happening.  If they are silent then we are ignorant.  If they are biased we are misinformed.  If they are stupid we are in deep do-do.  These three are not mutually exclusive.  The greatest crisis facing our society and our planet today is that most ‘journalists’ are all three.  They are often silent because to report would challenge the underlying  ’truths’ of the ideology they are sworn to uphold.  And they are often too stupid to see their own bias.  To see it they would have to examine themselves and ask some very difficult questions and we live in a world that discourages analysis and critical thinking as dangerous. 

Bias in the media is not necessarily, although it can be in a small number of individual cases, a conscious behaviour.  Most journalists believe they report in an objective and unbiased manner, always sure to verify their information with ‘official sources’ and ‘recognized experts’.  What they don’t see is that these ‘official’ and ‘recognized’ people are just that, official and recognized, but by whom.  The ideology of liberalism has been accepted in our society today as natural.  It is the ideology that is not ideological.  In some ways this is true of every society in every epoch.  We believe that the way we live is the correct, most natural, most rational form of living.  Our thoughts and understanding become the hard truths by which everything is measured.  But how is this conditioned reached?  In other words, who made up these norms and enforces them, to different degrees punishing any who might think or act a little differently.  In Western society in the early 21st century the truth is a liberal truth, having firmly grasped European and most particularly American society in the 17th and 18th centuries, rising though the 19th to cult status and vanquishing its greatest challenger in the industrialized world with the fall of communism and the discrediting of socialism in general.  What is has displaced, vanquished and rejected is not necessarily wrong because it has lost a battle.  If losing a battle were all that were necessary to discredit an adversary then we should reinstitute trial by combat for all disputes for clearly might makes right.  I wish that those who so fondly recall John Kennedy’s remarks in his inaugural speech, Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can do for your country,would actually read the rest of the speech and see the suffering and pain Kennedy expected the American people to endure just to defeat, not the Soviet Union, but just the idea of communism/socialism.  This is the objectivity that journalists are trained to see.  Liberal perspective becomes truth.  Official sources are trusted and left unchallenged.  As John Pilger remarked, speaking at a conference about his new book, ‘Freedom Next Time’,  the bits of true investagative and reflective journalism that find their way into the pages of major papers or onto mainstream networks both radio and television, are honourable exceptions rather than the rule of modern journalism.  Can we blame the journalist for seeing the world as those around them see it?  Can we blame the journalism program at university and college for putting out people that will blindly follow those who preceded them in the industry?  The question is a little unfair, I admit.  What I am really asking is can ordinary people be blamed for being ordinary?  How can we expect journalists to all be great people?  People of high conscience, principle, and great courage.  For it takes great courage to go through life uncertain of every thought you hold.  For the great person knows she/he  may be proven wrong at any moment.  Even when forcefully and vigorously asserting a position or argument, a little voice, like the slave in the chariot during a Roman triumph, constantly whispers ‘remember, you are only human’.  That is a lot to ask of anyone, to go through life in uncertainty.  But that is the human condition.  It doesn’t mean that you must always relinquish the field to your opponent or preface every remark with ‘I could be wrong but’.  You still forcefully assert your arguments because you believe them to be provably correct.  And you believe this because you have questioned them in the first place.  Accepting that we all have an inculcated perspective based on our lifetime experience means digging deeper and challenging that perspective constantly so that when we opine we do so with the confidence that that opinion will stand up to scrutiny.   That is the mark of great character and that is what I demand of journalists.  To do otherwise would be to condemn myself and you to purgatory of totalitarianism.  Such character is not encouraged by our education system or our social institutions as a whole.  The password for smoothly sailing through life is acceptance.  Accept the world as presented.  Don’t rock the boat.  But while courage won’t make you popular, it will make you honourable.   The choice is always up to the individual  So I implore those who proceed into journalism, if you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to ask the hard questions and examine your own failing then at least become a sports reporter where even basic intelligence is optional. 

In politics the first question that should always be asked is ‘In whose benefit?’   Who benefits from seeing things this way rather than that?  Who benefits when ideas are defined this way rather than that.  If the same people who are defining the events and ideas are the same people who benefit from those particular definitions, we need to be skeptical.  Maybe they are being honest and it is just coincidence that they also benefit but to accept that as the usual is to be stupid.  And that is the situation with the media today and for most of the past 100 years.  Accepting the views or their ‘official’ and ‘recognized’ sources is doing just that.  These sources benefit by the way they define the world and these are the only sources journalists must use. 

And how do journalists deal with their inability to really question the power brokers in our society?  Look at the questions they are asking.  Recently I was reminded of a question asked right after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.  I remember it being asked and at the time just shook my head in disbelief.  It has become part of the conspiracy theory industry that has grown up around that tragic day.  (The attacks have spawned several industries actually.  Only America could market tragedy like soap suds.)  The question was “Mr. President.  Where were you when you first saw pictures of the first plane hitting the towers?”  I have paraphrased as it was asked more than once directly to the president and to his media representatives.  The initial answer that he was at the school when he saw a picture of the first plane hitting which is incorrect as images of that plane hitting had not been uncovered at that point is why the conspiracy theorists are all over it.  Most likely it was the second plane hitting that he saw and the answer a result of miscommunication.  But for all the attention that the question has received because of its answer, no one has questioned the question itself.  Why would anyone, let alone someone who must by virtue of covering the White House be at an upper level of his/her profession, ask such a stupid question ?  Who the hell cares where he was when someone first showed him a picture.  What critical information is uncovered by this?  The question of when was also asked several times.  When did you know this?  When did you hear that?  When did that zit on your nose pop?  Maybe George was having a dump when his aids first showed him the pictures or told him about the collapse.  Maybe Laura wheeled a TV over to the hall and he kept the door open to watch the coverage.  If he is like me he probably got her to bring him a cup of coffee as well.  How much of this crap (pardon the pun) do we need or want to know.  Personally I have no interest in any of this.  I don’t care who told him what, when.  I would be interested in deeper questioning of his plans for dealing with the situation.  That is news! 

But news is what the heralds of these interesting times are trained to ignore.  We hear the lies repeated.  The auto industry is in trouble because it pays its workers too much.  Truth the average pay at assembly plants in the U.S. is $30 an hour.  Given the price of housing and feeding a family in America today that is not exorbitant.  But according to the heralds unless the workers stop being so greedy the Detroit 3 will collapse.  In whose interest?  The self proclaimed best political team on television asks whether President-elect Obama can move forward on health care reform in the midst of this financial crisis.  Read General Motors financial report.  You will discover that health care costs are hurting their competitiveness.  But no mention of this on CNN.  Oh! no! Wolf wouldn’t want to mention that.  In whose interest?  Victory in Iraq and in Afghanistan is necessary to secure the world (read the United States) from further terrorist attacks.  Most Americans still believe that Iraq was involved in the attacks and that the elimination of the Taliban will produce a free and democratic Afghanistan (read my earlier post Team Afghanistan for some insight into the reality).  Bringing death and destruction to those half way around the world will make them love us.  Instead every objective measure shows a more dangerous world today than before the War on Terror.  Even that phrase, war on terror is never questioned but it may tell us more than we want to know.  How can you have a war on an idea, a concept?  What would that look like?  You can’t kill an idea only the holder of the idea.  Then look at how we are proceeding in this so-called war.  In whose interest? 

In whose interest?  Over and over I ask myself that question as I watch events unfold before me.  If only journalists could find the courage to start asking those questions.  Not just of the powers that be but of themselves.  In whose interest is it that they reject information from every alternative source in favour of the ‘official’ and the ‘recognized’?  It is certainly not in mine or in the interest of society as a whole.  But it does seem to be in the interest of those who make the decision of what information the public receives.  The heralds of interesting times have much to answer for.

Much has been said about the governor-general’s decision to allow parliament to prorogue.  The popular consensus is that she has done the right thing.  It has been argued that it was fair.  I have even been fortunate enough to get a comment saying that Queen’s University constitutional scholar Ned Franks disagrees with me.  I dare say a lot of people disagree with me.  Unfortunately the commenter, as you can read for yourself if you wish, only said that the professor disagreed with me.  I am not sure what purpose that serves unless it is to say that his PhD trumps my M.A.   And ad hominem attacks are a sign of weakness.  There are of course others who do agree with me such as former governor-general Ed Schreyer.

I stand by my original conclusion that the governor-general has made an improper decision.  She interfered with the proper processes of parliament.  How can we have responsible government with a prime minister who does not enjoy the confidence of the House?  My conclusion is based on something that until now I did not think was a matter of debate: i.e. that the governor-general is responsible to the will of parliament.  The will of parliament in this case was publicly known.  Mr. Harper would lose a confidence motion if put to the House.  There was a party leader who did enjoy the confidence of the House.  If Governor-General Jean wanted to ascertain the will of parliament for herself, she simply had to ask Mr. Harper to stand for a vote of confidence.  At that point she would have the decision of whether to dissolve parliament or accept Mr. Dion’s offer to form a government.  The appropriate thing for her to do then would be to allow Mr. Dion to attempt to govern.  So unless someone can tell me that the governor-general is not responsible to parliament, I don’t see how they can make a credible argument that the governor-general did the appropriate thing.  If she is not responsible to parliament then who is she responsible to?

Also I know that some of my colleagues do not take this breech as seriously as I do.  A constitution is more than a dusty old bunch of documents.  It is the fabric upon which a society is built.  Once rent it may never be fully repaired.  Already this whole incident is raising the ugly divisions which percolate just under the surface of our society:  East vs. West, French vs. English.  If we cannot abide by the rules that we have set in place then it is time to change them.  I see this as an error in the 1982 patriation.  We should then have included clearer indication of the role of the governor-general and how she should react to given circumstances.  Of course as I have already said, I had assumed that the fact that she was responsible to parliament was a clear given.  I guess I was wrong about that.  

So I take this seriously and I stand by my original analysis until someone can prove my premises incorrect.  I also believe in doing something rather than sitting back and accepting whatever the powers that be decide.  Canadian’s legendary quiescence is no service to our country at this point.  And I have never been much of a quiescent type. 

So certainly feel free to disagree with me.  I don’t take stands because they are popular, I take stands because I believe in them.

The Governor-General Michaëlle Jean has violated the constitution.  Granting Stephen Harper prorogation of parliament contradicts the traditions of responsible government.  The Crown is to be responsible to the will of Parliament, not to the will of a prime minister or for that matter to the will of the people.  This whole matter is a legal one and Jean has treated it as a political question.  That in itself proves her unfit for the post.  This is now a full blown constitution crisis. 

If nothing is done in response to this situation it undermines the credibility of the entire constitution.  A constitution is just a legal charter or contract.  Some parts are written in a special document and other parts are scattered through other documents and court decisions.  Just like a contract you might sign to buy a house or obtain employment, the rules or conditions specified within must be observed.  Now if I violate a condition of say an employment contract, said contract becomes null and void.  Once I violate one part without sanction, why would I not violate other areas and expect, based on precedent, to avoid sanction?  This is what has happened.  The Supreme Court constitutional decision on conditions for Quebec separation is now void.  The constitution no longer exists.  The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies because it is part of the constitution which no longer has authority.  These examples may sound far fetched and I don’t expect Quebec to leave today or the RCMP to start violating your Charter rights (at least no more than they do already).  My point here is to drive home that this is serious and has consequences beyond the immediate situation. 

This is the first time that I am aware of since 1926 that a sitting prime minister has made an inappropriate request of a governor-general.  In that case Lord Julian Byng had the strength of character to fulfill his responsibilities and deny the request.  Apparently Michaël Jean does not. 

But who has the power to remove a governor-general?  Certainly, as a representative of the Crown, Elizabeth should have the authority to say I would like someone else to represent me.  Elizabeth is the Queen of Canada (among her guzillion titles).  We are a constitutional monarchy.  Therefore, I suppose we could ask Elizabeth herself to overturn the ruling of her representative.  That is not going to happen.  The British Crown, while nominally our Head of State, is not about to crawl into this can of worms.  The next question then is can the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court remove Jean from office?  I don’t know.  That question will have to be answered by a constitutional scholar of much greater expertise than me. 

Still, something must be done, if we wish to maintain self-respect as an independent state.  Our spineless news media will be of no help as they are already trying to downplay this (under command of their Conservative-buying corporate bosses no doubt).  Since the beginning, through innuendo and suggestion, they have been convincing Canadians that the opposition parties were doing something, if not illegal, then unethical and certainly sleazy.  They have consistently echoed the Conservative assertion that the opposition only coalesced around the cuts to political party funding in the economic statement tabled in the House.  I understand the Conservatives saying that and I don’t expect them to prove it.  It is partisan rhetoric which is equalled by the other side, fair enough.  But if the laughingly self-described objective media are going to print it or broadcast it, then they should have to prove it.  At this point there has been no such tendering of evidence to the public. 

So as everything else it is left up to you and me.  What can we do?  Freedom and democracy are always fought and struggled for from below as John Pilger said in his speech on “Freedom This Time”, (his new book).  It is up to us.  Do we stand up for the rules and attempt to make things right?  Or do we sit back and accept whatever happens?  If we do the former as the news media seems to want us to do we are saying that ours is not a serious country; Canada is a toy, a Disney production, the little country that could; our politics are not serious.  If that is the case, if that is what Canadians feel, then stop the pretense and let’s apply for annexation by the United States.  I can think of nothing more loathesome to me than being an American except being a citizen of a national joke.  At least Americans take their politics seriously.  You know there was an old Russian saying that a peasant did not care who was in the Kremlin as long as he had his vodka and a woman.  So I guess that kind of describes most Canadians too.  You are not going to lose your job tomorrow (and hell next week is so far off) so the case of beer is safely in the fridge for this weekend and I am sure you can all find some warm company (even if some of you have to blow her up first).  So hey there has to be something better on TV than all this political crap.  Well I want you to remember these thoughts when they are loading you onto the train to the gulag in Nunavut like so many Russians or you are watching your entire family being murdered like so many Ukranians.  That’s right, don’t worry about your rights.  If you ignore them they will go away (actually most already have gone with silence from our intrepid media)

But me?  Here is what I am going to do.  Tonight I will write 3 letters.  One to Michaëlle Jean requesting that she do the honourable thing and resign.  The second letter will be to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to request the Court to intervene if it has the power.  The third letter will be to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to request that she remove her representative at once and reverse her erroneous decision.  Maybe, probably, nothing will come of it.  Who the hell am I?  A nobody prof at a small college in the backwaters of Ontario.  But at least I will have done something.  Flo Kennedy once said the worst thing you can do is sit on your ass.  So the question is do you want to stand up with the crackpots like me and do something or would you rather spend tonight nursing a new hemorrhoid?  Your choice.

Will Stephen Harper prorogue the parliament to avoid losing a vote of confidence?  If he does he takes the coward’s route out and he needs to consider the consequences of such an action.  I do not suffer cowards gladly at any time and even less in our leadership.  The cowardice of Stephane Dion and the Liberal party in the last parliament contributed to the situation we find ourselves in today.  Mr. Harper has proved incapable of responsible leadership and should face the music.  If Stephen Harper believes in his position.  If he believes he did what was right and responsible in tabling that economic update.  Then he should stand and face the opposition head on and make his argument, not run away with his tail between his legs. 

In the event that Mr. Harper lacks character and chooses to cut and run, I suggest the opposition coalition consider a preemptive strike.  Today, as every day there will be a debate on adjournment.  During that time any member of the House may rise to speak on an issue she/he feels has not be adequately addressed during the day’s proceedings.  The coalition could use this opportunity to bring down the government.  The agreement is in place.  Everything seems prepared to move ahead.  So why wait until Monday? 

I am sure someone is going to scream ‘Where’s the precedent?’.  In 1940, on the day that France surrendered to the Nazis, the British House of Commons at Westminster entertained a motion to adjourn for the day.  The ensuing debate ended up lasting a couple of days as MPs made the argument that the House should not adjourn when faced with the loss of their largest ally on the European continent.  When the vote was finally called Prime Minister Chamberlain did indeed win but the vote was so close that he realized that a large number of his own MPs had voted against him.  The next day he visited the King to resign and the King called on Winston Churchill to form a government.  The rest as they say is history. 

Canada is facing a crisis.  We may be on the edge of a new Great Depression.  Hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector while the government boasts of the creation of low paying part time jobs in the service sector.  Even the restructuring bail out being considered in Washington for North American automakers contains further job losses which they euphemistically call downsizing to increase profitability.  Heaven help us if we call a spade a spade anymore.  We need these sweet sounding phrases so as not to think about the fact that we are destroying people’s lives.  We are mired in a foreign war which is draining wealth from our economy while providing no positive return for Canada or Afghanistan.  None of our allies are dumb enough to take over and relieve us.  Maybe that alone should tell us something. 

So enough.  Stand up like a man Mr. Harper and take your medicine.  Better to go down in flames than linger on a pathetic weasel.  If you don’t have the stomach for it then the opposition coalition should put you out of your misery.  Mr. Dion, Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe act now before the vermin slips the trap.

I have just finished reading a piece on the CTV website entitle “NDP, Bloc in coalition talks before fiscal update: tape”  (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081130/conservative_budget_081130/20081130?hub=TopStories). 

Jack Layton is reported to have held a telephone meeting with his caucus which was recorded by a Conservative member.  The article then goes on to deal with the issues surrounding such a deal. 

But nowhere, does it question the ethics of a Canadian political party conducting what amounts to electronic surveillance on one of its opponents.  If I am reading this article correctly and the information is true, then we have a grave situation in Ottawa.  Anybody ever here of ‘Watergate’?  A very similar act brought down the most powerful politician of his time, President Richard Nixon of the United States. 

Here is what needs to happen now if integrity is a word still understood in Ottawa. 

1. The information must be confirmed and the Conservative member publicly identified.  If it is not correct then CTV needs to clarify and apologize. 
2. The Speaker of the House needs to take the matter under advisement to determine what sanction the House needs to apply.
3. The RCMP need to be consulted for possible criminal charges.
4. Stephen Harper needs to immediately apologize to the Canadian people (and actually mean it). 
5. Canadians need to make a statement by contacting their individual MPs from all parties and put them on notice that such behaviour will not be tolerated. 

I lived through the time when governments north and south of the border believed that spying on their own citizens was justifiable and normal procedure.  I will not live through such times again!

And they say that Canadian politics aren’t interesting.  For any number of reasons (depending on who you are listening to) it appears that the opposition parties in the Canadian federal House of Commons are preparing to bring down the newly minted Harper government.  The Liberals and NDP argue that the recent economic statement from finance minister Jim Flaherty lacked economic stimulus and that there is not time to wait for the upcoming budget given the global economic situation.  The Conservatives argue that the opposition are being disingenuous (really?  a politician being disingenuous? my!).  The economic update of last Thursday announced the removal of subsidies to political parties.  This program had been put in place by the Chretien government as a move to reduce the influence of corporations, unions and other third party groups on the political parties.  This is what the Conservatives say is the real reason the opposition seem to have a bee in their bonnet.  Personally, I support full public funding for election campaigns with firm accounting controls.  It makes the system more democratic.  But to be sure the opposition parties will work very hard to deny that that is the real issue and the government very hard to say it is.  Such is the sad state of democracy today, the politics of point and insult.

So what comes next?  The Liberals and NDP are talking coalition.  They would still need the support of the Bloc Quebecois in order to govern but the Bloc, at least at this point, will not be a part of the coalition government.  The Conservatives are going to argue, if it comes to that, that a coalition is unconstitutional and that the governor-general should call an election instead.  Most Canadians are unaware that nothing of our governing system is in the Constitution.  The only vague reference in CA1867 (formerly the British North America Act) is in the preamble where is mentions forming a government similar in kind to that of Great Britain.  Our current governing system does reflect, in its basic structures, the Westminister model of government.  The prime minister was not even mentioned in the Constitution until the 1982 amendment.  So what Mr. Harper is hanging his hat on is something called constitutional conventions.  These are unwritten bits of the constitution.  A constitutional convention is another way of saying tradition.  Those practices that have arisen and stood the test of time are understood as constitutional by the courts.  It is equal to the precedent concept.  While the courts do recognize them, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be overruled if it seems that they have outlived their usefulness or are in some way injurious to the society.  They are much easier to change than anything that is actually written into the constitutional documents. 

Are there precendents?  The closest would be the Liberal-NDP Accord in the Ontario provincial legislature in 1985.  This was not a coalition.  In exchange for the passage of specific legislation, the NDP committed to not defeat the government on a confidence motion for two years.  At the time the Conservatives held the most seats in the legislature but were finding it impossible to govern as a minority.  When Frank Miller resigned as premiere, David Peterson, with the Accord in hand, presented the lieutenant-governor with the option of allowing him to form a government, thus avoiding an election so soon on the heels of the last.  The other precedent that comes to mind is the Union Government of 1917 but in that case the coalition was arranged prior to the election and ran as such.  There are other examples of deals between parties to support a minority government such as the ‘Shopping List’ presented by the NDP to the Conservatives and Liberals in 1972 (for those of you who don’t remember or are too young to remember the Liberals won the bidding).  So all in all while there is no direct precedent, a federal coalition government in no way contridicts what has gone before.  We have a history of cooperative efforts between parties and a coalition would be just another level up. 

It would create a greater constitutional crisis for Canada if the governor-general were to deny the request of the Liberals to form a coalition.  Another fact that Canadians don’t fully understand is that we, the people, do not elect the prime minister.  We elect a person in our riding.  That person belongs to a specific party in most cases (leaving independents aside for the moment).  When the seat count is added up the party with the most seats usually forms the government.  That’s right, usually.  While there is not an actual vote for prime minister the House of Commons nonetheless does make the choice.  A prime minister remains in office as long as she/he retains the confidence of the House.  At any moment, whether in majority or minority, if a prime minister loses on a confidence vote she/he must resign.  Of course this has never happened in a majority situation in Canada and is not likely to.  But it is a real possibility in minority.  On the other hand, if a party leader can provide proof that they would enjoy the confidence of the House, the governor-general would be hard pressed to deny them the opportunity.  This is the situation which appears to be forming up.  Therefore, if Stephane Dion (providing he is still leading the Liberal Party) approaches Governor-General Michaëlle Jean and proposes a coalition government with the NDP supported by the Bloc with all parties in agreement, her only answer can be to give him the opportunity. 

Is all this hullabaloo necessary?  Probably not but it was inevitable.  Stephen Harper had shown himself incapable of working in a minority situation in the last parliament when he had even fewer seats.  Now with the scent of majority in his nose there would be no dealing with him at all.  Stephen is one of those people whose look matches their personality.  He really is just as anal as he looks.  Hell you couldn’t pull a needle out of his butt with a backhoe.  Anal retentive people tend to be control freaks unable to compromise and successful minority governments are all about compromise.  And in the end that is what a democracy should be. 

We must wait to see how this all plays out.  The Conservatives may find a compromise or the opposition parties may get cold feet before the December 8 vote in the House of Commons and all this speculation will be for naught.

How many of you remember Stephen Harper the opposition leader?  Do you remember that guy who said he would usher in a new era in Canadian politics if the people gave him a chance.  A Harper government would be more open, more honest than those fat cat liberals.  Liberals had become complacent and displayed a sense of entitlement to power.  A Conservative government would be an ethical government.  What ever happened to him?  He can’t be the same Stephen Harper who became prime minister. 

Last month Canadians were treated to a federal election a year before Prime Minister Harper had promised one would be held.  He had said that governments should not play with election timing to benefit partisan interests so he would set a date at the outset that would be election day unless the evil opposition parties defeated him on a vote of confidence and forced an election.  Did I miss that?   I don’t seem to remember a motion of confidence being brought forward and the government being defeated.  Prime Minister Harper rationalized that he needed a new mandate from the people of Canada for the urgent business which lay ahead for the government.  Translation:  He thought he could win a majority. 

Still, what was this urgent business, particularly?  You and I both know that when times get rough we all hunker down and blame the government.  Well the going is getting kind of rough.  U. S. banks are failing, unemployment rates are rising on both sides of the border, and the North American auto industry faces collapse.  Gee, you don’t think ol’ Stephen knew this was coming and figured he better get an election out of the way before the subprime hit the fan?

What could be a more cynical manipulation of the power of the prime minister than that?  But that fresh faced farm boy who led the opposition to Jean Chretien and Paul Martin would never have done that.  I really wonder what happened to him.