Death of Democracy in Canada

Absolute Power in the Hands of Just One Man

There is only one word to describe Party Of One, award-winning journalist Michael Harris’ massive and powerfully written biography of Canada’s 22nd prime minister.

Shocking.

In the space of less than a decade, Canada has been transformed from a parliamentary democracy where the government of the day answers to the people through their elected representatives in parliament to a northern banana republic where parliament is daily frogmarched to the drum beat of Just One Man.

The book’s most trenchant quotes come from two former officers of parliament.

In incisive and frank analyses in separate interviews with the author, Canada’s former commissioner of information, Robert Marleau, and former Commons speaker, Peter Milliken, have sounded the alarm to Canadians that their democracy is under full-scale attack.

Said Marleau: “Mr. Harper has not played within the rules. Having attained absolute power, he has absolutely abused that power to the maximum.”

Said Milliken: “Harper can’t go much further without making the institution dysfunctional…In fact [the House] will have to be returned to its former state by someone if we are to have a democracy.”
The Harper government’s ongoing assault on Canada’s parliamentary democracy spurred the NDP’s Broadbent Institute to construct what it has entitled “The Definitive Ranking of Ridiculous and Misleading Conservative Names for Bills.”

READ MORE: http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2014/11/12/absolute-power-in-the-hands-of-just-one-man/#.VGNfrWx0zIV