The Harper Decade: A Miserable Ten Years
Peter H. Russell is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Principal of Senior College at the University of Toronto. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional, judicial, parliamentary and aboriginal politics.
A decade of Conservative rule in a predominantly left-of-centre society does not for a happy democracy make. Adding to the sourness of the decade’s politics has been the Harper Conservatives’ attack on parliamentary democracy. If Jeffrey Simpson could call Jean Chrétien’s Liberal regime a “friendly dictatorship”, then Harper’s rule might be characterized as a period of lean and mean corporate management.
Single party majority governments are always prone to stifling parliamentary deliberation. Fortunately, such governments are rare in the parliamentary world as most parliamentary democracies use some form of proportional representation, making it virtually impossible for any party to win a majority of seats in the elected chamber. But even compared with the few countries in which single party majority government is possible and with previous regimes of this kind in Canada, the Harper majority government, supported by less than 40% of the popular vote, has been excessively controlling and dismissive of the deliberative side of parliamentary democracy.
No other government in Canadian history, or in other Westminster countries, has used omnibus legislation, set time limits on debate or controlled committees as much as Harper’s majority government. The Prime Minister’s Office, staffed by unelected party loyalists and much larger than its counterpart in other parliamentary countries, has become the most powerful institution of government. Governing for this regime is primarily a matter of selling the Harper brand like a consumer product, using mass media tools of persuasion.
READ MORE: http://www.theharperdecade.com/blog/2015/4/20/peter-russell
A decade of Conservative rule in a predominantly left-of-centre society does not for a happy democracy make. Adding to the sourness of the decade’s politics has been the Harper Conservatives’ attack on parliamentary democracy. If Jeffrey Simpson could call Jean Chrétien’s Liberal regime a “friendly dictatorship”, then Harper’s rule might be characterized as a period of lean and mean corporate management.
Single party majority governments are always prone to stifling parliamentary deliberation. Fortunately, such governments are rare in the parliamentary world as most parliamentary democracies use some form of proportional representation, making it virtually impossible for any party to win a majority of seats in the elected chamber. But even compared with the few countries in which single party majority government is possible and with previous regimes of this kind in Canada, the Harper majority government, supported by less than 40% of the popular vote, has been excessively controlling and dismissive of the deliberative side of parliamentary democracy.
No other government in Canadian history, or in other Westminster countries, has used omnibus legislation, set time limits on debate or controlled committees as much as Harper’s majority government. The Prime Minister’s Office, staffed by unelected party loyalists and much larger than its counterpart in other parliamentary countries, has become the most powerful institution of government. Governing for this regime is primarily a matter of selling the Harper brand like a consumer product, using mass media tools of persuasion.
READ MORE: http://www.theharperdecade.com/blog/2015/4/20/peter-russell
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