In the next federal election, there are going to be 30 more seats in Canada’s House of Commons. Despite half of those seats being in Ontario, it will still not be fair. The fact is that there is no way to have a fair distribution of seats unless there is a Constitutional Assembly that can address the basics of how we want this country to be governed.
As things stand, having 30 more Members of Parliament is a meaningless expense wasted on meaningless people. Mr. Harper will make sure that the 30 new candidates for his party are servile toadies who will do what he and his party managers tell them.
It used to be that the party leader’s signature on a candidate’s information entitled the candidate to public funding based on the last vote. Mr. Harper has put an end to that funding. It was fair and the last thing Mr. Harper wants to be to the Opposition is fair. It is not in his vocabulary.
All that is left of the legislation, controlling who can be a candidate for any party, is the need for the party leader’s signature. This denies the electoral district associations the right to choose their candidates. It creates centrally controlled federal political parties. It denies the basic democracy that used to ensure that all regions and constituencies across Canada were represented and had a voice in the governing of our country. It has created a process that is destroying the political parties.
It has reached a point that people do not care that they are voting for an idiot—as long as the idiot wears the right color tie. They would be better to vote by color, blue for the Conservatives, red for the Liberals, orange for the NDP, green for the Green, etc. After all, that is what they do in countries where most of the voters are illiterate! Act illiterate and you will be treated that way.
But Mr. Harper likes it that way. He can fly around the world as a potentate in his military A300 Airbus and pontificate on his economic ideas. He can leave his lackeys to lie to and confuse the voters. He can turn the House of Commons into a sheep pen where political parties can trot out their votes as needed. It is no longer a civil place. It is no longer a polite place. It is certainly no place to debate the needs of our people. And we want to send another 30 people into that place?
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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