myata

Nah, it's still just talking. Wake me up if / when there's however minuscule real and practical act.

This is the direct result of persistent and ongoing tradition of near total domination of the federal politcal process by the government in power. The Parliament simply does not have neither independency nor practical and enforceable means to hold the government accountable (if it itself does not desire that) and the only fault of this particular government is that it decided to stretch its supremacy a little bit further. If we won't wake up now and make necessary changes to set strict and enforceable checks and balances between branches of government, this may be only a mild beginning (on the path from functioning democracy to one only in the name).

Yes it should certainly explain and maybe even justify? Israel's continuous and ongoing appropriation of illegally occupied lands. Just as its friend doing nothing much (other than useless empty talking) about it.

The developments only confirm that was suspected for quite a long while - i.e that seeking genuine deescalation of tensions and approaches to stable lasting isn't really in the plans of Isreal's governments. And it narrows the wiggle room of Israel's "friends" as honest and credible mediators of "peace" to the proverbial needle point, where the continuous practical and material support for Israel's government acts (as I already mentioned, talk is cheap these days) would translate into indirect complicity in its aggressive and provocative policies in the occupied territories. I think that countries and governments that are genuinly committed to promoting and encouraging peace in the area should come out with strong practical measures enforcing the common sense guidelines to the eventual settlement. Like formally recognising East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. Those whose committment is only to double talk and washing friend and ally's hand behind the back, could continue their word games, everybody should already know very well the worth and net impact of these policies.

A noble act but barring special one time circumstances as futule as trying to turn the clock back. Against you will be not one but both behemoth parties with their functionaries, advertising, volunteers, etc and only one would have to get one vote more than you to send you back to political backwaters. With enormous luck you could make it there but it'll be just another freak occasion like any number before and will result in zero positive change as our behemotial duo will continue uncontested dominance over our political landscape. No, this is not some evil conspiracy or unfortunate turn of events, but pure and simple logic, as 1-2-3. In the majoritary system there's only one winner and therefore only one way to vote: for or against, government or opposition, Tories or Wigs. Nobody else is admitted and no other interest can be represented. And once the duopoly system has been established, do ask yourself what choice would an MP who wouldn't toe the party line have? Correct, end his/her political career or go over to the only other party with meaningful claim to the power, and toe its party line. This is because proportional representation is not some funny invention by people who like political experementation, but willing or not recognition of well known fact of our lives that choice comes with diversity and change but not necessarily stability. We here are so terrified of even minuscule political change that we're prepared to sacrifice all meaningful political choice for the appearance of stability and zero change. It is only appearance btw because without efficient and working way of keeping political leadership to account we'll never be able to know what is really going on. Take sponsorship scandal, take detainees and any number of other events when truth took years and decades to come out. We addressed that argument at length. Rejecting change because it may not lead to perfect problem free solution is a sure way to fall back and stagnate. It's not like I didn't say it already and probably a dozen times. Real independence, real accountability, real checks. I'll give it just one more generations till our federal politicians will be the only ones interested in a dream world they are living in. An apt observation, parties have much better control over their political agenda and therefore much higher chance to see it through. As already mentioned, the problem arises than party system is combined with adversary representation mechanism that limits choice and stiffles competition ultimately to the extent that any meaningful choice may disappear entirely. Let's see: between themselves, NDP (~20%) and Greens (up to 10%) have levels of popular support approaching those of the main parties. But where is their representation? Right. That is the prime intent of this system: eliminate diversity and choice to the maximum extent possible. Regarding the "nuts": would the fact of no representation mean that there's no popular support for these groups? Who do we have to fool (but ourselves)? Or is another sign of infantility and low confidence?

Good analysis but why such an outlandish conclusion? How would you make MPs grow a backbone? How would you roll back political times to pre partisan state of affairs? Rather than ponder this kind of fantastic projects, here's two real, practical recipes that actually belong to domain of possible and are being used in democracies everywhere: 1) Balance the powers of government and legislature, eliminate unnecessary powers and prerogatives. This would create more functional legislature, that would actually have a raison d'etre of its own, as opposed to serving the government agenda and partisan jockeying. 2) Modernise representation to reflect political makeup of society more closely. The problem with our system is really that there isn't much choice (now it looks more and more like there isn't any meaningful choice). More diverse makeup of the Parliament and acceptance of coalitions is the going forward solution to the partisan duopoly dilemma, not some kind of woodoo chanting to breath life back into that eternal duopoly that's slowly suffocating itself with its own byproducts, utter and incurable nonsense and boredom.

Great, hystorical mumbo jumbo to the resque! Monarchy is democracy and democracy is monarchy. And I hear you. Therefore through these powers the government has unrestricted prerogatives to interrupt and dismiss the Parliament, call election at the time of its choosing, obstruct activities to hold it accountable, fire its quasi una "independent" watchdogs and even preclude passage of legislation it does not like. If this look anything but complete domination of political process (e.g. "supremacy of the Parliament"), one must have very serious vision problems. Which brings us back to the issue #1. Expediency and deep attachment to tradition at the expense of democratic integrity. I said earlier what I think is the root cause for that thinking. We still see ourselves as a remnant of that colony, incapable or lacking confidence in our own democratic institutions to make fully sovereign decisions. Give it another generation or two. So, outside of advancing government agenda, the Parliament has no further cause to exist and can be shut down? What about accountability, oversight, checks and balances? Those have no place in this system (other than in the name) correct? Not necessarily. He may have simply taken our Constitution for its face value, that spells very clearly the powers given to the government directly or by proxy of unelected viceroy. He's done nothing illegal and somebody else may do it again just as well, or it may become a standard practice in our process to avoid even that little of accountability and responsibility the Parliament can effect in our system now. No it's not "undemocratic" but it does go counter to the essential principles of responsible democracy, i.e independence and checks and balances between branches of political power. And very obviously, and just as you can see with your own eyes now, the ability to perform oversight over the government and hold it accountable is compromised in this setting to an extent where one could seriously ask question whether there's anything real about it or it's only there for the democratic appearance? Then we agree on the symptoms but not the diagnosis. In part I feel gratitude to our PM for bringing these issues out in the open so that they no longer could be ignored. Part of the cause may be the bent up anger accumulated over Chretien's years of complete and unqualified domination (some may have been thought of those years as tyranny in its own sense). All an all, I'll repeat one more time, our system is grossly outdated, it does not allow political diversity and choice that is common among most advanced democracies in this age. In my view it's quite near the end of the road in its present shape, and it will either reform itself by providing wider and more diverse representation of the political spectrum in the society, or fade into incapacity and irrelevance.

Well, what you fail to understand here is the basic principles of democracy. That the point is not in the nature of powers but their source. In a democracy, sovereign power can come only from the people. Therefore, no unelected official can bear independent power to interfere with the political process in the country. BTW and one more time, we have not yet established that Ireland does indeed use the concept of prorogation so the meaning of that "nearly" remains highly subjective. Like some may think that an elephant is "nearly identical" to a pig because both have four legs and one tail. However wide they could be (still needs to be investigated) they do not extend as far as dismissing the Parliament at will and for arbitrarily long, essentially suspending all Parliamentary activities including, yes, any claims to accountability and oversight. Yeah, right we keep hearing this over and over again, so even without slightest logical substantiation it should eventually do the trick (one'd hope).

+ 1. All things in this life must come to an end, clubbing those poor creatures included. Dragging off the obvious end would only prolong suffering on both sides of the club.

Sorry, it's been all for nought. Anything outside of one dimensional "Westminister" - Not paradigm is obviously outside of your "disciplined" mental reach. For those who haven't reached that blissful state just yet, I'll repeat one last time that in Ireland's constitution the President is elected by popular vote and therefore has both democratic legitimacy and explicit constitutional authority to not "toe the line" in prescribed circumstances. While in Netherlands the Parliament operates to its own fixed schedule and it's simply impossible for the government to dismiss it, interfere with it, or compromise it. Not to mention that coalitions has been a norm of political system for near hundred years.

I guess it may have slipped out of your mind that we just completed a detailed analysis of two presumably "Westminister" parliamentary democracies where events like ours could have never happened. Each provides its own specific checks and balances against domination of any one branch of power. We have none. The government in power controls and dominates every single aspect of our political process and is only checked by theoretical possibility of an election nobody really wants. Obviously, constitutional processes is not all there's to a democracy, but this system has very limited means to prevent concentration of power and abuse of it. Just what we see in reality and no, putting on abstract and meaningless labels like "Westminister" won't explain or justify anything.

My complaint is not with who does the appointing, but that unelected functioneer can trump the will of our elected representatives, whether in dismissing the Parliament, or in allowing access to information. Correction accepted, though our current GG, having no sovereign democratic mandate, is still bound to toe the line of the current government.

Oh I see it's MrIacobucci who's really supreme here. Only he can be trusted to see what our elected representatives in the presumably and ostensibly "supreme" constitutional body can never be trusted to go anywhere near to. How hard is it to see the pattern here? Ms Jean, an appointee of Mr. Harper's government decides when the Parliament will sit or be dismissed. Mr Iacobucci, another appointee of (guess who) will decide which documents the Parliament should be allowed to read. And the Parliament, what does it get to decide (about its own activities)? There lies the question.

It all hangs on whether our official opposition in the name would grow some kind of microscopic backbone, or instead its leader would decide to give it another deep pensee over forthcoming summer with a couple of intellectual conferences thrown in to show us the depth of his thought and concern that invariariably translates into absolute and uttermost absense of any meaningful act. Or he could make a brilliant move of voting to censor ministers, but without suffient numbers to actually sensor. Which would tell us that one part of his political nature is justly offended by this outrageous behaviour by the government, while the other part fully understands responsibilities for stability of the country and the need for compromise resulting in an appearance of an act without actually doing anything. Not to worry, Iggy, in just a few political terms we'll figure out how to read your intellectually sophisticated cues (if you're still there by the time of our triumph). If you ask me, I've no slightest idea, Iggy's mind being a thing of utmost political mystery. God (if you're there) do punish me if I ever again give a grain of my support to either of our two Pathertic Puppet Parties.

Other than in prescribed situations for which he has explicitly defined powers. And to clarify, democratically legitimate sovereign powers, being elected by direct popular vote. And, there's no reference to possibility of dismissal of prorogation of Parliament. So who has problems with basic literacy here? Good stuff, we agree on something. That would be a really good start to a meaningful and practical independence of Parliament (just hold off a little more for "supremacy"). Now let's try to estimate how long it'll take us to get there. My bet is two generations, any better ideas? Well, as a matter of fact if we just stop supporting the dysfunctional democratic duo here and now, there may yet be a chance of us seeing the change with our own eyes.

All this stability of course at the expense of getting the answers now rather than decade or so later; and at the expense of being able to actually vote for somebody you like and trust, as opposed to which of the two twidllebuddies disgust you less at the moment of casting the vote; at the expense of responsible and transparent government that is held to account here and now, as opposed to maybe in the uncertain future. Chretien and Harper have shown us the way. And we better shut up and get busy counting beans in those RRSPs.

Sounds just like any other of Harper's policy gymmics that are becoming a hallmark of this government. Kyoto death penalty for Canadians abroad gun registry fixed election dates now gay rights What happens to laws, policies, even human rights this government doesn't happen to appreciate? And yes they can do that even while sending off whatever of pathetic "official opposition" we may have to a prolonged unwanted break.

Repeating is not addressing though. It's a fact that the work of our Parliament has been compromised, it's a fact that it is allowed by special powers vested in the government by proxy of unelected GG and it's yet another fact that in neither of the two parliamentary system we examined closely we found any evidence of governments control over the business of Parliament to such extent as here. In one (Ireland) it's balanced by explicit powers of elected President; in another (Netherlands) it's simply impossible as the Parliament has set session dates. I'm not sure what points you think you have addressed and if you did then maybe only to yourself. And I'm not sure what kind of response one'd expect to an argument like "we shouldn't attempt to change that paragraph in the book because whole country could blow up I know because I've been there". Nothing serious, for sure.

Maybe more like "shows (what it's supposed ...)"? In one parliamentary year, we saw parliamentary investigation obstructed, pseudo independent watchdogs dismissed (directly or through recycling), direct refusal to comply with parliamentary request and summary dismissal of Parliament. Earlier on, it took years to get to the core of the sponsorship scandal. Before it could assume the role of "holding to account" with any meaning and credibility, maybe it (the Parliament) could be given at least the power to control its own schedule?

Right on, if you can't address the point, make general comments about the poster, next best & good stuff! Maybe you right, but see, I don't really need to love or even like them. Enough (for me) is just to see them working, the more efficiently and transparently, the better. Which brings us back to the point: 1) Where's our independent and supreme Parliament been for the last two months? Correct and 2) Where's our extremely busy "prorogation and recalibration" Prime Minister has been for the last two week (note that the latter is not at all unrelated to the former)? Thanks for these thoughtful comments, I guess they should somehow obscure the fact that in none of the systems we considered closely government has unrestricted ability to the dismiss elected Parliament whenever it wishes, for whatever reason and for all practical purposes, as long as it wishes. Yes, that should certainly do it, good try!

Yes I rememember that and even at the time of reading thought that one could hardly come with a more absurd "wisdom". Of course only most primitive things, creatures and processes can be "controlled" only by threat of destruction. That may be one of the reasons it's so rarely used now in our civilised lives. Other than our federal politics, granted.

Or could it be because he's omniscient and could see the future? With a natural leader like that, who needs the Parliament or even democracy itself

.. or is it "with spilling the beans" the side of the family preferred keeping smug and quiet (while taking some benefit from, smugly and quietly)?

Of course it didn't end. It's just proven what was said and no more. What our Parliament is a democratic decoration around an all powerful government and it has no real powers or instruments to assure its independency or keep the government accountable and responsible. Yes, with the obvious exception of the ultimate self destroy "supremacy" solution few of politicians so very comfy just where they are want to think about. To W.-A.: no, you got it all wrong, buddy. PM Harper broke no rules here just as PM Cretien and others before him. Only taken it to the logical end. Through prerogatives and "reserve powers" by proxy a government can achive any number of above listed undemocratic feats and it would be perfectly legal and acceptable in this political system we have now. Finger pointing won't change much, if we want to take a real positive lesson from this situation, changing the system and eliminating overbearing "powers" would be the only option.

Neither does it make any better. Our Parliament is not an independent institution, sovereign in its constitutional domain and cannot provide meaningful oversight and check on the work of the government ensuring efficient and transparent working of the government. Unlike our sports men and women's at the Olympics, hardly an achievement for a 21st century democracy, no matter how much light our PM would attempt to borrow now from glow of their outstanding achievement.