nicky10013

I view both as not good. As I mentioned before, Canadians shouldn't lose the ability to be represented in Parliament because the PM doesn't like the way the wind was blowing on a certain issue. The whole worrying issue about the first instance is that it sets a dangerous precedent that whenever a PM is in trouble he can just shut the doors of parliament and hope things go away. All the people who worried a year ago have been proven right.

As I mentioned before, we'll see how loud the screeching gets when the Liberals do it. Again, as I mentioned before, they will do it. I'll restate this again. It isn't even about Harper anymore it's about the future of parliamentary democracy. No matter what, PMs shouldn't run away from parliament because they don't like the noise coming from the other side of the bench. Justify it now any way you want, something tells me if Ignatieff was ever elected PM and he pulled the same stunt you wouldn't have the same amount of indifference. No matter which party they like, Canadians shouldn't have their voice run out of parliament. That's not over reaction. I also feel as though I should put my head through the wall. Again, the Liberals prorogued 4 times because it was the end of the session. There's no similarity at all between what happened then and now. Everyone here can keep telling themselves what they want. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.

None of these would work. How could you legislate that the house should elect a PM in case of a minority government? There's nothing Canadians hate more than elections, or so it seems so mandatory voting is out of the question. That also eliminates referenda. Citizen's assemblies? It's been tried but not so many people show up.

Changing the constitution is a great idea in theory, but a dumb idea in practice. Firstly, it can never be done without ripping the country apart. Secondly, there's almost no constitution to begin with. There's a British North America Act setting out the definition of our federalism but beyond that there's not much dictating the institutions. It's all based on precedent which in the end 99% of the time is a good thing. It allows parliament to roll with the punches, to set new precedent and to keep things modern. In the modern age that's exactly what you want. Despite thoughts to the contrary the Canadian system is probably one of the more efficient legislative bodies in the world. Checks and balances sure sound great but the US system is practically collapsing under it's own weight it's simply just that slow. Well, all this is true depending on what Harper does with it. Like I said...99% of the time it's good.

Doesn't change the fact that the coward branded a a perfectly legal coalition as a revolutionary coup d'etat.

No, he's a machiavellian and I don't ever recall calling him an idiot. In his mind he's doing what he should be doing. His ideology simply isn't compatible with open and fair democracy. Furthermore, we've been over this. It isn't "the regular mechanism of parliament" with the way he's used it. It's openly shutting down parliament to skirt bad press and ridicule in the house. Politics is Politics and issue control will always be a part of the system but when you misuse the rules of the system to that end it's a blatant attack on free speech. He kills parliament, the press eventually get tired of covering this and it goes away. It goes away as a potential ballot issue. If he can do it on his own without suspending our democracy then good for him, but no we'll never know how far this issue could've gone had he not snuffed out our free institutions for 2 months. The real question is how much the Conservatives would like it when (and it will happen) a Liberal Prime Minister prorogues parliament for partisan gains. Oh yes, we actually have a quote from Stephen Harper from before he was PM. He essentially said it's undemocratic. How ironic. Then again that's the entire point. At this stage in the game it isn't even about Stephen Harper and what a collosal douche he is anymore. It's about what happens in the future. Just so he could stay in power longer he's permanently degraded the openness of Canadian institutions. Liberal, Conservative, NDP, it shouldn't happen but it will simply because we have this paranoid zealot in office.

Please, of course they're avoiding it. They figure that if they can make a coalition go away they can make this go away. There has also been rampant speculation for what must be a couple of weeks by now that when the house resumes and Canada is on a high after the Olympics that he'll pack his budget full of so many poison pills that there will undoubtedly have to be an election call. Unless it becomes the ballot question, that will effectively destroy any parliamentary inquiry into Afghan torture. It worked for the Chuck Cadman bribery inquiry. It worked for the Conservative in and out election scheme. Again, it will probably work for torture. It's sad that every time we've had an election call under the conservatives it's inevitably to bury one scandal or another not to just celebrate democracy. Yet his poll numbers keep going up. It makes no sense.

By all accounts I've read that session went until the end. I've seen nothing to the contrary. Edit, no, two bills were killed. However, Chretien was retiring.

Are you implying last year's was revolutionary? A coalition popular or not isn't revolutionary. Furthermore, there is reason to deny a proroguation. First, the government's agenda is still on the table. They're killing over 30 pieces of legislation. Secondly, there are outstanding committee issues that still haven't been debated. As for precedent setting, of course it is. Coalition or not, it sets the incredibly dangerous precedent that no matter who is in power a Prime Minister when in trouble can just suspend the house. Article in today's Star is quite interesting and makes that exact same point. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/stephenharper/article/745011--travers-harper-s-dark-democracy-creates-dangerous-legacy?bn=1

Now here's the question that won't be answered because the people who are supposed to answer them don't like the answer. Did Chretien do it because he wanted to dodge the house or he finished his agenda? I'm betting its the latter but that's just me.

The propaganda coming from the right that the east is plundering the west. Let me guess, the whole thing about Trudeau is the NEP, right? This is the basis for it all. The chatter about Alberta having to pay for other provinces has never gone away. Ontario has paid far more money into it than any other province yet there's nary a peep. Why? Because the Ontario government has never really complained. Ontario still pays far more than any other province into the scheme and there's only been a little backlash since the province started losing manufacturing jobs. Why? Not because we're still paying into it, but because we're labelled a have not province when we get to keep 100 million of our own money of the 11+ billion we put in every year. My point isn't to try and make Ontario out to be the perfect province (it certainly isn't) but to illustrate the divide. Trudeau may have envisaged the NEP and yes it may have been outlandish and not well concieved but at least it was meant as a programme to provide ALL provinces with cheap energy. Did it cause division? Absolutely. Did he mean to cause division? Well, that's up for debate. In the end, up until the end of Chretien the Liberal party was the only party to run a national campaign; a national strategy based on grand pan-canadian projects (whether you agreed with them or not is your prerogative). They ran the same ads and commercials across all ridings while specifically the Alliance ran ads deliberately trying to stir up division. Western conservatives have been telling people for 30 years that the east is trying steal their money. It isn't the west's money it's all Canadians money and I think people have a hard time trying to understand that which has caused serious regionalism. As for provincial rights, that's all fine and good in theory if the provinces could actually handle the load. As of right now we need transfer payments just to keep the things "under provincial jurisdiction" afloat. As I mentioned, Canada NEEDS a strong federal government.

If it isn't there would be specific examples of a Prime Minister proroguing to avoid questions in the house. I've already said Chretien came close. There have been attempts to claim that it's happened before in the HoC, yet no examples. I'm not a hard person to work over, if it happened it happened and there's no way around it. However, if it had last year wouldn't have been such a precedent setting event.

No, frankly, it's quite true. You're spreading disinformation and that's irresponsible. No one said other Prime Minister's haven't prorogued the house. It happens all the time. It's parliamentary procedure and quite appropriate when used appropriately. That's the entire point. I skimmed through the entire thread. Your "numerous" other posters were 3. One claimed that Ralph Klein prorogued an entire session which coming from a Conservative I suppose isn't that surprising. The rest of the accusations went against Trudeau, Chretien and Martin. However, I ask again since you never answered the first time, did they improperly use it? No one has ever said that they did. I said Chretien contemplated it over adscam, but it never came to fruition. Conservatives are now apparently trying to "coalition" the use of the word prorogue. They know they don't have the support like they did the first time, so the strategy I suppose here is to act as though EVERY proroguation has been bad which is entirely semantics and also entirely false. So please, enlighten me...how did the other PMs abuse it?

No it's not because parliament has never been prorogued the way Harper has done it. Chretien tried but it never happened. The house isn't usually prorogued until the government has finished its agenda laid out in the throne speech. Once it has, the tradition has been to prorogue at the end of the christmas break or something like that for a day or two and open up parliament on schedule with a new throne speech and agenda for the next session of parliament. Used procedurally, it just opens a new chapter for a fresh agenda for the government. Harper is using it to dodge parliamentary committees and to shut down question period hammering him on torture allegations. He's using it to silence the voices of a majority of Canadians. To say these two different scenarios are alike is simply irresponsible.

In comparison to the US, Canada was designed to be a far more powerful federal state. There's a good reason for it. The idea that is Canada is far more fragile than the US. Canadian national myths are no where near as strong as they are in the states. In the end, the more local we become, the more divisions there are between us. Harper and his Conservatives have used this to their advantage. Preaching more powers for provinces pits province against province and rural agains urban. We can't see ourselves as provincial citizens ahead of Canadian citizens which is exactly what is happening now. Quebec has always been a problem but now the west is causing troubles as well. The founding fathers knew this and thats why they gave the federal government any responsibilities not mentioned as opposed to the US where unnamed responsibilites fall to the state level. The federal government needs to be a strong, uniting force.

Did the ban happen? Of course not. The university constitution forbids it precisely because of freedom of speech. As I mentioned before which people clearly ignored, even the most radical ideas are discussed within the university and like in society, they are usually swept to the side.

Young Liberals are prevalent on a lot of major campuses. I can't say I've ever seen the same presence from Young Conservatives. Furthermore, a LOT of university students vote because they have better education. Most kids who don't go to university don't vote. Only about 30% attend university.

Nobody is claiming we're at a tipping point. No one said our system was perfect. We always have to be critiquing ourselves and our government in order to try and continue the tradition of open governance. Over the past 4 years we've been clearly and incontravertably moving away instead of towards open governance; subversion if you will. What makes this all the more disheartening is that people relate more to the pocket book than to the institutions that allow us said pocketbook. People will be claiming the sponsorship scandal as reason to not vote for the liberals for years. Yet, though infinitely more disturbing, Harper won't lose any support due to the fact that the average voter may claim to love democracy but has no idea what democracy entails due to public schools failing to teach civics properly.

No, that would mean the DESTRUCTION of democracy. Subversion isn't destruction.

A lot of my professors were conservative. I wasn't actually expecting it, but that's the way it was. Tell me, how often are right wing people banned from speaking. Who are these people? I went to see Senator Hugh Seagle speak. U of T brought in William Bolton last year. As far as I'm aware, the only person to be banned from speaking was that Galloway fellow from Great Britain from the far left because he couldn't get a visa. Bill Ayers from the States wasn't allowed to speak because he has a criminal record. Look at Columbia in New York. They let Akhmadinejad speak. Most universities don't ban people from speaking. The reason why is because A) it generates controversy and raises attendance if they bring in people whose views are considered radical. Most importantly in most university constitutions guarantees the right to free speech. It wouldn't be a university otherwise. Above all else, a university is about the free debate of ideas. True to its purpose, through tutorials, classes and work, that's what people do. As long as you can prove your argument, it's valid. So please, tell me again how the loonie lefty intellectuals are stifling debate. The very notion that the broad stereotype that all intellectuals are somehow secret communist apparatchiks trying to destroy freedom of speech speaks to the streak of anti-intellectualism.

Speaking as someone who just graduated from U of T, I can tell you that university students will have an easier time seeing Harper for what he is. Generally, unless they're REALLY bad, students respect professors. Undergrad is a trying experience and for him to get as far as he did engrains respect despite his personal politics. A university is where people would welcome his credentials rather than mock them. I doubt too many people at a university would view being a Harvard professor as baggage rather than a stellar notch on an already excellent resume. The growing level of anti-intellectualism in this country is sickening. Sure, anyone can elect a guy they'd like to have a beer with. The US did it. Look how it worked out for them.

Is that all you have to say? I don't understand politics? This coming from somone apparently so far to the right that every media outlet is anti-conservative is actually scary. There's no liberal media conspiracy. In fact, the only outlets that ARE liberal are the star and the CBC. CTV, Canwest Global, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, the Sun chain of papers are all Conservative whipping boys. So please, don't act as though the Conservatives are so noble that they win despite media not because of it. Pretty much every major newspaper except the Star endorsed Harper. The media isn't anti-harper, they're pro-scandal. Even the star was running front page stories on the Sponsorship Scandal. Furthermore, making the claim that Harper has done nothing wrong clearly indicates the depth of your delusions. Essentially suspending parliament twice for partisan gain, I'm sorry, is doing something wrong. Bribing an MP with a million dollar life insurance policy isn't just wrong it's illegal. Attacking elections Canada is wrong. Suing the opposition is wrong. The man disdains our institutions. This man, who was literally elected for more open government and accountability is taking every step he can not to control the debate which all parties want, but to shut it down entirely.

Let's completely ignore the vote Harper just ignored which would require him to provide unredacted documents to Parliament. Oh yeah, that's right, no one cares about THAT issue.

Dmitry Soudas, is that you?

It's the Liberals misusing legislative procedure for partisan gains? Isn't that what this whole proroguing thing is about? Proroguing parliament has only ever occured when the business of the government as determined by the throne speech of the current session has been completed. Harper is killing, what, 30 of his own bills? This is about the Conservatives caught in an ugly scandal and they're simply taking the ball and going home. Chretien was contemplating this to try and put to bed the sponsorship scandal, but the current great patron...nay, protector of our democracy said words that could not be truer. In the end the government will always try to spin how horrible the Liberals are considering what some party idiots did in Quebec and that's fine, it's politics. However, the Liberals never tried to silence the voices in parliament that represent what I believe in. To me that's infinitely more disturbing than a couple of morons boosting a couple million dollars. The man has no respect for our democracy and he's proven that not only the two times he suspended parliament, but also when he attacked Elections Canada and actually had the gall to sue the opposition for defamation. It's funny, the government has been using every opportunity to hide behind the troops that they've got. Considering they're supposedly fighting for our freedom, shutting down parliament is about the biggest loogie in the face of our military that a government could spit. Disgraceful.