|
Taking Action on Proroguement
The year 2010 has dawned. For the second time in two years, Stephen Harper is pulling the plug on Parliament. Legislation working its way through Parliament is lost, Committees such as the one investigating the Afghan torture scandal are shut down, and the government no longer has to face questions in Question Period on its environmental record or anything else. Parliamentary oversight is lost. The government does not need to prorogue to press a “reset” button, since it can easily introduce new bills and initiatives just as well while MPs are hard at work. Instead, it is making avoiding Parliament a regular occurrence to avoid scrutiny.  When Parliament is closed, important decisions are made by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet in secret. Ironic considering Stephen Harper long campaigned on a platform of increased transparency and accountability in government.Parliament is the people’s voice. Without it, Canada’s democracy suffers. Canadians send MPs to Ottawa to represent them. That’s their right under the law. When one person takes that away unilaterally, in "naked self-interest" as the Economist calls it, the rights of all Canadians are diminished.
Proroguement has happened in the past, it’s true. But that doesn’t make it right. Should a modern democracy like Canada tolerate such an antiquated imperial power in the hands of one partisan? In fact, most modern democracies would never tolerate such a thing. Imagine the US President with the power to dismiss and recall Congress at will, or stack the US Senate with friends. Unless we challenge this practice, such prorogations may become the new normal. There will be little to safeguard against the worst excesses of government. Can we afford to pay for a part-time Parliament that meets only at the whim of the Prime Minister? Clearly, the will of the people is that we work anyways, and so I have proposed that a "Parliament of the willing" might meet despite proroguement. When Harper initially announced that Parliament would be suspended, the government most media said that with the Olympics and the economy to distract them, Canadians wouldn’t really care. It was only when ordinary to Canadians clearly started to rise up (over 100,000 on this FaceBook group alone, organizing nation-wide protests), they started to pay attention. But there is more to be done if Canadians don’t want to find themselves in this situation time and time again, their democracy laid a bit lower each time for it. The extraordinary and unilateral power of proroguement itself has no place in a modern democracy, and must be changed. Why shouldn’t Parliament itself have to give consent? It’s time to take action on this vestige of antiquated imperial power. - Download & Sign the Petition
- Attend the Rally Nearest You
- Join the FaceBook group
- Write your Member of Paliament
|
|
Join Bruce on:
CONTACT BRUCE |
Constituency Office:
(Mon-Fri 9am-5pm)
69 N. Court Street
Thunder Bay, ON
P7A 4T7
Tel: 807-345-1818
Toll-free:
1-888-266-8004
Fax: 807-345-4752
bruce@brucehyer.ca
Parliamentary Office:
(No postage necessary)
Bruce Hyer, MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Tel: 613-996-4792
Fax: 613-996-9785
|
|
|
