The Rise to Power,
In Opposition and Before 2004 – 2006
When the 38th
parliament fell in Nov 2005 the mantra from Mr Harper was about
bringing in an “Open and Accountable” government and
early in 2006 he was given a chance to do that. It was indeed the
subject of part of the ensuing throne speech as follows:-
No
aspect of responsible government is more fundamental than having the
trust of citizens. Canadians' faith in the institutions and practices
of government has been eroded. This new government trusts in the
Canadian people, and its goal is that Canadians will once again trust
in their government. It is time for accountability.
To
restore this trust, the first piece of legislation the Government
will bring forward will be the Federal Accountability Act.
This
omnibus legislation and the associated Accountability Action Plan
will change the current system of oversight and management by
strengthening the rules and institutions that ensure
transparency and accountability to Canadians. The
legislation will ban institutional and large personal donations to
political parties; it will ensure that positions of public
trust cannot be used as stepping stones to private lobbying;
and it will provide real protection for whistle-blowers who
show great courage in coming forward to do what is right.
The
Government will strengthen the capacity and independence of
officers of Parliament, including the Auditor General, to
hold the Government to account. It will increase the transparency of
appointments, contracts and auditing within government departments
and Crown corporations.
Effective
checks and balances are important, but they are not enough. The trust
of citizens must be earned every day. The Government will
work to earn that trust.
This from what we now
know became the most controlling, secretive and unaccountable
government in Canadian history. Non of the above has in fact taken
place, just the opposite has transpired. The question then becomes
'if they lied about this what else have they said that reveals their un-trustworthiness. Some of Mr Harpers words whilst in opposition
and earlier when the president of the National Citizens Coalition
are quite revealing given his attitude to the parliamentary system once he was in power. Lets take a look at a few.
“And I think
the real problem that we're facing already is that the government
doesn't accept that it got a minority. “
“When a
government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is
frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to
govern.”
“Whether
Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments
or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement
is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion “
“If you want to be a government in a
minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.”
“It’s the government’s
obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to
govern.”
“The government can only be brought down
because it alienates several parties in the House.”
“What the government has to do, if it
wants to govern for any length of time, is it must appeal primarily
to the third parties in the House of Commons to get them to support
it.”
And finally this most
telling quote -
"It
is the Parliament that's supposed to run the country, not just the
largest party and the single leader of that party,"
Harper said on Sept. 9, 2004, alongside Duceppe and Layton at a news
conference on Parliament Hill. "That's a criticism I've had and
that we've had and that most Canadians have had for a long, long time
now so this is an opportunity to start to change that."
And yet once in power
he has demonstrated no desire to work with other MPs, has prorogued
parliament twice to avoid a confidence vote and now denies that he
ever even thought of collaborating with other partys to take power.
A party that fires any government commission chair that dares to
disagree with them and controls MPs to the extent that even his own
caucus have little choice but to follow along with what the PMO
dictates. He has made a concerted effort to 'cancel dissent' and to
silence those who have expressed a divergent opinion, particularly
those 'independent' commissions and committees. More on that in later
posts, lets look back at earlier times....
Between 1997 and 2002, when Harper was out of
public life, he served as president of the National Citizens
Coalition, a conservative think tank and lobby group that has
campaigned prominently on many libertarian, anti-worker and
anti-public service issues over the years including:-
Opposition to fair
tax reform; privatization of public sector services; court challenges
to electoral laws that would limit third party spending; media
campaigns attacking grants for the arts, advocacy organizations, and
social science research; attacks on public funding for what it calls
"interest groups" such as human rights or women's groups.
Harper opposed new federal legislation that
placed restrictions on political advertising of private interest
groups during federal elections. Harper took the federal government
to court, arguing the legislation violated constitutional rights to
freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to vote.
Harper represented the Reform party in the HoC
from 93 to 97 but quit his Parliamentary seat and was named
Vice-President of the NCC the same day laying the groundwork for
political power through the creation of a new political party he
intended to lead according to his own strategic vision.
It seems quite clear that Harper will do and say
anything to forward his own agenda which seems to be getting and
keeping power and helping out his corporate private sector friends. I
am not going to dwell upon this period of Harpers history except to
say the ideology of the NCC is clearly front and center in more
recent times, the attacks and de-funding of womens groups continues,
the suppression of scientific research and dialog continues, the push
for funding of political partys by the rich and the suppression of
public funding continues, and the push for 'smaller' (read more
centralized PMO controlled) government continues.
With files from The
Harper Index and Maple
Leaf Web and several other sources.
On a personal note if the Harper regimes goal is
to make us so sick of political BS and to make us feel as if there is
no hope for improvement in our democratic processes then they are
succeeding, I for one am experiencing great difficulty in remaining
optimistic. My personal funk is not helped by the media total lack of
objective reporting on the many road blocks that Harper puts in their
way. That they remain largely silent about his control of questions
at his numerous 'photo ops' across the country and continue to
promote his spin and 'talking points' without question does not bode
well for our democracy. The Media is as just guilty for the
democratic deficit as are the politicians of all stripes.
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