A blog to give a voice to our concern about the continued erosion of our democratic processes not only within the House of Commons and within our electoral system but also throughout our society. Here you will find articles about the current problems within our parliamentary democracy, about actions both good and bad by our elected representatives, about possible solutions, opinions and debate about the state of democracy in Canada, and about our roles/responsibilities as democratic citizens. We invite your thoughtful and polite comments upon our posts and ask those who wish to post longer articles or share ideas on this subject to submit them for inclusion as a guest post.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Harper, champion of Democracy..... NOT!


With great fanfare, an international organization has announced it is honouring Stephen Harper as its World Statesman of the Year for his work as a “champion of democracy, freedom and human rights.”

It is of course a pure coincidence that this 'award' is from an organization founded by a Rabbi and in Harpers eyes Israel can do no wrong,  however as Bob Hepburn of the Star points out “the foundation either blatantly ignored or didn’t know that Harper is arguably the worst prime minister in history when it comes to defending democracy and human rights in Canada.”

Indeed the blatant disregard for democracy and parliamentary process has been documented weekly on these pages since shortly after the first time he shut down parliament to avoid facing a confidence vote. That any organization should present this man with such an award shows how out of touch with reality they are, and is indeed as several other commentators have said a cruel insult to the people of Canada.

I could now go on to list the many things that this regimen has done under Harper’s leadership to reduce our Parliamentary Democracy to a shadow of its former self but I would just be repeating a long list already documented here and by many other writers both academic and otherwise. I will remind you however that these are the folk that are fighting tooth and nail to avoid any real investigation or information to surface regarding the well documented attempt to compromise the 2011 election. If you believed in democracy the first thing you would do is do everything and anything to get the the bottom of the 'allegations'. NOT this lot!

Update:-
An Avaaz petition, just started by a Canadian, is asking the foundation to reconsider granting this award and is available online; it lists several of the reasons this is such an egregious insult to all people who believe in the tenets of real democracy and human rights.
I sincerely hope you will consider signing it. It can be accessed here.

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1 comment:

thwap said...

Right on! This is an insult. An empty-headed, hack-fest of an insult.