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.
Contact us at democracyunderfire@gmail.com

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Five Years of Frustration

Five years ago this week I started Democracy Under Fire due to concern of the way in which the new Conservative Government was ignoring democratic and parliamentary conventions. This was just after their reelection as a result of the lowest voter turnout in Canadian electoral history, with only 22% of eligible Canadian voters casting a vote and prior to their most glaring abuse, which being the proroguing of parliament to avoid a vote of non confidence in Sept of 2009. During the the first few months I took the time to examine and more fully understand our system as it was intended to work and I encourage you to read a few of those early posts, more may be found via the archive listings in the side bar. You will see that the tone of the posts have changed considerably since those days, as has the way in which our parliament operates. I now now refer to those who lied and cheated themselves to power as 'The Harper Regime' believing that to refer to them as a government is an insult to all those who work diligently for us in the various departments to lump them in with this bunch of oligarchs. I am increasing critical of almost everything that said regime does, who can not be when almost every thing they do diminishes our democracy, our parliamentary conventions, our access to reliable information political, social, fiscal and scientific, and our very sovereignty.


That over those 5 years there are still a large number of Canadians that still cannot see that when a regime will do ANYTHING to suppress information that may reflect badly upon them it is a race to the bottom, whos leader will not answer unscripted questions from the press on the rare occasions when the are given access to our 'dear leader', that their very right to select their parliamentary representatives from a position of knowledge is compromised. That the institutions necessary to provide services, be it to decision makers or directly to Canadian taxpayers, built up over many years once shut down or defunded will take years to rebuild if ever, that ruling by ideology and fiat has no place in a democracy. That withholding information and blocking enquiries regarding election fraud and financing and other actions contrary to our laws and rules is in itself a direct attack upon democracy. If you have done nothing wrong and support democracy then you would do everything in your power to get to the bottom of the allegations, but if you have cheated and lied to the public and to your fellow parliamentarians simply to get or retain power then you will, as we have seen, continue to do everything you can to suppress the truth.


This then is in my view where we sit now, I don’t really blame those who are taken in by the daily spin issued from the PMO after all when you are more worried about if they have a job next week, or for so many folk if they even have food on the table, its hard to worry about whether your government is being honest with you. And when the extent of the information you get is a 30 second item (often blindly parroted from the regimes 'news' release) on the evening news it becomes impossible to make informed choices. There is the rub, information is power and the Harper regime is increasingly controlling the information you receive from or about our 'government'.


As you can see for the most part no I longer search for or post information on how things should be but am so concerned about the never ending destruction of our democracy that I am reduced to ranting about those that I am fearful are leading us to becoming a third world oligarchy. Where before too long if you are fortunate enough to be allowed to vote, you get to cast your vote for only those who have been approved by Herr Harper and his minions and are told that all others are 'terrorists' or 'enemies of Canada'.


Wake up folks before its too late.




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7 comments:

Owen Gray said...

Rest assured, Rural, that there are lots of us who share your frustration.

Rural said...

I am sure there are Owen, I just hope there are enough taking notice to 'rid us of this troublesome priest'!

Lorne said...

Rural you said the following: "I don’t really blame those who are taken in by the daily spin issued from the PMO after all when you are more worried about if they have a job next week, or for so many folk if they even have food on the table..."

I used to feel exactly that way, but I find myself increasingly resentful of those who disengage from the political process and refuse to realize that so much of their economic malaise is attributable to bad government, government whose interests are not the ordinary people but their own base and corporate enablers.

Even more contemptible, in my eyes, are those who refuse to care about the larger society if they are doing okay; they are responding exactly as the Harper cabal wants them to respond- with selfishness and indifference.

Like you, Owen, The Disaffected Lib and so many others, I work to try to spread the word in whatever way I can, knowing that it is a seemingly Sisyphean task. But there really is no alternative, is there? To be silent is to admit defeat, and that is something that I am glad progressives refuse to do.

It is ultimately up to Canadians everywhere if a return to health in this country is to be a possibility.

Rural said...

Lorne, it is the reality that if we remain silent the Harper cabal has won that keeps me 'spreading the word' despite the feeling that most of the time we are all beating our heads against an unyielding wall!

Rural said...

Sisyphean : Endlessly laborious and fruitless. Loverly word Lorne, I had to look that one up!
After Sisyphus, a king in Greek mythology who was cursed to push a huge boulder to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll back down and to repeat this forever.
I do hope that things are not that hopeless but I fear we may indeed be endlessly pushing that boulder up the hill!

thwap said...

Maybe I should shake off my negativity and try again.

Rural said...

If enough of us get behind that bolder thwap maybe we can finally push it over the top. Do lend us a hand whenever you can.