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, March 10, 2019

A Broken System?

Recent events and reports have made it clear that our system of governance has some major flaws in it as it currently operates, whist efforts to improve the way we elect our representatives have failed it is becoming increasing obvious that those we do elect have very little power to effect outcomes. I will not try to dissect the current cluster fk that is occurring in the seat of power, ably assisted by much over the top 'reporting' and 'opinion pieces' from various sources on line and off but will comment upon what I view as what is perhaps the root of the problem.

We all know that irregardless of the possible desire to enact change for the better by those who elect to put their names forward to represent us in the halls of power this wish and attitude is quickly suppressed by the realities of how the 'system' works both publicly and privately. Events in recent weeks have highlighted how those at the very top of this unstable pimarimid attempt to maintain strict control over the actions and public utterances of those below them be they 'in cabinet' or simply warming a seat on the government or opposition benches. Expressions of difference of opinion from 'the party line' are strongly discouraged, understandingly given the importance and power we seem to give to the idea that, although incorrect in theory, that we are electing a representative of a Party not an individual to represent us the public residing in his or her district.

Let us be clear here, this behavior is not limited to any particular Party or for that matter to federal or provincial politics, it is replete across out entire electoral system. There is little we, the public can do to change this, for with perhaps the exception of one particular party who currently has but one seat and has not had the opportunity to show us how they would govern, the only choices we have is to vote for one of these 'party representatives'! At this point the best we can hope for IMHO is a minority government where there will at least be some need for all concerned to at least try to govern for the people not the party. To say that I am not optimistic and should be considered highly cynical in my published scribbling at this point is putting it mildly!

The only thing I am sure off at this point is that the BS issuing out of political commentators both official and unofficial is going to get very deep by fall. Get your hip waders ready!

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2 comments:

Owen Gray said...

Mr. Orwell claimed that political language is used to defend the indefensible, Rural. Nothing has chaanged since Orwell made that claim.

Rural said...

I have read several of Orwell's novels Owen but had not seen that opinion, as you say how little things have changed in the ensuing years!