That's all it takes these days? A mere telephone call to the Governor General, and Parliament is prorogued.
How will he do it next year? By text message? ("GG plz prorog til Mar3 Thx SH")
I can see Harper in a coming year, during a difficult question period, furiously text messaging the GG, and then rising. "Mr. Speaker, I would answer that question, but the Governor General has prorogued Parliament."
Our country's democracy is a mokery of the very idea.When one man can arbitrarily shut Parliament, we have no true representation and no good government.
I call on our parliamentarians to protest, not just with their voices, but with a continued presence on the Hill. We once had a senator hunger strike over Katimavik, a single small government program, to large and ongoing media coverage. What is our Parliament worth compared? Less? Or More?
I look forward to another tepid response by the Opposition, compared at least to what is at stake in this country. Oh, whine! Oh accusation! Oh, 60 days off.
James Bowie has a list of the bills that have died and will have to be reintroduced from scratch, assuming Harper doesn't call his planned post-Olympic election first.
Canada is dying a slow death.
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Update:
Andrew Coyne has it right: Parliament should meet anyway.
3 comments:
Excellent post! The best of the lot today.
I can't believe the War Resisters Support Campaign agrees with Andrew Coyne, but that's what we've been saying: the opposition should refuse to prorogue! Meet anyway! Tories don't want to work? Well we were elected to do a job and we're going to do it. Damn, they ARE the majority!
Harper had to use his phone. His Blackberry wasn't working.
The proroguing of parliament is an insult to the people who elected M Ps to conduct the business of running the country. I think that all members of parliament should report to Ottawa on January 25 and embarass the prime minister, who flaunts his authority. This move might not have any legality, but it might result in an awareness that more members support the continuation of this session of parliament than do not.
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