Is democracy in trouble, or is this just a 'drive by' smear?

[Edward Campbell]

This opinion piece is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Pierre+Trudeau+decaying+democracy/6902852/story.html

Pierre Trudeau and our decaying democracy
Canadians were once warned about the types of abuses of liberty that are currently taking place

By Michael Den Tandt, Ottawa Citizen

July 9, 2012

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, it has often been noted, was indifferent to economics. How did he manage to get away with this, let alone govern Canada for the better part of 16 years, becoming in the process a "modern father of Con-federation"? The pragmatic necessities of the marketplace, we take for granted now, rule our politic-al choices. Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks of economics incessantly. Have things changed so much?

It seems a worthwhile question to ask, with the elder Trudeau's legacy front and centre in the emerging Liberal leadership race. Is Justin Trudeau in any way his father's son, apart from their mutual charisma? Is anyone in the Liberal fold, constitutional lawyer Deborah Coyne per-haps, the intellectual heir of Trudeau the elder?

Before we can begin to answer these questions, we should examine P.E.T.'s thought, perhaps. The philosopher king, he was once nick-named. Was he even a philosopher? And, if he were alive today, what would he make of the state of our democracy, and of Canada?

No one can say for certain, obviously. But we can guess, and per-haps do better than that. A series of 20 short essays that Trudeau wrote for Jacques Hebert's journal Vrai, between Feb. 5 and July 5, 1958, at the onset of the Quiet Revolution, offer some tantalizing hints. Trudeau was 39 at the time - a year younger than Justin is today.

For one thing, it becomes immediately clear in reading these essays why Pierre Trudeau may have been more concerned with questions of liberty than of economics. To his eyes liberty was fundamental, and under immediate siege. Trudeau the journalist, a decade before he became prime minister, was indeed the real deal. He was an angry, icy, cutting writer, on the warpath against Maurice Duplessis' Union Nationale, which he believed was flirting with fascism.

Trudeau appears to have been both contemptuous, and deeply resentful, of politicians. "We absent-mindedly bestow these absolute powers over our lives and welfare on a handful of men," he wrote, "in elections dominated by fanaticism and gangsterism, generally without asking of them the smallest guarantee of intelligence or of elementary honesty. Should one of them hap-pen to overstep the bounds, we al-low him to be made a judge, or a legislator for life in one of our up-per houses."

So that much, at least, hasn't changed. But what would this outraged young analyst make of his party today? And what would he say about the federal government, the House of Commons, and the people who occupy it?

Three ideas emerge again and again in those early essays, collected in 1970 in a book entitled Pierre Trudeau, Approaches to Politics. The first is that the state and all its authorities have no right to exist, other than to create the conditions in which the greatest possible number of individuals can reach their fullest potential, as human beings. The second is that all human beings should be equal under the law. The third is that the core institutions of democracy - including the right to free speech, freedom of association, a fair and impartial judiciary, and a free, fair, representative parliament - are the very fabric of society, without which we lapse into tyranny.

Trudeau the elder, when he was younger, was no nanny-stater, in other words. The 21st Century Liberal party, which seems to want to smother every social ill in an eider-down quilt of government pro-grams, would have appeared deeply intrusive to him. "In fact," he wrote, "if we were to extend the powers of the state without having multiplied our means of controlling its policy and limiting its methods of acting, we would tend to increase our enslavement."

Repeatedly in these essays, also, Trudeau writes about the easy but corrosive compromises made for the sake of expediency - the toxic ease of playing along to get along, in a society governed by a regime contemptuous of democratic institutions. He was speaking of his foes in the Duplessis regime, and their hangers-on: "It is a serious matter when the government attacks our inalienable rights, whether by laws or by executive action," he wrote, "it is still more serious when citizens, through cowardice or stupidity, relinquish their rights even when not required by law to do so."

See where I'm headed, here? In 2009 in Canada, a prime minister prorogued Parliament to avoid a motion of non-confidence. In 2011, this same prime minister based an election campaign - successfully - on the notion that a coalition of "losing parties" holding a majority of seats in the House of Commons would lack the legitimacy to govern. This was, simply, a lie. In 2012 this prime minister, having once argued forcefully against the legitimacy of omnibus bills, forced one through himself, in the process changing more than 70 laws. This summer, Canadians are expected to forget all this, and more, because we live in uncertain economic times. Europe, you know. We go along, to get along.

Stephen Harper is not Maurice Duplessis. But the call to overlook abuses of democracy, for the sake of economic expediency - which is a never-ending murmur, beneath every move the Conservative government now makes - is insidious. It's not tyranny, nor should it be called that. But some days, you can see tyranny from here.

Twitter.com\mdentandt

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

First: Trudeau. In my opinion there is nothing special about Trudeau's writings in the 1950s and 60s; he was against Maurice Duplessis, hell's bells, everyone with an IQ with more than one digit in it was against Duplessis; I have no doubt my late Aunt Florence's overweight pet cat was against Duplessis and she, the cat, could probably have penned a coherent anti-Dulessis diatribe, too. It is 'good' that Trudeau recognized that Duplessis was a real threat to liberty; he, Duplessis, created laws and rammed them through his legislature that aimed to discriminate against people for e.g. religious reasons, or, at least, which aimed to secure the primacy of the Roman Catholic church in Quebecers' daily lives; Duplessis needed to be stopped because he was corrupt (nepotism and patronage rather than personal enrichment) and stolid. He was stopped, by nature, not by the rantings and ravings of self styled liberals.

Second: "Stephen Harper is not Maurice Duplessis," Michael Den Tandt says, but he spends most of a column making the case that they are of the same, anti-democratic ilk.

Bullshit!

It is fair to oppose Prime Minister Harper's use and abuse of existing, legal and proper, parliamentary and constitutional procedures (prorogation) and political propaganda to achieve his ends; it is beyond fair, it stretches the truth it is dishonest to suggest that his practices and philosophy are akin to Duplessis'.

This bit of 'journalism' is, at best, a drive by smear.

 

[Staff Weenie]

Ah yes, but they need to keep bringing this to the fore to bolster the young messiah in the wings. Save us Justin.......or not.

 

[a_majoor]

I would suggest the greater threat to Democracy is the ever increasing growth and power of the unelected Bureaucracy. This article: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/06/john-ivison-conservatives-may-be-government-but-the-public-service-is-still-in-power/ outlines the nature and scope of the problem.

The Prime Minister's approach, to slowly reduce the scale and scope of the civil service, is one approach, but the proliferation of bureaucracies at all levels of government effectively reduce the power of the elected officials, so this is a problam that needs to be tackeld at all levels of government.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Our democracy is decaying, but not for the reasons Den Tandt thinks.  We're working our way through to aristocracy (or, if you prefer, technocracy).  But the force pushing in that direction is progressivism, not conservativism.  Den Tandt confuses the conservatives' push-back using the techniques favoured by progressives (ie. ram through whatever they can, by any means necessary) with the aim of following the vector of progressivism.

It is not the conservative (right-leaning) political parties of the world which enthuse over government by the elite; and the behaviour of the elite makes it pretty clear they have no intention of living among the masses.  Yes, the right-wingers are subject to the same temptation to be a governing elite and succumb to it (eg. country club Republicans, big business/big finance elites), but the basic principles favouring individual liberty over submission to authority tend to counteract that decay.

 

[a_majoor]

And the economic counter argument (which could have equally been placed in the Libertarian thread) which shows how regulatory favours and other crony capitalist tricks also threaten democracy and free markets:

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/carney-building-the-free-market-case-against-big-business/article/2501562/?page=1&referrer=http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

Carney: Building the free-market case against big business
By Timothy P. Carney

The most dangerous enemies of capitalism today are capitalists. This is becoming clearer every day to people committed to free markets.

The conservative and libertarian grassroots came to deeply distrust big business after the Wall Street bailouts and Obama's stimulus and health care bills, both of which had big-business backing. Tea Party ire focused on subsidy-suckling businesses as much as at big-spending politicians.

Beltway conservatives have also joined in the fight against corporatism. Last spring, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation all lined up against the Chamber of Commerce and pressed GOP congressmen to vote to kill the Export-Import Bank, which nonetheless was reauthorized by an overwhelming margin.

Republican politicians, despite being lobbied hard by their big-business donors and K Street advisers, are nevertheless moving slowly away from corporate welfare and toward free-market populism. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan wrote an op-ed in Forbes in 2009 titled "Down with Big Business" (a headline he borrowed from a 1979 Wall Street Journal op-ed).

And now academia's free-market players are getting in on the game, beginning to rebuild the intellectual infrastructure to argue against corporatism. George Mason University's Mercatus Center this week is kicking off a series of papers on cronyism and business-government collusion.

"The Pathology of Privilege: The Economic Consequences of Government Favoritism," written by Mercatus senior research fellow Matt Mitchell, is the first installment.

"Privilege" is good word to encompass all the unfair advantages government can give favored businesses. Mitchell's paper, drawing on the scholarly work of Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Joseph Schumpeter, Mancur Olson, George Stigler, Luigi Zingales and many others, outlines various types of privilege and lays out the evidence that these policies hurt the economy while benefiting the privileged. Politically favored businesses of course benefit from direct subsidies (think agribusiness) and government loan guarantees (think Solyndra and Boeing), but Mitchell makes the important point that regulation itself creates a privileged class.

Regulation often acts directly or indirectly as a barrier to entry. The conservative and libertarian media have documented this anecdotally -- Philip Morris supported and is benefiting from Obama's tobacco regulation, for instance, because the rules allow it to lock in its dominant market share. Mitchell assembles scholarly work broadly showing regulation's anti-competitive and pro-big-business effects cites Alan Krueger, who now heads Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

In the Obama era, as Democrats and the media try to paint deregulation as some sort of dangerous sop to big business, Mitchell's notion of "regulatory privilege" is a crucial tool for dismantling the old narrative that regulation protects the public. Mitchell uses a colorful image to make his case: Bruce Yandle's "bootleggers and Baptists."

Illegal booze smugglers, Yandle wrote, "support Sunday closing laws that shut down all the local bars and liquor stores. Baptists support the same laws and lobby vigorously for them. Both parties gain. ..."
Locally, for instance, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington is lobbying for strict rules on food truck parking, in the name of "the needs of the public" for sidewalk space and parking places. Of course, brick-and-mortar restaurants benefit from any regulation that makes life harder for their rolling competitors who can't afford to lease a downtown storefront.

The research Mitchell brings together helps show why government-granted privilege is so important to big business and so costly to the rest of society. In one key finding, he highlights research indicating that free markets, with fewer barriers to entry and fewer bailouts to prop up failed giants, make it harder for dominant businesses to maintain dominance.

Mitchell cites a 2008 study in the Journal of Financial Economics that found "big business turnover ... correlates with smaller government, common law, less bank-dependence, stronger shareholder rights, and greater openness [to trade]."

Further, in Mitchell's words, "those nations with more turnover among their top firms tended to experience faster per capita economic growth, greater productivity growth, and faster capital growth."

Big business wants safety, but big-business safety hurts the rest of the economy. Disdain for bailouts and corporate welfare has resided primarily in the populist corners of the Left and Right. But the scholarly case against systemic privilege is strong and growing, too. The subsidy sucklers, bailout barons and regulatory freeloaders may soon face a challenge on a broad political front.

Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on washingtonexaminer.com.

 

[Greymatters]

I would suggest the greater threat to Democracy is the ever increasing growth and power of the unelected Bureaucracy. This article: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/06/john-ivison-conservatives-may-be-government-but-the-public-service-is-still-in-power/ outlines the nature and scope of the problem.

Isnt this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?  Seems to me we used to have a lot of DND/CF employees and soldiers who 'retired' and then turned arround to become reserve force or civilian employees with similar jobs.  Or is it believed that the two activities not comparable?

 

[a_majoor]

On the micro scale, I really don't care who works in the Bureaucracy.

On the macro scale, the fact that bureaucrats can essentially create laws by passing regulations with the same force of law, who manipulate the agenda of the elected officials through their control of information and work to increasing the size and budget of their bureaucratic kingdoms while being unelected and unaccountable which is the major threat to democratic governance.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Caution and caveat lector; this is a strongly worded opinion and the Mods might want to consider whether it crosses the line. (I don't believe it violates our site guidelines, otherwise I would  not have posted my comments, but, as always and like everyone, I defer to the good judgement of our staff.)

Another drive-by smear, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, this one below the belt even by the incredibly low moral and intellectual standards to which Lawrence Martin adheres:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/religions-fair-game-if-it-motivates-politics/article4450326/

Religion’s fair game if it motivates politics

LAWRENCE MARTIN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Jul. 31 2012

Much has been made of the government’s muzzling of the science community, its low regard for statistics, its hard line against environmentalists.

Because Stephen Harper otherwise appears to be a clear-headed rationalist, there is some wonder about the motivation for these impulses, including the question of whether they are triggered by his evangelical beliefs. The Prime Minister is a member of the Alliance Church, more specifically the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The church believes the free market is divinely inspired and views science and environmentalism with what might be called scorn.

Much has been made of the government’s muzzling of the science community, its low regard for statistics, its hard line against environmentalists.

Because Stephen Harper otherwise appears to be a clear-headed rationalist, there is some wonder about the motivation for these impulses, including the question of whether they are triggered by his evangelical beliefs. The Prime Minister is a member of the Alliance Church, more specifically the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The church believes the free market is divinely inspired and views science and environmentalism with what might be called scorn.

Alberta journalist and author Andrew Nikiforuk, a Governor-General’s award winner, sees the evangelical creed as being at the root of much of Conservative policy-making in these areas – religion is trumping reason, he says. Mr. Nikiforuk is a conservationist and a Christian social conservative who has spent “many pleasant hours in a variety of evangelical churches and fundamentalist communities.” He recently wrote an analysis for The Tyee, British Columbia’s outstanding online newspaper, which garnered a huge response. Under the headline “Understanding Harper’s Evangelical Mission,” the article carries a subtitle reading, “Signs mount that Canada’s government is beholden to a religious agenda averse to science and rational debate.”

Mr. Harper is quiet on the issue of his religion, and the media have mostly steered clear of the subject. After all, religion is a personal business. Many of our prime ministers have been of faith, and it has not been in our tradition to pry. (In retrospect, it would have been right for Canadians of the day to know about Mackenzie King’s table-rapping séances and spiritualism – they certainly seemed to affect his policy-making. But Mr. King’s devotion to the deities wasn’t revealed until he was out of office.)

While religious privacy is important, the evangelical movement is not a typical religion when it comes to politics. Its aggressive propagation of social conservatism and biblical fundamentalism has had a significant impact on U.S. politics and presidents such as George W. Bush. In the United States, a politician’s ties to the religious right are fair game – evangelicals represent something like a third of the American population. In Canada, where that number is more like 10 per cent, evangelicals have achieved nowhere near the notoriety, and Mr. Harper, restrained by public opinion, has not pursued a strong social conservative agenda, undercutting the notion that his government is beholden to theocons.

But the Conservatives’ positions on research, statistics, environmental assessment, pipeline opponents, climate change and so on leads many to wonder. In Mr. Nikiforuk’s view, “Republican religious tribalism is now Ottawa’s worldview.” He says Mr. Harper openly sympathizes with, if not endorses, evangelicals’ climate skepticism, their distrust of mainstream science and their view of libertarian economics as God’s will.

Not long after the Conservatives were first elected, Mark Noll, a church historian and one of the most influential evangelicals in the U.S., said he thought many Canadians would be upset to learn about the conservative beliefs of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. “They certainly are far less tolerant than, say, the United Church of Canada.” But the Conservatives’ image has not suffered much, if at all, from the affiliation.

Since Mr. Harper never speaks about his religious beliefs, much of what’s said about them is speculation. Just because he is an evangelical does not necessarily mean he holds to all evangelical teachings or even most of them – just as being Catholic does not necessarily mean one believes a communion wafer is literally the body of Christ. As for intolerant views, there are many religious denominations guilty of the same.

That said, given evangelicals’ strong ties to politics, the subject should not be left unexamined. The Prime Minister is under no obligation to tell anyone about his religious convictions. But if his government’s policy-making in important areas like the environment is being motivated by religious faith at the expense of reason, it is cause for debate.

It is hard to know where to begin; this article is so sub-standard that I am, frankly, surprised it was published.

Lawrence Martin begins by saying ".. religion is a personal business. Many of our prime ministers have been of faith, and it has not been in our tradition to pry," and he goes on to add that "...  Mr. Harper, [perhaps] restrained by public opinion, has not pursued a strong social conservative agenda," and, finally, he affirms that "... [only] if his government’s policy-making in important areas like the environment is being motivated by religious faith at the expense of reason, it is cause for debate."

Martin, however, lacking any evidence at all that any of Prime Minister Harper's "policy-making," in any area, important or not, is motivated by anything at all other than his principles, goes on to hint, to suggest, to insinuate that there might be some religious base for them. He has no evidence, he cites noting except someone else's unfounded rumours and innuendo but he smears the prime minister anyway.

And Martin tells us the reason; he tells us that despite the rumour mongering by he and his fellow travelers, "...  the Conservatives’ image has not suffered much, if at all, from the affiliation [with evangelical religion]." And that's a problem for Martin because Stephen Harper, "Bush Lite" in Martin's parlance, is the problem; he ought not to be leading Canada, that's the role of someone 'worthy' of the mantle of Saint Pierre Trudeau.

To solve the problem Lawrence Martin resorts to innuendo, distortion and aspersions to make his "case," which clearly, in non-existent. What is he doing in this column? Simple: he's lying and he knows he's lying, he even, in the penultimate paragraph admits that he has nothing to say except the lies because there is nothing to support them and, indeed, plenty of evidence to refute them. But he lies anyway because Stephen Harper is not entitled to the truth or fairness or even human decency.

The Globe and Mail editorial board ought to be washing the dirt off their hands for allowing this pack of lies to see the light of day, but I guess they are shameless.

 

[dogger1936]

I believe The honorable Prime Minister is doing a great job smearing his parties reputation. I don't believe this article diving into his personal beliefs is warranted however. For anyone with a dislike for the current government; I'm certain they provide enough blunders on what seems like a weekly basis to feed the media.

Attack Mr Harpers blunders; leave his personal life out of it.

 

[ModlrMike]

Attack Mr Harpers blunders; leave his personal life out of it.

if only that were the case, one could expect a certain amount of silence.

 

[Rifleman62]

Confirms my opinion, held for years, on Lawrence Martin.

Isn't PM Harper a Mormon?

 

[GAP]

Confirms my opinion, held for years, on Lawrence Martin.

Isn't PM Harper a Mormon?

No Idea.....does it matter?  Unlike Stockwell Day, Harper never even mentions his religion, nothing he does seems religious based, thus, it's a non issue.

 

[GR66]

I am not a religious person and I certainly do not agree with a great many of the beliefs of the so-called "religious right".  However, what difference does it make where the Prime Minister (or any other politician for that matter) gets his/her motivation?  There are many things on the "looney left" that also make my brain hurt but are their motivations more "acceptable" because they are fanatical followers of a non-religious ideology rather than a religious ideology?  Look at what they say and DO.  Judge them on that.  If someone gives me "Peace, Order and Good Government" I couldn't care less if that person had his ideas beamed down from the mothership. 

 

[Rifleman62]

Romney is a Mormon and has been taking hits for it. Romney - conservative. PM Harper - conservative. The left wing media attacks their religion.

I do not know the PM's religion, or care.

 

[JorgSlice]

No Idea.....does it matter?  Unlike Stockwell Day, Harper never even mentions his religion, nothing he does seems religious based, thus, it's a non issue.

One of the many reasons why I like Mr. Harper as our national leader. If in fact he is a church/temple/synagog/mosque-goer, he doesn't drag it into politics. He checks his personal life at the door.

Just too bad that Mr. Prime Minister is left with all the mess of the liberals to clean up and is most of the reason for shortfalls and budgetary problems. Hell, even the messed up F-35 procurement was done at the wise command of the liberals. Yet, Mr. Harper just happens to be the "Anything not Left of Centre" flavour of the season that gets slagged on.  :facepalm:

 

[vonGarvin]

If only people would learn to read.  From the article posted above:

The Prime Minister is a member of the Alliance Church, more specifically the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

I also just noted this in the article.  Mr. Martin says:

...just as being Catholic does not necessarily mean one believes a communion wafer is literally the body of Christ.

[pedant]
Mr. Martin makes a bit of an error.  More accurately, to make his point, he ought to have said "just as stating that you are Catholic does not necessarily mean one believes a communion wafer is literally the body of Christ".

That the consecrated host is the actual body of Christ is essential to being a Roman Catholic.  If you don't believe it, you aren't Catholic

(Article 1413 of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church is rather clear:

1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity

[/pendant]

 

[elderly2]

What makes our dearly beloved Harper worth electing is his non-vindictiveness. You can say anything you want unlike in other uncivilized states where a "constructive criticism" would cost one's job. If you want proof, have an interview with the author of the book whose criticisms of Harper were not only libelous but blasphemously libelous! Nobody in America would dare conclude "Damn Right". Who are you? Are you God?

 

[Edward Campbell]

I cannot make up this stuff, I lack the imagination. A group of more that 80 immigration lawyers has, according to an article published in the Globe and Mail, stated, in an open letter to Minister Jason Kenney (also published in the Globe and Mail), that it is "not credible that the decision taken in relation to the Conrad Black Temporary Resident Permit was made without any input from yourself." Why is it not credible? They say because Kenney uses a "high degree of control" in managing his department and, further, that they cannot "believe that you [Kenney] did not give your consent, either express or tacit, in relation to the request."

The proof? Who needs that? They're lawyers, rallying around one of their own because Kenney's staff have had the temerity to launch a legal complaint.

It reminds me of a fellow named Robert Liburdy. Liburdy has a PhD in biochemistry and was, in the 1980s and 90s, employed in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - that made him a credible scientist. In 1992 Liburdy published a study that made a direct, causal link between mobile phone use and brain cancer. It, the Liburdy study, sparked a rash a lawsuits, HUGE anguish for many thousands of people and masses of follow-up research. The follow-up research was interesting: no one, in any labs, anywhere could replicate Liburdy's results. Finally, in 1999, the National Institute of Health found that Liburdy had lied; he had faked his research. Why did he do it? It was, Liburdy claimed, obvious that there must be some connection between RF radiation and cancer, or something. The only problem was he couldn't find a link - maybe there is one but nobody has found it yet, by 2012 - 20 years after Liburdy's lie.

So, 80 Canadian immigration lawyers and Robert Liburdy have the same problem: something is "intuitively obvious" to them so they tell the world. The fact that they have no proof to back their claims is not a problem - they "believe" so it must be true.

Like I said, I cannot make up this stuff.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The smear is what makes the news and receives publicity.

The follow-ups and retractions will also make the news (technically), but not necessarily much publicity.

"Your denial of the importance of objectivity amounts to announcing your intention to lie to us. No-one should believe anything you say."  (John McCarthy)

 

[Edward Campbell]

"Fewer than two dozen people – most of them other anti-Keystone activists – turned up for the “What Happened to Canada” event at the National Press Club" in Washington DC,  according to the reports, but the Good Grey Globe still prominently features a story entitled "David Suzuki slams Harper science policy in Washington speech." The story says that "Prime Minister Stephen Harper was accused of trampling on citizens’ right, suppressing science, and deliberately misleading the United States over oil sands development" by David Suzuki and other activists.

I call "drive by smear," not journalism.