Thursday, May 19, 2011

Harper's Senate picks turn off Canadians: Layton

Harper's Senate picks turn off Canadians: Layton - Canada - CBC News

"Mr. Harper talks about Senate reform but he's doing things in the same old way, in fact even worse," Layton said.
"He's taking people who have been defeated, who have been rejected by voters.... You should earn your place in the Senate and if you can't get elected, you shouldn't be appointed to the Senate two weeks later."
So let's see if I get this right...

It's undemocratic for Prime Minister Harper to prorogue Parliament even though it's technically legal and a common practice by Prime Ministers and Premiers throughout the country. It's NOT undemocratic for Mr. Layton and his allies to overturn the result of an election and take control of the government even though neither he nor any of his allies received the largest number of votes nor the largest number of seats in the 2008 election and Mr. Harper was returned with a larger caucus than he had before the election (again, technically legal but not common practice). It IS undemocratic for Prime Minister Harper to appoint senators - two of whom resigned from the Senate to stand for election, and all of whom are more than qualified to sit in the Senate - merely because they happened to be Conservative candidates that did not win in the election - Again, unequivocally legal.

So, just out of curiosity, is there a book somewhere that tells me which moves are democratic and which are undemocratic? Should we just assume that anything that Mr. Harper does, while allowed by the Constitution, is undemocratic? Are we just to assume that anything Mr. Layton and his ilk do is automatically in the interest of democracy?

Like they say "Get your program - you can't tell the difference without your program".

The reality is that there are a high number of Senate appointments to come. There are a high number of Supreme Court appointments to come. There are a high number of appointments to be made in all levels of government. If Mr. Layton truly wanted this stuff to be accountable, he shouldn't have rejected Mr. Morgan in 2006. Right now, the only thing that Mr. Layton can do is scream and holler while working with Mr. Harper to push through Senate reforms that will actually give the Prime Minister LESS power in those decisions. Until he does so, there's nothing he can say that will change the reality that Senate appointments are legal and acceptable.

5 comments:

  1. I get so tired of politicians saying Canadians want this, don't want that, are upset blah blah. No one asked me if I objected to these senate appointments. I don't. What I do object to is the devious methods Layton used to get 2.00/vote in the last election. I do object to MPs being elected who never stepped foot in their riding. I urge layton, and the media to quit assuming just because they lost the election, that Canadians are upset at whatever PMSH does.
    We needed a majority in the Senate so liberals could/would not stall everything just to oppose.
    It is the oppositions and medias fault we have a conservative majority, as they were so wrong when they assumed Canadians wanted to defeat PMSH.
    Bet a few liberals would like a do-over on that vote to bring down the govt.

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  2. This is why we need a EEE senate, with a term limit.

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  3. Well Layton had better start lobbying Premier Charest to agree to an elected then appointed Senate,
    because PMSH has the privilege of appointing/reappointing 4 more Quebec Senators between now and 2013!!

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  4. ps PMSH will be appointing 5 new Ontario Senators before the next election, 2015, too!

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  5. C'mon guys... Jack doesn't want a Triple E. Jack doesn't want ANY Senate - that's his end game. NO senate appointments would be appropriate for Jack (except when the Senators themselves complain that there's not enough Senators to do whatever work they do), and therefore ALL Senate appointments would be undemocratic to Jack.

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