Harper's Senate Moratorium

Harper has not appointed anyone to the Senate in the last two years, and his recently announced moratorium compares with his prorogations of the House of Commons in years past. They are examples of the Executive (the Prime Minister) interfering with the Legislative, and for those not in the know: the Senate continues to be part of the Canadian Legislature. Harper’s constitutional pyrotechnics (borrowed in this case from the NDP, where one polarizing party mimics another) flies in the face of the Supreme Court which states that Senate constitutional reform can only happen by agreement of the ten provinces – not by attrition and by starving provinces of historic representation.

Harper’s Senate spectacle amounts to a farce.  It is he who appointed inferior candidates to the chamber of “sober second thought” (including the illiterate Jacques Demers).  It is he who dismisses their residency requirements, as in the case of former media assets Pamela Wallen and Mike Duffy.  It is he who fears the upcoming testimony of his own, once loyal Nigel Wright – on whom Harper turned in the fallout following his Chief of Staff’s ‘misguided’ $90,000 cheque to Duffy.  It is Harper who apparently confers with just one other - Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, known for his opposition to the Senate. It is Harper who needs to shore up his sagging polling numbers, hence cheap populism trumps the Canadian Constitution which has ‘evolved’ more in the past 10 years than it has in its entire 148 year history. (And note just how many levers Harper is willing to exercise in the face of his government’s poor economic showing).

Here is an excerpt from John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government” (circa. 1681) articulating how Harper is ‘altering’ government (and has on more than one occasion):

When the Prince hinders the Legislative from assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those ends, for which it was Constituted, the Legislative is altered.  For ‘tis not a certain number of Men, no, nor their meeting, unless they also have freedom of debating, and Leisure of perfecting, what is for the good of the Society wherein the Legislative consists: when these are taken away or altered, so as to deprive the Society of the due exercise of their Power, the Legislative is truly altered.  For it is not Names, that Constitute Governments, but the use and exercise of those Powers that were intended to accompany them; so that he who takes away the Freedom, or hinders the acting of the Legislative in its due seasons, in effect takes away the Legislative, and puts an end to the Government.[1]

As Locke puts it: “it is not Names that Constitute Governments” but in Canada’s case it is Harper’s name that is everywhere, tending to disguise “the rule of law” of which the Prime Minister speaks with so much fondness.  (But note how little attention he has paid – in true Hobbesian form - to the 800^th anniversary of the Magna Carta). The Senate is part of the Canadian Constitution, like it or not, but the latter is being meddled with, singlehandedly, along with many other aspects of government, all in Harper’s name.  Perhaps the only good thing about the Senate moratorium is that it will allow Harper (or another party) more opportunity to appoint candidates who actually merit the position.

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[1][1] John Locke, Two Treatises of Government.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 409 (para. 215). See also my earlier blog entry “Canada and John Locke’s ‘Two Treatises’”. 

"Fair" Elections Act, Laski and Hayek

… the right … to the franchise is essential to liberty; and a citizen excluded from it is unfree.[1]

Harold J. Laski, Liberty in the Modern State, 1930.

Here Laski is quoted by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty (1960). It is worth noting that Harper (with Thatcher) is a devoted follower of Hayek’s neo-liberalism which won him a shared Noel Prize in Economics in 1974.   Laski (associating with Frankfurt School and British Labour Party – and a teacher of Pierre Trudeau) taught at the London School of Economics from 1920 to 1950; and Hayek taught there, as well, from 1931 to 1950.  Perhaps these two intellectual icons, with very different political leanings, would be in agreement over Harper’s “Fair” Elections Act.

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[1][1] Quoted in F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty. Definitive Edition, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011), p. 62. n. 11. 

Montesquieu on the Greek Referendum

Finally, as in democracies the people seem very nearly to do what they want, liberty has been placed in this sort of government and the power of the people has been confused with the liberty of the people.[1]

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748

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[1] Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, tr. and ed. by Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) p. 155 (Part I, Book 11, Chapter 2).  The same can be said for Metro-Vancouver's failed transit plebiscite.

Greek Democracy and Pericles' Funeral Oration

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War provides insight into Greek democracy, both ancient and current.   Here are some excerpts from Pericles’ famous Funeral Oration (circa 431 BC), found therein, which honours the first of the Athenian war dead in the struggle against Sparta:

Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbours.  It is more the case of our being a model to others, than of our imitating anyone else.  Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.  When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. …

… We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed, and those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break. …

… Then there is a great difference between us and our opponents in our attitude towards military security.  Here are some examples: Our city is open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people observing or finding out secrets which might be of military advantage to the enemy.  This is because we rely, not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage and loyalty.  There is a difference, too, in our educational systems.  The Spartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most laborious training in courage; we pass our lives without all these restrictions …[1]

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[1] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, tr. Rex Warner and intro by M.I. Finley (Penguin: Harmondsworth UK, 1972), pp. 145,146.

Greek Referendum: thoughts in historical perspective

As to finance “Greece has been bankrupt from her birth.”                                                                        -  Whig observer, circa 1750[1]


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To understand Greece, is, of course, to pardon her, and gratitude to the mother of art, poetry, freedom, civilization, the bulwark of Europe against the East, must make us not only forgive, but help and hope the cause of the little kingdom.[2]

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We barbarians have never adored Greek character, old or new.[3]

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[1] Andrew Lang, “Edmond About and Greece” in Edmond About, The King of the Mountains, intro. by Andrew Lang (New York: Collier, 1902), p. vi.

[2]Ibid., p. xiv.

[3] Ibid.