"Democratizing the Constitution" and "Lowering Higher Education"

Can Canada’s political life and intellectual life (or lack thereof) be considered together?  Can the decline or Parliament and the decline of 'the idea of the university' be linked?  In order to make the case this review considers, in sequence, two recent, multi-authored Canadian books: Democratizing the Constitution and Lowering Higher Education, both published (not surprisingly) in 2011, the same year that Harper led his Conservatives to his first majority in the House of Commons.

In Democratizing the Constitution co-authors Peter Aucoin, Mark Jarvis and Lori Turnbull point out that democracy has been thwarted by any number of Canadian Prime Ministers:  Joe Clark waited 142 days before summoning parliament in 1979; Jean Chretien prorogued parliament in 2003 (as did Sir John A. Macdonald, deep in the Pacific Railway Scandal, in 1873); and Paul Martin failed to recognize losing the confidence of the House in May 2005.  However, these three political scientists agree that Stephen Harper has taken the prime ministerial abuse of power to even greater heights.  Prorogation in 2008 was a blatant partisan activity that undermined “the spirit of responsible government”.[1]   Our prime minister was clearly acting in “bad faith”.

There is no better evidence of Harper’s bad faith than his own, earlier attempt (while acting as Leader of the Loyal Opposition) at forming a coalition government with Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québécois and Jack Layton of the NDP. Here is Harper’s joint letter to Governor General Adrienne Clarkson in 2004, and it deserves to be reproduced:

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38^th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government’s program.

    We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation.  We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give your options before exercising your constitutional authority. (Harper, Duceppe, and Layton, 2004).[2]

Democratizing the Constitution argues that British Prime Ministers do not share Harper’s flip-flop trademark of acting in complete bad faith on substantial constitutional matters because they tend to appreciate the unwritten limits of their parliamentary conventions.[3]  After all, the impulses behind the Magna Carta (1215) are primarily English (rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period before the Norman Conquest of 1066), and therefore not Canadian, distinct (dare I say) from our delayed second-generation colonial descent.  And it is doubtful that Harper is going to celebrate the 800^th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta in 2015 with as much doctrinaire devotion as it did with the War of 1812, which was a year-long display.  The book argues that Canadian prime ministers have more executive powers over parliament than do their British, Australian and New Zealand counterparts, all adherents to the Westminster model.[4]  Consider, as well, that no British Prime Minister can anticipate a majority in the House of Lords, because 25% of its appointees are non-partisan (outside of any party affiliation), and these peerages are considered life-long honours.[5] 

Contrast this with Stephen Harper’s numerous appointments to the Canadian Senate, where “merit” and “capacity” play decidedly little or no role among potential candidates and where “disabilities” such as illiteracy are nationally recognized – and then endowed. [6] Again, failure at electoral politics is another sure way to get the official nod from the Prime Minister (who in these cases of “choice” is aided by the non-elected PMO, which now numbers some 100 officials).[7]  Harper also continues to stack the government (and fund loyalists) with the second-largest Cabinet in Canadian history, shorter by 1 member after Mulroney’s record. [8] The sheer bulk of numbers among Cabinet and Parliamentary Secretaries in Canada again diffuses the sense of individual responsibility - and contrasts starkly with the pared-down numbers of the Cabinet in Britain.  This also begs the question: since Harper makes all the decisions in his over-controlled government, why does he not even make an attempt at gender equity in Cabinet?  It might make for good public relations.

The reason why the British are relatively more successful in keeping to parliamentary democracy is that they retain the virtue (as Montesquieu might put it) appropriate to a monarchy: in other words they respect the “spirit” of the laws.[9]  Despite Harper’s alleged pro-monarchist bent, the way in which he reinvents parliamentary tradition for his own purposes suggests that he has replaced any notion of constitutional “spirit” with the much more Darwinian system of competitive “game theory” which in fact ignores political tradition.  Failure to abide by our unwritten rules means that we need to supplement our constitution with written laws, which is what Australia and New Zealand have done – and this is what Democratizing the Constitution advocates for Canadians.

It is ironic that the government under Harper has hugely expanded the Criminal Code along with mandatory prison sentences (courting populism) but fails to see any written needs with respect to our own constitution.  This lacunae demonstrates the hidden presumption, typical of Harper Conservatives, that our political life is best regulated by the hidden hand of election – and not by parliament itself.  Montesquieu explains that the more a society articulates its laws (and moves away from precedent), the more it veers toward republican tendencies.  Presently Canada’s constitution is in a veritable no-man’s land – devoid both of “spirit” and written laws.  It is neither very monarchical by virtue nor republican in predisposition:  it is supposed to be a constitutional monarchy yet needs some basic scripting, certainly.  And in this current void grows the potential for despotism, because (now) anything goes.[10]

 

From the Conservative perspective, federal politics is but a game in Canada.  Politics is about “winning” or “losing” (following the American model) – not about “responsible” parliament or about which party has the “confidence” of the House and, thus, the right to form a government.[11]  Under the current regime the distinction between “parliament” and “government” is also completely lost, aided by a media unable to find a less potent term for the all-too-frequent usage known as “the Harper government”.[12]  Allow me to suggest as an alternative (as I have indicated before): “the Government of Harper”.

The biggest problem with Harper’s constitutional abuses is that Canadian public opinion lets him get away with it, and the excellent book Lowering Higher Education, jointly written by sociologists James Côté and Anton Allahar is the only publication (to my knowledge) that makes any link between the decline of parliament in Canada and the decline in ‘the idea of the university’ (both, originally, founded as gothic, medieval institutions).  As critical thinking skills diminish among university students, so too do we as a people put up with a dumber education (because it is popular) all the while our own politics changes dramatically.[13] The link is inescapable.

Lowering Higher Education explains that the typical liberal arts and science universities across Canada, and the USA, (as well as Britain) are now coping with massification, vocationalism, and corporatization.  Access to education is a good idea, but not everyone is ideally suited to the academic life, something North American universities have yet to discover.   Universities have also become more associated with “social justice” but for disadvantaged students (and maybe some aspiring academics) the system is itself replete with impermeable barriers and “false promises”.[14]  From another point of view there is also a high level of disengagement where high grades are granted for mediocre work.[15]  Curriculum is watered down in high school (and most certainly earlier) and grade inflation in endemic to all systems, the end result being that first-year university students are poorly prepared in terms of skill and personal direction: students have high expectations for top grades but lack the requisite effort.[16]  According to the 2007 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) conducted by the Centre for Postsecondary Research 84% of grades assigned in Canadian Universities are apparently either an A or B.  In the United States the proportion is even higher – resting at a keen 90%.[17]  One should question the accuracy of these reported statistics, but the trend seems clear.

The end result is not mass education but “mass certification” – and a diminished culture of learning, distracted by cell phones, iPods, texting, twitter, email, employment needs, and (of course) the ever-present extracurricular.[18]  Instead of being educated in critical skills, students are trained - in university – by means of memorization, and “consumers” can be fond of it because it is easier than thinking.[19]  Perhaps my only regret is not taking that BSc. (Hons) degree in “Surf Science” - or the degree in “Property Management”![20]  As well, the popularity of free university on-line courses (directed, unfortunately, for the benefit of privileged social segments – and driven by university competition for prestige) turns some professors from scholars into stars; lost is the modest class tutor of ten individuals.  And the phenomenon of distance education (say, at the University of Phoenix in Vancouver), aided by Wikipedia, encourages the belief that there are better online substitutes for the classroom environment, now preferably media “interactive” but possibly missing out on intellectual esprit.  Today’s students are occupied with “clickers” (so I am told) but my own experience has been that young students are less argumentative; they pose fewer significant questions; and they are often weak at thinking through issues – all the while, it appears, in some academic disciplines multiple choice prevails. Students also tend to regard themselves as “consumers” of education: in paying tuition they, in effect, think of themselves as purchasing credentials from this or that university brand; implicitly the tail tries wagging the dog here, often regardless of institution.

As today’s students “consume” their education, numbing themselves in the process, so Canadians “consume” their politics, veering towards rigid ideological conformity to seek clarity and avoid troubling ambiguity. Since Harper’s ascendance the predilection for “populism” on the Right and Left feeds into an “anti-intellectualism” that undermines the liberal arts and sciences with its once-firm commitment to civic action through transformative, critical education.  Moreover, Harper’s “bad faith” of Prorogation in 2008, so much a topic in Democratizing the Constitution, feeds on the intellectual dishonesty characteristic of closed political systems.[21]  Ideologies self-justify power, and there is nothing less honest (and less intellectual and less critical) in politics. Harper got away with twisting unwritten truths in our constitution requiring his “responsibility” to the House partly because education in Canada tends to lack moral dynamism, which may or may not have something to do with its (mass) public, secular and hyper-specialized features.  Or it may have something to do with the fact that faculty have mortgages too, leaving less opportunity for the type of honour originating in Homer. [22] Furthermore, the relative absence of mentorship, allowing students a free hand in taking a smorgasbord of courses, tidbit after tidbit, weakens the moral imagination.  In other words, a university education in Canada does not necessarily build or test “character”; rather, it induces apathy, conformism and the obeisant.

 

Harper is not some “brilliant” steward (as the Canadian media – and many pundits are so prone to suggest) – he is simply better at turning Conservative followers (and his Cabinet) into disciplined objects (or a machine), just as student “consumers” are treated as empty vessels before the corporate university’s industrial process.   Conservative nationalism begs a form of determinism which inhibits individual freedom, hence Harper’s emphasis on the military and on Canada’s regarded emergence as a nation at Vimy in 1917, where there really was no middle ground following years of trench warfare (as the binary monument suggests).  Put another way: our new $20 bills (which feature the Vimy memorial) stand in testimony to Harper’s aim - the ideal of an excluded middle.  Defined by their limits, “consumers” (be they students or be they Canada’s current crop of ideologues) are an ironic enemy of “the open society” that they allegedly espouse, confusing liberalism with liberal economic theory, and freedom with capitalism (hence the proselytizing argument for trade with China, and everywhere else).[23] Instead students turn individuality into meaningless corporate icon-bearing badges; yes, we can all be customers at McDonalds when we are not exercising “choice” at Starbucks (found on almost any campus).

The trouble with “responsibility” in Canada is that it is considered an old-fashioned notion.  It has its roots in the middle ages where the oath of fealty protected lord and vassal (hence the idea behind the Senate), where the monarchy was not above the law (hence the supposed supremacy of House of Commons), and where the philosopher carefully instructed his students in the trivium and quadrivium (so numbered after Augustine’s trinity and the four basic elements) hence the idea of the university.  With colonialism these core traditions were transplanted onto a different continent; but “responsibility” in the history of Canadian political thought is not an organic notion.  It was weakened upon grafting (implicitly as Europeans and other later immigrants flooded the continent), but we were blessed with the fact that the country was considered unfinished, indicated by the neo-gothic architecture in Ottawa (as opposed to the neo-classical in Washington DC).  Yet in the face of modernity, or post modernity, and as many of Canada’s universities have populations numbering in the tens of thousands, it is difficult to inculcate “responsibility” in a sense personified by the idealism of the middle ages, which was less than egalitarian (and prone to crusades).  Today numbers of Canadians short-change themselves by clinging to ideologies, veritable ‘crib sheets’ to life, in the face of globalization, economic crises and scarcity, and as we search – unquestioningly – for a medieval magician nonetheless to take dreaded responsibility.  Thinking critically is still too difficult as we now cede ancient liberties, responsibilities and political institutions to our anti-statist statists.

In reviewing these two books in combination the conclusion seems inescapable: the decline of parliament is connected to the decline of ‘the idea of the university’, and Harper ultimately benefits from an uninformed, rather populist public. But which particular reading do I recommend?  Prize-winning Democratizing the Constitution can be a painful read because it is so repetitive owing to poor editing, or perhaps because it underestimates its audience, which may be a hard thing to do in Canadian politics.  As an artful substitute may I recommend instead Goethe’s Faust (where Faust sells his soul to the devil) or the following excerpt from Thomas Aquinas’s De regimine principum [‘On the Government of Princes’, circa 1267] which sums up Canada’s problems with the Chrétien era and Harper’s regime nicely:

Again, it sometimes happens that a community expels a tyrant with the help of some other ruler who, having achieved power, snatches at tyranny himself and, fearing to suffer at the hands of another what he has himself done to another, forces his subjects into a slavery even more grievous than before.  It is often true in cases of tyranny that a subsequent tyrant proves to be worse than his predecessor; for, while not undoing any of the troubles inflicted by his predecessor, he devises new ones of his own, out of the malice of his heart.[24]

While Lowering Higher Education is a valuable book (perhaps a bit too schematic in its beginning), Canadians should read first Democratizing the Constitution, because it examines the terrible problem of political tyranny and abuse, but alas one has to put up with its annoying premise that the reader is an ill-equipped (or at least forgetful) first-year university student.

---

[1] Peter Aucoin, Mark D. Jarvis, Lori Turnbull, Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2011), p. 65.

[2] Ibid., pp. 61,62.

[3] Ibid., p. 143.

[4] Ibid. p. 150.

[5] Ibid., p. 145.

[6] This was written before Harper’s problem with Senator Brazeau, who is facing criminal charges.

[7] Ibid., p. 121.

[8] Ibid., p. 119.

[9] The more the government approaches a republic, the more the manner of judging becomes fixed; and it was the vice of the Lacedaemonian republic that the ephors judged arbitrarily without laws to guide them.  In Rome, the first consuls judged like the ephors; the drawbacks of this were felt, and precise laws were made.

     In despotic states there is no law; the judge himself is the rule.  In monarchical states there is a law; and, when it is precise, the judge follows it; when it is not, he seeks its spirit. In republican government, it is the nature of the constitution for judges to follow the letter of the law.  No law can be interpreted to the detriment of a citizen when it is a question of his goods, his honor, or his life.

 

See Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, tr. and ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 76  (Part I, Book 6, chapter 3: “In which governments and in which cases one should judge according to a precise text of the law.”)

[10] Ibid., pp. 247,248.

[11] Ibid., p. 42.

[12] Ibid., p. 180.

[13] Ibid., p. 97.

[14] Ibid., p. 65.

[15] Ibid., p. 33.

[16] Ibid., p. 40.

[17] Ibid., pp. 142,143.

[18] James E. Côté and Anton L. Allahar, Lowering Higher Education.  The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1911), p. 181.

[19] Ibid., p. 75.

[20] Ibid., p. 185.

[21] See R.W. Dyson, “Introduction” in Aquinas: Political Writings. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. ed. and tr. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. xxxv.

[22] See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3^rd ed (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).

[23] Paul Ricoeur, History and Truth, tr. Charles A. Kelbley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007), p. 270. 

[24] Aquinas, “De regimine principum” in Aquinas: Political Writings. Cambridge Texts, ed. and tr. R.W. Dyson, p. 18.

A Response to the Prime Minister's Christmas Message

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

According to your Christmas message “Canada shone” in 2010; “We did ourselves proud.” First, there were the Olympics, and all those shiny gold medals awarded while Parliament was on hold, just so the right politicians could get best seats at the Leni Riefenstahl show. Then there was the “historic” G20 summit on June 26, 27, and all those shiny police badges – otherwise known as the “Canadian approach” or “Canada’s plan,” as you put it in your message, where innocent protestors (assembled peaceably, some singing “O Canada”) were rounded up, beaten and herded in cells, crammed like sardines, arms shackled, and abused or assaulted in countless other ways. Did I forget to mention the rubber bullets?

The Toronto police were apparently in training for the Afghan mission, where it is alleged some shiny young Canadian men (so “generous” with their lives, as you put it in a previous Christmas message) inadvertently “helped” Afghan detainees – and knew about it, yet no one seems to know anything about anything right now. If you can improperly “detain” in Afghanistan and violate various Geneva Conventions, why not try it in Canada’s largest city and with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms– where police seem encouraged to break the law, and where federal Conservative votes have been strangely scarce.

Mr. Prime Minister, you speak of Canada having a “deep tradition of freedom, tolerance and generosity.” Not when you can prorogue Parliament twice in a row (and get away with it), and not when you can let the incompetent Toronto police, high on testosterone and power, wreak havoc on taxpaying citizens. Have you not had enough with Guantanamo Bay?

Mr. Prime Minister, do I not detect a national tendency towards a sliding disregard for traditional responsibilities, the rule of law and individual rights?  Have you not set the tone for more forked tongues, or is it uniquely Harperlitarianism - "the politics of control"? Should I be amused that one rare police officer (shinier than all the rest) compared the bursting Toronto holding pens on those fateful June days to Auschwitz?

Mr. Prime Minister, if you don’t understand what I am talking about, please give yourself about 2 hours, and bring along some popcorn, and your kids (but blindfold them and cover their ears), while you watch this riveting movie about Toronto’s G20 “meeting” last summer. It makes me really proud to be Canadian!

Here’s the link: http://underoccupation.com/g20/

And when you have finished viewing, consider this excerpt from John Stuart Mill’s classic “On Liberty” (1859):

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interference with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil in someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign.*

And why not consider the words of Rick Mercer, who might have gotten something wrong in "I'm so scared," January 17, 2006:

I'm talking about the ads that accuse Stephen Harper of wanting to put soldiers with guns in Canadian cities.  Which is true.  Harper has promised to station four hundred soldiers in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg, to deal with natural disasters.  And the Liberals made it sound as though Harper had some freaky plan to enact martial law. **

Perhaps, Mr. Prime Minister, next time, during future summits, you might want to include considering the sovereign rights of individuals on Canadian soil. I look forward to your future Christmas omissions.

Yours truly,

Joerge Dyrkton, D.Phil.

*Source: J.S. Mill, On Liberty and other writings. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge UP, 1991), p.13.

**Source: Rick Mercer, Rick Mercer Report: The (Paperback) Book (Toronto: Anchor, 2008), pp. 110,111.

How Stephen Harper met George Orwell in High School

"‘There is a word in Newspeak,’ said Syme, ‘I don’t know whether you know it; duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.’" (George Orwell, 1984)

Stephen Harper is fond of Orwellian duckspeak, because he is always speaking to his group (which is quite like a gaggle – and often not high in flight). Prorogation is massive duckspeak, because it avoids having to do anything with lips, and it prevents any public feeding; there is just a lot of waddling, here and there. Conservative television ads are full of duckspeak, as they squawk a lot, and they leave droppings on their opponents almost to the point of no return: remember the unfortunate Mr. Dion, and to a lesser extent there is Mr. Ignatieff who flies too high (according to his imagination).

Parliament is about duckspeak (and it can sound that way), but Harper and the Conservative Party have honed it to a fine art. Early in January I wrote my MP James Moore with complaints about prorogation (see my blog entry). I did receive a reply, within a few weeks, but there was no mention of a prorogued Parliament, and quite frankly the letter did not say anything much ... until I came across the word duckspeak. Mr. Moore was sticking to script, according to his group, even though a Minister, and avoiding any accountability to his constituents: duckspeak. I do wonder who actually wrote the letter. If it were Rick Mercer’s guess, the office plants had a say.

Another word comes to mind when considering Stephen Harper: “egological” (a deceased friend of the late Pope John Paul II came up with the term). Forget the environment, save for the office plants, Mr. Harper also puts new meaning the notion of ‘head count.’ I thought we had surpassed the ‘Me’ generation, but can the Prime Minister be a holdover from the age of bellbottoms? No, that would be an Orwellian thought-crime. Think way back, I mean, way back, to the age of the Saints, of never doing any wrong, you know, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Paul, and so on.

“Saint” is an ostentatious title for most of us, if not all. It can suggest incompatible thinking, or Orwellian doublespeak, as if there were nothing better, supposedly (and everybody else is considered a "sinner"), but that is how Stephen Harper was indoctrinated at Richview Collegiate Institute in Toronto. In other words, Mr. Harper still thinks he is one of the “Saints,” the nickname for his High School (where Church and State unite), and he persists in believing he is the head boy. (Incidentally, Margaret Atwood went to the Harper family's old area of haunt, the Leaside "Lancers"). So Harper has finally figured out a way of overriding the Senate (the teachers); in his own day it would have been by old-fashioned student strike. However, prorogation is a pretentious high school kid’s answer to getting one’s own way. Only he has succeeded in closing down the school because initiation rites may have gotten out of hand. Given that Harper is so egological, it really is like water off an Orwellian duck’s back.

On "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" by Milton

Here is an excerpt from Milton on ‘Free Nations’ written in old English (and it might need rereading):

“And surely they that shall boast, as we do, to be a free Nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove, or to abolish any governor supreme, or subordinat, with the government it self upon urgent causes, may please thir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to coz’n babies; but are indeed under tyranny and servitude; as wanting that power, which is the root and source of all liberty, to dispose and economize in the Land which God hath giv’n them, as Maisters of Family in thir own house and free inheritance. Without which natural and essential power of a free Nation, though bearing high thir heads, they can in due esteem be thought no better then slaves and vassals born, in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting Lord. Whose government, though not illegal, or intolerable, hangs over them as a Lordly scourge, not as a free government; and therefore to be abrogated.”

John Milton’s, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, was first published in 1649, less than two weeks after the execution of Charles I. Milton wrote about liberty, the people’s right to resist tyranny and the need for political trust, among other things.

"How to Make the Right Decisions" by Cicero

“Holding things back does not always amount to concealment, but it does when you want people, for your advantage, not to know something which you know and it would benefit them to know. Anyone can see this sort of concealment that this amounts to – and the sort of person who practices it. Certainly he is not an open, straightforward, fair, honest man; no, he is a shifty, deep, artful, treacherous, malevolent, underhand, sly, habitual rogue. Surely it is inexpedient to get oneself called by all those names and a lot more besides!"

Excerpted from How to Make the Right Decisions written by Cicero, a Roman Senator, not long after the murder of Julius Caesar (44B.C.); he was himself murdered on 7 December 43 B.C.

"From World Order to Global Disorder" - A Review

I was lucky to get a new paperback version of this book for a bargain – the going rate for a hardcover is $75.00 which should tell you something about the book’s considered value, despite its title, the focus of which is not quite the “world” (but close enough for our purposes). From World Order to Global Disorder: States, Markets and Dissent (2007) was written by Dorval Brunelle, a Sociology Professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal. Translated by Richard Howard and published in English by UBC Press, the book addresses the shift in world “order” established more than 50 years ago at the end of the Second World War – Keynesianism, the mixed economy, the welfare state - and compares it with the so-called “disorder” established by the forces of globalization, deregulation and “liberalization”. Property rights and all the legal elements consistent with them have been strengthened, while the legal outlook protecting, say, the unemployed (and the planet itself) has been diminished. Overall, collective rights (and things “public”) have been weakened because neoclassical liberalism and the Chicago school (mentored by Milton Friedman) have difficulty seeing beyond the individual – and, indeed, transnational corporations. Some of this, of course, has been questioned since the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

Despite his penchant for sociological jargon, “horizontals” and “verticals”, Brunelle offers some interesting nuggets of Canadian history (mostly economic and political) and a good summary of the history of liberalism(s) over the past half century. He points out, importantly, that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was “essentially inspired by old-style philosophical liberalism” (the spirit of 1789, if not the letter), and that it was introduced in part to correct the abuses of provincial legislatures, both East and West. However, it spelled doom for parliamentary supremacy in Ottawa, bringing us closer to the U.S. model, where the judiciary reigns. Brunelle’s point is that the Canadian Charter, because it deepened the continental paradigm, made Free Trade all the more easy to advance.

Brunelle also asks an interesting question: why did Canada and the U.S. opt for Free Trade “when they already had the most integrated economies on the planet”? He answers that such closeness in the first place allowed Canada and the U.S. to negotiate an agreement with sweeping implications, keeping in mind the Recession of 1981-82 (considered at that time to be the worst since the Depression era), which affected Canada more than its neighbour to the south. Moreover, Free Trade was the central recommendation of the Macdonald Commission (begun in 1982 and tabled three years later). It aimed at reworking our economy, allegedly “balkanized” (the common bane of Canada, one way or another), and creating instead an “economic union” (minus our vulnerable populations) – following the historic recipe of the world’s first modern economies, nineteenth-century Britain and Germany, combined with the late twentieth-century example of the European Union.

However, the notorious Chapter 11 of the Canada - U.S. Free Trade Agreement (the number “11” being the “symbol of sin” to St. Augustine’s “legal 10”) guarantees investor rights, and allows them to challenge governments in court if nationalization were to be considered, placing government in a secondary position vis-à-vis corporations. In other words Ottawa ceded sovereignty to multinationals (unlike Mexico) under NAFTA; and what was once considered legislative or public power has further shifted out of the House of Commons and into the executive, or Cabinet (which abides by secrecy), the end result being an occasional meeting of heads – governmental and corporate, the latter backed by agreements outside the Canadian judiciary. What was public has been privatized, and our civil society suffers the loss of a responsible and accountable forum – save perhaps (I might add) for our Senate, our churches and our non-governmental organizations. Brunelle also looks for some help from our global social movements.

Keep in mind that this book was originally published in French in 2003. It does not focus much on people or prime ministers (it is in fact sociology) – and what stands for the era of Jean Chrétien is perfectly suited for Stephen Harper, perhaps even more so, given his dominance of the Cabinet and ideological predilections. Brunelle offers a penetrating analysis of our democratic deficit without being doctrinal; his book is a worthy and succinct read, and the fact is our legislatures are now poorly equipped to protect the collective rights of our own people – the public. No wonder I feel a sense of (philosophical) “liberty” (mixed with shame and compassion) each time a church offers up a little space for the homeless. One feels empowered by expressing dissent with the reeling consequences of globalization that knows neither home nor social justice.

Stephen Harper's Senate "reform"

Harper’s 27 appointees to the Senate in the space of less than one year reminds me of how Stalin, as General Party Secretary, stacked communist bureaucracies with his own appointees, which eventually led him to full control of the Politburo. Is it only in Canada that one man can be responsible for more than one quarter of the Senate members in a matter of mere months? A proud record, for sure. The noted scholar Donald J. Savoie used the term “court government” in early 2008 to describe the tone of government in Canada (and Britain) - but I believe this to be a considerable understatement, as it stands today, in our country. Stephen Harper has garnered unprecedented personal power and allegiances, and there is no one to check the authority of this ‘chess player’ (a favoured term of the uncritical news media), save for some opposing pawns on the Internet. In his will, Lenin expressed concern that Stalin had “concentrated an enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution.” Does this not sound familiar to those who remain wary of another constitutional record - the unflattering hiccup known as the prorogued parliament?

Rightfully (but for the wrong reasons), Harper is not going to opt for an elected Senate. He finally realizes, when now in power, that such a body cannot sit subordinate to the House of Commons, not that this worried him too much. If you elect a Senate, how could it be - why should it be - the home of “sober second thought” – or of any thought for that matter? Harper’s solution is to rid himself of any pretensions of non-partisanship in the Senate (in other words, sobriety), offering only his thought – or rather, his one thought: power. How can any man refuse the best of both worlds when seized with such an opportunity – appointing two dozen plus fellow hacks (thereby perpetuating his loyal self without the bother of yet another election), and thereby saving us from the constitutional nightmare of an elected Senate. We now have single-minded (in its truest sense) “reform” of the Senate which borders on a quiet, low-brow and anti-intellectual Revolution of the Upper Chamber which was once considered, for good reason, “Canada’s Think Tank”. Who can call Canada a democracy today?

THREE CHEERS FOR Two Cheers for Minority Government

Peter Russell, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Toronto, has written an important and timely book: Two Cheers for Minority Government (2008).

Published just before the simpering tempest of our very own prorogued parliament (brought on by none other than our rogue prime minister), Russell makes it very clear, in his first page, what all Canadians should know and understand by heart: “We don’t elect a government; we elect a representative assembly.” And his concluding remarks about our “Educational Deficit” strikes at the heart of our faltering democracy: “the vast majority of Canadians know very little about the nature of parliamentary government and its virtues.” (p. 162). We need to read his book. The lackadaisical attitude with which most Canadians approached their prorogued parliament speaks volumes about the lack of adequate political discourse in this country. We not only do not have an Obama; we are now missing in a political culture.

Canadians, at least those who can afford to, are so busy amusing themselves by means of television, internet, ipod, and Nintendo game, that they are not taking the time to be informed and critical citizens, which is a responsibility, not just a right. We are all members of this vast, diverse community called Canada, and I implore (as does Russell) that every intelligent adult take part – and certainly newcomers, as well. Remember (and it cannot be said too often) there once was a man, democratically elected to power, named Hitler, who closed the Reichstag and demonized the Jews. What’s so different about Harper effectively closing parliament (upon request) and demonizing the separatist vote?

Reading Russell one gets the sense of how much Harper oddly mimics Trudeau (and his expanded PMO), only without the charisma. Trudeau’s War Measure’s Act maybe even compares with the unconstitutionality of the Prorogued Parliament – only the latter is far worse, because there was no crisis. (Coalitions exist elsewhere, why not Canada, asks Russell in a central thesis.) Both Trudeau and Harper showed disdain for parliament; and both prefer, in terms borrowed from Richard Gwyn, plebiscitary type leadership. In terms of party discipline, mass advertising and “public management”, Harper excels, especially when the PMO, overriding the Finance Department, “leaks” budget details to Bay Street (as well as to mainstream Canada).

By seeking popular approval from the people and the TSE, Harper undermines parliament, and it underscores why his cabinet ministers, whose names and faces one keeps forgetting, still do not matter in the public’s eye. For modern politics television matters most, not, it appears, the august political institutions themselves, and it explains why the federal subsidy for the shift from analogue to digital TV remains so important to presidential politics in the USA. But deliberately leaking the budget is ruinous towards the House of Commons. First of all, as the great British Liberal thinker L.T. Hobhouse explained a century ago (in a footnote): “financial measures are entirely unsuited to a referendum.” Secondly, Harper is taking financial control away from the House of Commons, which is why control is there in the first place, for those of us interested in history. Harper’s moves were not “reforms” or “new rules”; rather these manoeuvres can be seen as on the slippery slope of parliamentary destruction, by the PMO’s duping of the media – and we must be made aware of this abuse.

The increase in prime ministerial power is more marked in Canada than in any other parliamentary democracy, Russell explains, and I am not surprised at the revelation. Jean Chrétien was our Louis XIV, and Stephen Harper that other seventeenth century figure: Cromwell, our Lord Protector. Canadians should read Two Cheers, before they have nothing to cheer about.