Peter Russell speaks out

Peter Russell was a hero to me as a political-science student 30 years ago (from afar, I was at Western, he was at U of T, but I wanted to take his classes). He doesn't wade into politics that often. But extraordinarily, he has now. I'll say no more. Whatever I could say, he'll say a lot better. 

 

Comments

[Norma]

Thank-you - some Canadians are very concerned with the erosion of our democracy.

[Cathy Payne]

At times it is hard to put your finger on what is really changing with the "Me or Chaos" marketing vs the reality on the ground. I vividly remember after that Afghan prison blew up and Conservatives claimed we were leading at prisons and Harper said the private contractors were glorious. And now we totally overlooked tunnels! A 25 year problem for Americas and Canadians on borders. Not far away ones either. Selling Saviour as your brand nullifies any critique. Even obvious blunders go unchallenged. Suddenly someone else was leading and messed up too. The extreme between the commercials and reality have never seemed so obvious.

[Steve in Toronto]

I have a hard time seeing this as any thing other then partisanship wrapped in high minded language where were these proponents of the rights of parliament when Chrétien shut down the Somalia Inquiry? I may be naive but it seems to me that “contempt of parliament” is what ever the majority of parliamentarians say it is and that it is an almost inevitable charge give the unwholesome combination of a toxic political environment and a minority parliament. I think that one of the reasons that so many Canadians don’t seem unconcerned about the behavior of the Harper government is that they seem no worse (and in some respects better) than the governments that preceded it.
Cheers
Steve in Toronto

[cangar]

I have no idea if I'll wake up May 3rd to a Harper majority or a Layton minority, but at this point, I just want to get it over with. I find Layton's behaviour so discouraging. Some of us were really perturbed by Harper's behavior, and now Layton is dodging media questions, defending candidates taking vacations in the middle of the campaign, defending them not even being in the riding and working over 1000 miles away on another campaign - all this after he launched attack ads on Ignatieff as early as 2009 and ran some early in the campaign about Ignatieff's voting record. And the NDP candidate in Guelph basically told people not to vote for her.

DO any of these NDPers even believe in democracy?? A candidate runs because they think they can best represent the people and believe the people should have that choice. The NDP makes it all sound like some big strategy just meant to put Layton in a more powerful position and the people be damned.

[Darwin O'Connor]

"Layton is dodging media questions"

Sadly, all politicians do that. Harper doesn't even bother taking questions most of the time.

"A candidate runs because they think they can best represent the people and believe the people should have that choice."

If they can't find a local candidate for a little-hope riding or one who can't afford to blow off a trip they have spent thousands of dollars on should they not bother to run a candidate at all? That only reduces the people's choice.

All parties has candidates like these. It's just that the NDP's formally little-hope ridings have suddenly become ridings where they are contenders in the last week of the campaign. If that happened to the Liberals, Conservatives or Greens you would see the same thing.

[Steven]

What's worse:

Harper Conservatives driving parliamentary democracy into the dirt?

or

Layton NDP enabling the Harper Conservatives in 2006, 2008 and now, with their efforts to discredit the Party of Laurier, Pearson, Trudeau, etc.?

For all their sanctimonious pretense of moral superiority, the NDP are self-serving bottom-dwellers - they slandered a good man (Ralph Goodale) and are two-faced about promoting Canada in Quebec, and have cut tried to cut backroom financial deals with the Harper Conservatives (in exchange for looking the other way on the Harperite contempt of parliament), up to the day before this election was called, among other scams on the people of Canada.

Lament for a nation, indeed!

[Robert Wiseman]

What do the comments above have to do with the video in which a noted constitutional scholar discusses the contempt findings against the Conservatives. We have one of the oldest parliamentary democracies and this is the first time that a government, and there have been many minority governments, has been found in contempt. That is a big deal folks. Please, if you are considering voting Conservative think about what your vote means after listening to Peter Russell. Canadians have died for democracy. The least we can do is listen to this statement, think about its implications, and vote according to our conscience, not our blind subservience to a political party.

[Gerald Comeau]

The Peter Russell speech is nothing but fear mongering. Russell's speech is mostly innuendo. I think he must be a little bit diluded if he believes former British Monarchs were better than Stephen Harper at accounting to the people. Stephen Harper has respect for Canadian Institutions including Canadian Parliament: just not a slave to our institutions. He is a Prime Minister who may not have the greatest patience in the world when it comes to acrimonius debates that lead nowhere, but I'd say that's a small price to pay when the alternative is a stagnant House of Commons. Does Peter Russell really believe that Stephen Harper has more disdain for our institutions including Parliament than did Jean Chretien, for instance.

[cangar]

Darwin, I don't know what you mean by can't afford to blow off a trip they spent money on. It always costs even more money to actually take the trip. It is a matter of priorities. Do you want to run for public office or not. Sorry not buying your excuses which are just excuses for very poor behavior and Layton is setting a very poor example of leadership on this. Demand better of your representatives or you will never get better.

[cangar]

Also, Darwin, apparently not all parties do this. The Toronto Star claimed that Liberal Warwick was just the same as the NDP's phantom candidates. That was a lie. Here is a link to a writeup on Warwick's all-candidate meeting:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/thenorthernview/news/120291094.html

He has been in the riding since the election was called, even though he had to rearrange his schedule to do so, and he has zero chance of winning it. Isn't that what one should do once when lets his/her name stand for public office?

It is pathetic that even the Toronto Star publishes lies to try to defend the NDP's phantom candidates. Seems like everyone's ethics go down the tubes once you feel compelled to defend unethical behavior. Please don't go there. No matter what party or leader you support and how badly they are behaving, we can all still behave better by not trying to defend unethical behavior.

[MacJack]

I am horrified by the extent to whuch character assassination, innuendo, outright lies and blatant intimidation tactics are now accepted as standard practice in our democracy. I am equally alarmed by how the Conservative Party has allowed Harper to diminish our parliamentary institutions. Where are their progressive or even central voices?

My father was a Second World war veteran who fought to defeat fascists like Mussolini and the Nazi Germans. We are all guilty of letting down our country if we do not speak up via our votes to denounce these tactics.

[Abe Neufeld]

While I might agree, that we should express concern with the Conservatives reluctance to be more transparent, I shudder at the thought of the NDP,s and the Liberals cloak of deceit and years of demonstrated incompetence!
Politic's are not only about black & white issues but thankfully I am still able to vote for the Candidate and Party I consider to be Canada's best current option! Canada remains a symbol of economic strength despite six years of a minority Government. Our Canda was well served by Steven Harper as Prime Minister and his minority government.

[Dale Tuck]

Sir
As a respected member of the educational community, it is interesting that you pick the previous conservative government under Mr. Harper as being in contempt of parliament. The same question on costs was presented to many liberal government in the past concerning each of their social programs that were being proposed. There was not once that this cost was presented in any rational way. There were estimates, as there are for the programs that were proposed recently but that seemed to be acceptable to the liberal majority at the time.

So, it is interesting, as I am sure that your arguement will be, that the parliament was in a majority position so as not to be "in contempt of parliment" but is not outright lying about such costs "contempt of Parliment' itself.

I see no charges laid at the feet of such governments by yourself, or am I mistaken here. You should have been afraid back then as, if all it takes is to lie, then I am sure that the king would have held his position for as long as the Liberal Party has in Canada

[Substance McGravitas]

where were these proponents of the rights of parliament when Chrétien shut down the Somalia Inquiry?

Why not ask Peter Russell what he thought?