Sunday, October 28, 2007

Democratic Despotism: The Extremes of Parliamentary Democracy

“There’s no question that the prime minister has all the power he could possibly want.”
- Donald Savoie on Stephen Harper

There are very few aspects of the American political system that I agree with, let alone would advocate in the place of Canadian political institutions, but nevertheless recent events in Canadian politics have led me to support one such American institution: the clear separation of powers.

All political systems have their problems. For all the talk of checks and balances in liberal-democracy, the division of powers within many liberal-democratic states has the tendency to produce absurd and woefully unbalanced situations where the executive and legislature belong to opposing political factions (as is what commonly happens in the United States where a Republican president may face a Congress dominated by Democrats or vice versa). Equally imbalanced is the situation in Canada, the United Kingdom, and other parliamentary systems where the executive and the legislature are effectively one and the same – with one political party dominating the entire government by holding the majority position in Parliament and by holding the Prime Minister’s office (especially where it has the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices). While the American political system has a tendency to be so factionalized that it ends up being unworkable, the Canadian political system (despite the minority governments of recent years) has generally suffered from the opposite problem: too much power being concentrated in the office of the Prime Minister, and this is the subject of this article.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Direct Democracy: Not a Utopian Fantasy but an Inevitable Necessity

“The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.”
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The 18th century French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau once remarked that Englishmen (whose parliamentary political system we have adopted) were only free once every several years when they voted while remaining servants and slaves the rest of the time. Given the troubling situation currently facing democracy in Ontario, Canada and around the world, these words from over two hundred years ago gain a new and frightening relevance.

Standing in line waiting to vote last Wednesday in the provincial elections, I couldn’t help being conscious of the uninspired blandness of it all. There was no emotion, no enthusiasm, and, really, not too much life for that matter. People simply filed in, went through the registration procedure, marked down the “X” on the ballot, put it in the box and left. Despite the continual fanfare of pro-democracy pundits the world over that such a simple act is an act of heroism, I certainly was not detecting any of that “heroism” in the room that night. In fact, with regard to all the noise about “raising your voice” and “not letting others speak for you” in pre-election advertising encouraging people to go out and vote – that night no one said a word and the X’s on the ballots were as silent as a grave.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Civic Duty and Its Importance Revisited: The World City

The problems facing the world as a whole demand a new ethic of service from human beings everywhere – men and women alike. Civic duty is more important today than it ever was in the past.
The strength of a society can be measured in its cohesion and unity. Naturally a strong society will be one where the citizens feel intimately connected to and work to further the goals of society with passion and dedication. This communal spirit is essential to the wellbeing of any civilization. In a society where the individual and the community are constantly in conflict and where the interests of the individual and society constantly collide, there will be serious problems.

The concept of trust is what ultimately makes or breaks a society. As a citizen you have to feel confident that your neighbour will not steal from you or injure you. There has to be a certain level of solidarity where the individual can feel that he or she is part of something greater, that they are not alone and that their fellow citizens care about them. If someone is constantly looking over their shoulder and feels they need to be on guard against everyone around them then they simply cannot play a constructive role in society. They are too busy trying to protect themselves against real or imagined threats to themselves or to their families. This prevents a strong civic identity and creates a situation where every individual, every family, every ethnic group, religious group, or whatever views itself as against all other individuals, groups, and society as a whole. Such an environment serves the interest of no one except those who wish to impose tyranny over those weaker than themselves. It is not an acceptable condition and yet it has arisen in many areas of the world and threatens to arise in many others.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

The Human Commonwealth versus the Nation State: Immigration in the 21st Century

We all know about illegal immigration and the often heavy-handed measures increasingly taken by authorities to stamp out this phenomenon which simply refuses to die. We all know about globalization and how increasingly open economies and porous borders allow for incredible flows of money and people to move across the world at a speed and magnitude unheard of at any other time in history. Humanity, it seems, is on the move and it is changing the dynamics of the world at an incredible rate and the resulting tensions are becoming more and more evident on a global scale.