Ms. Kady O'Malley is Badly Wrong: Everyone Become Pangloss?

With all due respect to Ms. O'Malley and others, she is badly wrong as to her interpretation of the conflict. Parliament is not some stand-alone institution, Milliken is not some alien from outer space drafted in as Speaker according to some tradition. You might as well say Parliament was working "exactly as intended" if Baldwin-Lafontaine had asked for but not obliged responsible government to become a reality, or if the Long Parliament had asked Charles I to obey it, but had not taken the steps to enforce it.

It seems to me that she and many others, not just the media but generally most of what I'll loosely call the Canadian elite, simply don't want to face up to the enormity of what is happening, as they would be obliged, according to their enunciated principles, to take the necessary, and probably extraordinary, measures necessary to confront an extraordinary situation. No-one wants to deal with it, it either surpasses their understanding or it scares them, given what it implies about Parliament, Canada, and themselves. And they have no confidence that Iggy etc. could prevail in an election, if one was needed, and the implications of that scares them further - the endorsement of anti-democracy by Canadians. So the preferred option is to ignore it as much as possible, and if absolutely forced to acknowledge it, downplay it, and try to suppress and repress one's own guilty conscience and knowledge of reality. They are taking refuge in Panglossianism. But Canada is not a Wonderland and this is not a fairytale. This is reality. Face up to it. Cowards. Traitors to democracy.

In O'Malley's own case, given her affection for Parliament, it may be that it would simply be too heartbreaking to recognise that if Parliament, ie. the Opposition, don't step up, then Parliamentary Supremacy & Responsible Government are become empty bad jokes, and her own employment, as with all who revolve around Canadian politics, is just as empty and bad a joke. I understand this would be hard to accept.

Because if the Opposition backs down on Parliamentary Supremacy & Democracy, then I fear the answer to Chantal Hébert's 2nd and 3rd questions, in the most important and best post or column anywhere, for many a year, is OUI: "Dans un système où la vérité n’a plus sa place, y-a-t-il encore un rôle utile pour de l’analyse politique basée sur des faits ? Ou bien cette analyse finit-elle par ne servir qu’à rendre plus rationnel ce qui devrait être inacceptable ? Et la piètre qualité de l’eau du bocal parlementaire, chaque année un peu plus moche depuis que je couvre la politique, a-t-elle atteint un point de non-retour?"

Parliament is its members. You can't separate them. Never could. No Parliament in a system of responsible government, ie. democracy, has ever accepted such an outrage. Never.

Never.

So, "parliament, as an institution, worked exactly as intended", can only be said to be true from the point of view of Charles I or the Family Compact. Parliament, as the central institution in a democracy, is NOT WORKING, IT IS PERVERTED, SUBVERTED AND BETRAYED, EXACTLY AS DEMOCRACY'S DEFENDERS THROUGH THE CENTURIES HAVE FOUGHT AGAINST!

So O'Malley and others, notably Opposition MPs, can take psychological refuge in fairy tales and denial, but her position is simply not true. We should all at least have the courage to recognise reality and one's own knavery and contribution to knavery, surely. Have we learnt nothing about personal responsibility in such situations from history? At least have the self-respect to admit you have no self-respect, and admit you thus lack all respect for democracy and its institutions. Admit you are parties to the overthrow of Parliament. Admit who and what you are.

Milliken is just one MP who was elected by others to serve as Speaker. He gave his ruling. It's his judgment. It only means something if a majority of fellow Parliamentarians agree, and follow through. If they don't, then his ruling was not meaningless, far worse, by their actions, or rather, by their inaction, MPs will have in fact rebuked and renounced his ruling. Judge a man by his acts, not his words. If they don't follow through, they will in fact be supporting Executive Supremacy. They will have renounced Responsible Government, and the underpinnings of democracy. As do O'Malley and the Panglossians.

If MPs don't stand up for Parliament, then Milliken's ruling is not even worth the paper it is printed on. Far from becoming a benchhmark, domestically and internationally, as Lee hoped, it will soon represent just a forgotten signpost on the way to the grave of responsible government, and democracy. Nothing. Meaningless. Emptiness. Might makes right.

So O'Malley, MPs and all Panglossians, if you are to make yourselves into the collaborators of the Executive's overthrow of democracy, at least have the minimal honour to admit it.

I fiercely disagreed with Potter from the outset, when he wondered whether it was a good idea. I took for granted my fellow Canadians, not just MPs and media, had sufficient self-respect to stay true to their principles, and fight and win the good fight. He did not, implicitly. We will see who is right. When I think of Canada, I think of her victories. Perhaps historical bias blinds me - who wants to remember the defeats? But even now, at the last, I simply can't believe that our elites, our people, that Canada as a nation has fallen so low. Is there no-one who will hold the banner high? The separatists, alone, the last Canadians?

Only in Quebec you say? Pity.