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We went thru the last one with a minority govt. Thank God we did, because Harper was still doing his "what me worry about a recession" shtick, trying to produce a balanced budget, until forced by the opposition to open the spending taps. Seems the best thing is to have an NDP govt during down times, and a truly fiscal conservative govt during good times.

   

NDP are just another bunch of federal amateurs like the reform alliance proved itself to be.

The only team is Team Liberal with a proven track record and the Canadian companies and Canadian people in high places who know how to use the graft .
It's just the way it is.

   

Hardly.

At least the 'viciousness' from the left is relegated to anonymous comments on a news website.

Meanwhile, spewing empty, poisonous vitriol daily in any and every available public forum is the official policy of the Ford Brothers types and also just about every federal and provincial Conservative, except for a small dying breed of Red Tories, all of whom are under official gag order. All of which is then amplified through unofficial spokespeople like Ezra Levant and Sun media.

   

I wish you'd name your quotes - who wrote that piece of drivel?

   

From where I sit the secrecy and the lack of accountability in your government is going to grow regardless of what party is in charge. This is because Canadians have a worldview that their rights flow from government and that they are properly ruled by their government.

Well, when you take people with this mindset and have them run a government they don't believe they're accountable to the people any more than a shepherd thinks he's accountable to his sheep.

The recent post on CKA about the huge disparity between the US and Canadian governments on freedom of information underline this. Well over 95% of US requests are fulfilled and in excess of 80% of Canadian requests are denied or ignored and the remainder are rarely fulfilled without at least some element of redaction.

Until you folks become adamant about the notion that people grant government the right to exist then you're going to be subject to arbitrary power even though that arbitrary power is usually in the form of a soft tyranny.

   

Done.

   

I take it you've never visited the Edmonton/Calgary Sun website then...because those guys are just as nasty as any of the morons one cbc.ca are.

   

So far there's been the usual attacking the poster(s), attacking the source and even attacking the CBC (SFA to do with it).
Bart's come closest to addressing the content and he doesn't eveh get to vote. I partially agree with him - YOU tell the gov't what to do, not vice versa.
Right now, this week, there's the Duffy controversy where from right inside the PMOs office a conspiracy to deceive and conceal goings on from the Canadian public, yet 1/3 of citizens don't care. If the USA was a Parliamentary democracy like ours, with tose figures, Richard Nixon wouldn't have had to resign he could have run again and possibly won!
Sometimes you swallow your partisanship and vote for what's right at the time. See that NDP logo by my avatar? That didn't preclude me from actively campaigning for the BC Liberals or for voting for Brian Mulroney when it was time to send a message.

   

First up now that I've gone dark it will be interesting to see if m posts still post.

This is the first highly educated post I've read at CKA on the subject of secrecy and accountability of our government , or any government for that matter.

The problem is Canada has always been a banana republic and mostly just part of the plantations owned and governed by the USofA.

Oh we think we have sovereignty and we have internal issues to keep us glued to that fact, but no , we are a banana republic owned and pawned off mostly by recent Conservative governments and the newly formed "C" logo we have squirming on the campaign trail today.

Some guy went bonkers at a news conference for the "C" logo people. i think he is a CKA member. Starting yelling at a reporter that it's about taxes and she cheats more than anyone. He is upset that reportrs keep asking Harper if he knew about the pay off for emails scream that he did.

   

And that's the problem people have with you.

   

You wouldn't know an educated post if it dropped on your head and killed you.



That's why you get no respect on here. You come out with shit-nuggets like that.

Do everyone a favour, go away.

   

Canada is not a banana republic. Banana republics are typically kleptocracies bordering on anarchy.

Canada is truly one of the great democracies but the shortcoming is not in the structure of your government but in the people who run it.

Seriously, Canada can't have an accountable and transparent government when it's run by Canadians.

Yes, that was intentionally provocative. No offense intended.

Let me restate my prior point that Canadians believe government is the fount of their freedoms. This is a problem because governments don't grant people rights, governments grant people entitlements and revocable privileges.

I've had Canadians on this site argue this with me over the years and they've convinced me that they're well suited to being ruled by other people.

See, these same people hate on me and other Americans because we don't have an inherent trust of government, we're not ready to obey our government's every whim, and we strongly retain the right to overthrow our own government if it becomes necessary.

The antithesis of these American ideals must then hold as Canadian ideals since so many Canadians eschew the American notions.

That means that many Canadians...

* Believe that their rights come from government.

* That it is a Canadian virtue to trust the actions of government at all levels.

* Believe that the government has an inherent right to rule people.

* Believe that any talk of standing up to government authority is wrong even if the government authority in question is abusive or improper.

With these things in mind then the Canadian view of government is not far removed from the old notion of The Divine Right of Kings in which a king had the right to rule because he was the king and he was always right because, after all, he was the king.

And if Canadians hold to this worldview then when these Canadians form a government it only follows that they'll believe that their government (be it NDP, Tory, or Liberal) doesn't have to answer to anyone.

The Americans, on the other hand, do believe that government is accountable and even when we have a regime like Obama's (which is outrageous to many of us) that regime will still honor notions like transparency and accountability because the people in power believe they should be accountable to those who are governed.

Once you acknowledge this difference in worldview between us our differences suddenly come into better focus and then it makes sense why a Canadian government isn't all so responsive to the public.

It's because Canadians don't really expect their government to respond to them, they expect to respond to their government.

   

Reminded me of Stephen Harper's current campaign slogan, which is "Being Prime Minister is not an entry level job"

Which I can only assume is trying to imply that only the current Prime Minister is qualified to be elected Prime Minister.

   

It is absolutely circular logic!

It's also a statement that betrays a belief in an anointed ruling class and that's a very dangerous idea that can lead to dynastic rule like what we're threatened with down here with another possible election between the Clinton and Bush families.

Hell, our election this year is damned near an episode of "Game of Thrones"!

   

If we're lucky. I still feel what I feel about the Canadian left though. There sheer adherence to dogma rivals that of any religion out there. And I truly believe that they do not care in the slightest about any of the damage they will end up doing, especially in the West, as long as the dogma is fulfilled.

   

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