Virtual forums are not enough

(January 12) - Proroguing Parliament was arrogant, beastly, cowardly, despotic –go through the alphabet and find 26 suitably infuriating adjectives. It was all of this and more. It deserves to be called out and shouted down. But in the end it was legal. That is where the problem lies.

In 2008, the Prime Minister ended the session when faced with a non-confidence motion he was sure to lose. This winter, he was faced with a binding order from Parliament to produce documents related to the treatment of prisoners of war. He didn’t want to comply, so he shut the shop and sent the help home.

There has been immediate and widespread outrage across the country. There is even a Facebook group called Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. In less than a week it grew to almost 120,000 members. As of Monday the group’s membership had grown to 151,000. There is even a Guelph chapter of this group with over 100 members.

How effective is Facebook as a tool for organizing political protest? We shall soon see. The test will be on Saturday Jan. 23 when the Guelph group is planning a public event.

You can’t change the world on a laptop. You can send messages, involve people in the issues, convince them of your arguments. But if it stays on the computer screen, nothing will change. Change happens when people get off their bums and go to the union halls, the church basements, the community centres and make their voices heard.

Virtual voices in virtual forums produce virtual democracy. It, in turn, produces nothing. If you want to do something to reverse the direction in which Stephen Harper is moving our country, get off the computer and get on the move.

Signing up on Facebook tells everyone you are unhappy. Doing nothing else tells them you are prepared to live with your unhappiness. That is exactly the thing Stephen Harper is hoping to hear.

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At the bottom of this whole mess lies a fundamental truth. It pains me to say it, but it is something with which I am in agreement with Stephen Harper. Unelected Senators should not overrule decisions made by elected members of Parliament. It is easy to cheer for the Senate when we don’t like what the government is doing, but it is still wrong.

Any agreement with Harper ends there. We differ on what to do about it. He has chosen to get down into the muck with the Liberals. He will appoint enough Conservatives so the Senate will blindly support anything he does. It will also block as much Liberal legislation as it can when that party gets back in.

The problem will not be solved. The situation will not be improved.

The Senate itself needs to be abolished. It is a useless relic from the old days of feudal England. When the old “nobility” adapted to the emerging parliamentary democracy, they had to share power with the “commoners.” They allowed a House of Commons to enact laws, but kept a House of Lords with the power to overrule what the people got up to. The Senate is our knock-off version of the House of Lords. Unelected and unaccountable.

To stop Prime Ministers in minority governments from proroguing Parliament at will, we need to get out from under the oppressive weight of a Queen, a Governor-General and 105 senators. Take the power out of the Prime Minister’s Office and give it back to the MPs. No prorogation until the majority of members vote for it.