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| I Am Skooter | |
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So here's us, on the raggedy edge.
Been down a thousand highways and they're all the same / Another empty place where I can hide my shame — Steve Earle, Shadowland |
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Fixed election dates are not compatible with the Westminster Parliamentary system on which Canada’s government is built. They simply are not.
Why Stephen Harper has chosen to pass a bill—a meaningless, hollow bill—to implement them remains a shock to me. why the rest of parliament chose to help him in this agenda is equally surprising.
Simply put, the government can fall on a non confidence vote at any time. Fixed terms therefore don’t exist. Our constitution already defines a five yer maximum: the Harper government has, here, passed a bill which simply shortens that to four years without going through the process of a constitutional amendment.
Whether this is because the Harper government doesn’t respect the constitution, or because they felt that this was an issue not deserving of an amendment doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s invalid.
Unfortunately, i think it’s the former: I think the Conservative Party of Canada believes that parliament is supreme in all matters, and i only wonder at what point they’ll stop.
Our Constitution is supreme, our Parliament is fickle.
Posted by skooter at 5:55 PM
This entry is filed under Politics.
This entry is tagged: Charter of Rights, Conservative Party of Canada, Constitution, Stephen Harper