Atwood calls out Harper on accountability, spending

The Edmonton Journal:

Edmonton — Margaret Atwood thinks Canada needs to set up a dictat-o-meter.

Similar to the famous clock that counted down the seconds to nuclear Armageddon, this clock would grade how close Canada creeps toward a dictatorship, said the famous Canadian author Friday in a speech to an audience at the Myer Horowitz Theatre.

A public debate would be needed to judge how much closer the meter would tick after parliament is prorogued, not just once, but twice, she said.

Atwood’s at times tongue-in-cheek address, which garnered much laughter, was the keynote address of the Parkland Institute’s annual fall conference, which runs from Nov. 19 to 21 at the University of Alberta. This year’s theme is Rewriting a Country: Toward a Just and Peaceful Canada.

While Atwood delivered her dictat-o-meter suggestion with humour, it was only after she warned: “The tools for repression and control are multiplying very quickly. Our government: What happened to ‘open and accountable?’ … What happened to democracy?”

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