Harper rewrites the rules of democracy

Carol Goar, Opinion, The Toronto Star:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper caught Canadians off-guard in April when he sprang a massive, multi-part budget implementation bill on the nation.

Bill C-38, weighing in at 425 pages, went far beyond enacting the provisions of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s 2012 budget. It changed 70 different laws covering everything from environmental reviews to the role of charities. It authorized spending cuts worth $5 billion without telling the public where the axe would fall. (Treasury Board President Tony Clement was to provide details later — but still hasn’t.) The legislation was rammed through the House of Commons before MPs had finished scrutinizing it.

Harper’s implicit message: I have a parliamentary majority. I’m setting the rules now.

His rules strike at the heart of responsible government. He has decided to tax Canadians without allowing their elected representatives a chance to speak for them.

They violate a fundamental tenet of democracy: the government acts with the consent of the people. Canadians never gave their assent to Harper’s just-trust-me approach.

They contravene his own pledge of “open government.” Canadians are still in the dark, five months later, about what the Tories cut. Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is doing his best to find out, but his effort to get budgetary documents have been stymied.

Now the government is poised to do it again.

On the opening day of Parliament’s fall session, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan announced the first order of business would be another omnibus bill. He wouldn’t say how big it would be or what it would include. All he would disclose is that it would focus on the economy and give the government more latitude to sign free trade deals, export resources and offer business-enhancing tax credits.

Continue reading here.