Degeneration of democratic norms in Canada

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

OK, so, I have no love for Tom Mulcair generally, but this is fucking ridiculous.

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[Tim Cornelis]

I dun get it.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Oh noes!

Yeah, the Speaker is a "neutral" part of the bourgeois government apparatus. He's not allowed to challenge asinine non-sequiturs, just mediate. It's yet another useless tool legitimizing "neutrality" in an anachronistic system. I stopped giving a fuck about parliament the moment I realized it was the political equivalent of wrestling matches. That's particularly true for the Conservatives who might as well just put tape recorders in their seats and just play back the same fucking awful rehearsed answers (and calling that an answer is a big stretch). That none of the parties have released official statements condemning the ongoing genocide makes this all the more ridiculous.

I don't like Mulcair either, but he's far from the real problem. Last but not least, please stop contributing to the abuse of the word "democratic".

As a side note, that clip almost had me yelling out some things that in the wrong place at the wrong time could land me in trouble!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I dun get it.

K, so! The way Canada's parliamentary system works, the Speaker of the House is ostensibly a neutral party who ensures that the rules of the house are followed. In this case, the government is flagrantly ignoring the rules of Question Period, and the Speaker is doing dick-all.

This is interesting, to me, as a somewhat poignant show of the Harper government's hostility toward democratic norms. It's petty example next to the election fraud, opportunistic prorogation of parliament, and so on, but it's pretty shameless.

While you won't see me rushing to the ABC (Anyone But the Conservatives) camp anytime soon, I think it does point to the disturbing ease to which "liberal democracy" can begin to quickly move toward Putin-style autocracy when circumstances happen to be right. Part of me half expects a ruthless maneuvering for another Harper majority and from there a slide into some really ugly shit.

(And no, I still don't think that's a reason to vote for the Trudeau liberals - I think that's precisely the thinking that enables this sort of thing)