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Separating the wheat from the chaff in CWB debate
By Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix
Comparisons of the Harper government to a dictatorship would be funny if they didn't trivialize the horrors of dictatorships.
The Conservatives are getting it this time for dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly in violation of a court ruling. Except there is no ruling. Rather, the Federal Court issued a declaration, which, apparently, is quite a different thing from a ruling.
The presiding judge said the government is acting illegally but, also, that he is not going to do anything about it. He could have ordered a binding referendum by farmers on the Wheat Board's future, as the law strictly requires, but he very deliberately did not.
That probably is because the illegality here is the product of a perverse technicality bestowed by a Liberal government, since voted out. Among the Liberals' regrettable legacies is a Wheat Board Act that says, in effect, that Parliament cannot change the Wheat Board Act. But the act is entirely a creation of Parliament. To give farmers, or any other interest group, supremacy over Parliament and its acts would not only be absurd, but undemocratic in the extreme.
Had the court issued an order in this case, it would have invited more of the same. The governing Conservatives could then make it illegal for future governments to resurrect the long gun registry, say, without a vote by duck hunters. They could bring in legislation forbidding future governments from interfering with oilsands development without the approval of oil companies. They could close down the CBC and require a vote by private broadcasters to bring it back. We then would hear quite a different tune from those who now, in defence of the Wheat Board, embrace exactly this kind of nonsense.
Likewise overlooked by defenders of the Wheat Board, as well as by the courts, is the larger public interest. This is not an issue of concern to only farmers. They might be the only ones directly affected by the Wheat Board monopoly, but they do not enforce it. Rather, it is the justice system that fines and imprisons those dissidents who illegally sell their wheat to the highest bidder. Since the justice system belongs to all of us, we all should have a say on how it is used.
And so we do. In this case, we elected a majority government that openly campaigned against the Wheat Board monopoly. That's about as democratic as it gets. What is undemocratic is letting farmers or any other interest group tell an elected Parliament what to do. What is perverse is using freedom and democracy and now the courts as sticks to beat on farmers who only want to work the free market like everyone else in the country.
So twisted are Harper's critics that they would have honest farmers thrown in jail for exercising rights they themselves take for granted, just to make a debating point.
Lawrence Martin, a national columnist wellknown for his loathing of the Harper Conservatives, accuses them of using the tactics of a banana republic. His hyperbole is an insult to those who have known the brutality of a real banana republics. Harper was elected to give western farmers marketing freedom. Now he's going to do it. The folks in real banana republics are dying for a chance of such governance.
Just as theatrically indignant was the Liberal MP who said of the Harper Conservatives, "They'll stop at nothing!" Never mind that we have seen quite clearly where they will stop. The Conservatives will stop at prosecuting farmers for violating a Soviet-style monopoly. If there is a better stopping place, I can't think of it.
Most inflammatory of the Conservatives' critics is NDP MP Pat Martin. His complaints about Harper's "jackboots" invite comparisons with the Nazi Gestapo. This for limiting debate in Parliament on a budget that was just debated from coast to coast during a 35-day election campaign. Everything to be said about the budget has been said, repeatedly. To claim there has not been enough debate is like comparing closure in Parliament with Nazi death camps.
What Martin and his comrades in opposition really don't like is to see is Stephen Harper keeping his promises. It's driving them crazy.
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
Separating the wheat from the chaff in CWB debate
By Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix
Comparisons of the Harper government to a dictatorship would be funny if they didn't trivialize the horrors of dictatorships.
The Conservatives are getting it this time for dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly in violation of a court ruling. Except there is no ruling. Rather, the Federal Court issued a declaration, which, apparently, is quite a different thing from a ruling.
The presiding judge said the government is acting illegally but, also, that he is not going to do anything about it. He could have ordered a binding referendum by farmers on the Wheat Board's future, as the law strictly requires, but he very deliberately did not.
That probably is because the illegality here is the product of a perverse technicality bestowed by a Liberal government, since voted out. Among the Liberals' regrettable legacies is a Wheat Board Act that says, in effect, that Parliament cannot change the Wheat Board Act. But the act is entirely a creation of Parliament. To give farmers, or any other interest group, supremacy over Parliament and its acts would not only be absurd, but undemocratic in the extreme.
Had the court issued an order in this case, it would have invited more of the same. The governing Conservatives could then make it illegal for future governments to resurrect the long gun registry, say, without a vote by duck hunters. They could bring in legislation forbidding future governments from interfering with oilsands development without the approval of oil companies. They could close down the CBC and require a vote by private broadcasters to bring it back. We then would hear quite a different tune from those who now, in defence of the Wheat Board, embrace exactly this kind of nonsense.
Likewise overlooked by defenders of the Wheat Board, as well as by the courts, is the larger public interest. This is not an issue of concern to only farmers. They might be the only ones directly affected by the Wheat Board monopoly, but they do not enforce it. Rather, it is the justice system that fines and imprisons those dissidents who illegally sell their wheat to the highest bidder. Since the justice system belongs to all of us, we all should have a say on how it is used.
And so we do. In this case, we elected a majority government that openly campaigned against the Wheat Board monopoly. That's about as democratic as it gets. What is undemocratic is letting farmers or any other interest group tell an elected Parliament what to do. What is perverse is using freedom and democracy and now the courts as sticks to beat on farmers who only want to work the free market like everyone else in the country.
So twisted are Harper's critics that they would have honest farmers thrown in jail for exercising rights they themselves take for granted, just to make a debating point.
Lawrence Martin, a national columnist wellknown for his loathing of the Harper Conservatives, accuses them of using the tactics of a banana republic. His hyperbole is an insult to those who have known the brutality of a real banana republics. Harper was elected to give western farmers marketing freedom. Now he's going to do it. The folks in real banana republics are dying for a chance of such governance.
Just as theatrically indignant was the Liberal MP who said of the Harper Conservatives, "They'll stop at nothing!" Never mind that we have seen quite clearly where they will stop. The Conservatives will stop at prosecuting farmers for violating a Soviet-style monopoly. If there is a better stopping place, I can't think of it.
Most inflammatory of the Conservatives' critics is NDP MP Pat Martin. His complaints about Harper's "jackboots" invite comparisons with the Nazi Gestapo. This for limiting debate in Parliament on a budget that was just debated from coast to coast during a 35-day election campaign. Everything to be said about the budget has been said, repeatedly. To claim there has not been enough debate is like comparing closure in Parliament with Nazi death camps.
What Martin and his comrades in opposition really don't like is to see is Stephen Harper keeping his promises. It's driving them crazy.
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
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