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For the second time, Governor General Michaëlle Jean has acceded to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament. This is dangerous, to say the least, as on both occasions Mr. Harper used prorogation to dodge accountability and to retain power. Given this, I am forced to conclude that Governor General Michaëlle Jean is weak, incompetent, or colluding with Mr. Harper.

Canada is facing serious difficulties on many fronts, from a still faltering economy to climate change to world issues (we are still at war in Afghanistan, last time I checked), so the idea of Parliament taking a two-month holiday is inappropriate at best, dangerous more accurately.

I am no constitutional scholar. I am simply a practical man seeing that Canada’s democracy is not functioning well, and may in fact be in danger. Some constitutional scholars think the same: “parliamentary democracy is in danger.”

Michaëlle Jean or the entire role of Governor General has outlived her/its usefulness, and is now harming Canada’s democracy.

Years ago I took one of Stephen Covey’s famous 7 Habits of Highly Effective People courses. At one point, Covey shared an illustrative story about the value of diversity and difference. He was counseling an executive who had marital difficulties, and the executive was complaining that their marriage would be so much better if only his wife were more like him – if they were more similar. Covey asked if they had children; the executive replied that they did. Covey asked if he appreciated the differences between them while creating those children. Clearly, the answer was yes. Then Covey pointed out that in any relationship, if both people are the same, one of you is unnecessary. This applies not only to making children, but also to making decisions and taking actions.

This seems to be the point we have reached in Canadian democracy. If Governor General Michaëlle Jean simply accedes to Mr. Harper’s wishes without dissent or question, then why are we paying $25 million dollars per year to keep her in fine style? Worse, the precedent has now been set, and you can be sure that future Prime Ministers will be sure to appoint compliant Governor Generals.

This is no different than stacking the Senate with compliant cronies (hello, Mike Duffy), or in the United States, stacking the Supreme Court with compliant judges. The purpose is always the same: to move power to the Prime Minister or President by eliminating checks and balances. Perhaps the next Prime Minister will not abuse the position of Governor General as has Mr. Harper. But you can bet that somebody will.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This has been true likely since humanity first organized into large groups of any sort, and was the ultimate cause of the American and French Revolutions. The more we allow those corrupt people who are attracted to power to consolidate their power, the closer we move to the need for a revolution to get it back. Because those with power rarely give it up willingly.

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Tags: canada, climate change, governor general, michaelle jean, stephen harper

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.