Are you anti-pro-rogue? Have fun!
What to do while Harper and his merry band are off “recalibrating”? How about a little street theatre? On Saturday, rallies are planned from coast to coast. Toronto’s is downtown, at 1:00 p.m., across the street from the Eaton Centre.
3 comments
Bill,
You left a message on my blogsite, saying that it must have taken some courage for us “… to leave home for a new land …”.
LOL …
Reason for the laughter was that after reading your entry here, I was thinking if ever we did leave for a new land, after all.
Reminds me of the Philippines past — and certainly you understand what I am to say.
The distinctions between proroguing parliament and a martial law state follows:
– in either case, the government’s legislative branch is not operational;
– in either situation, the executive branch of the government, in the meantime, exclusively takes care of he affairs of government.
The difference is that in the first, you don’t really see soldiers roaming the streets of the country, while in the second, soldiers are everywhere. You know what I mean.
So, “Rally & March for Democracy” aptly suits the billing of the Jan. 23 event.
I guess that while most governments subscribe to Abaham Lincoln’s pronouncement in his famous Gettysburg Address, saying, “… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” such subsription at times is likewise “prorogued”.
Well, Ace, that;s a powerful comparison you make between politics in the Philippines and Canada. While I do think that Harper’s inclinations are dictatorial rather than democratic, I don’t believe he has the stomach for anything worse than prorogation.
Still, it is undemocratic to muzzle the House of Commons under present circumstances. There is no valid reason for this prorogation and protesting it vigorously is the right thing for people to do. If we value our system of public debate in Parliament, we had better make sure there’s a serious political price to pay for breaking it.
I agree with you, Bill, that no valid reason for prorogation existed, hence, protesting the act by the people is the right thing to do.
In this situation, the people themselves become parliamentarians; Street Parliamentarians! This is because the men and women they elected to represent them could not do anything about it because the PM found a SEMBLANCE of validity to justify the prorogation of parliament.
Street theatre — as you beautifully call the gathering, Bill, always does the trick in calling the attention of everybody to penalize those breaking our valued system!
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