in The Literary Review of Canada (excerpts):
The democratic paradox is that while the ideology of the current Canadian government is one that declaims decentralization, accountability and transparency, that ideology appears to be just a populist fig leaf, designed to hide the authoritarian nature of those in charge...
Canadians -- and the parliamentary press gallery -- are yearning for an appropriate metaphor to describe what has been happening in Harper's Ottawa. How about the covert coup d'etat or the de facto dictatorship?
The 21st century has seen the rise of citizens' movements to take back the night or to take back the neighbourhood... In politics, citizens, members of Parliament, bureaucrats and Cabinet ministers still have the constitutional ability to take back democracy. They just need to exercise their will to do this...
Meanwhile, if we are to be stuck with court government until this demotic Valhalla arrives, Canada might consider asking Harper to emulate the French courts of the Valois and the Bourbons... All major decisions were made by a much larger social microcosm than Harper has in his PMO. And the king and his courtiers prided themselves in being patrons of the arts and good architecture. After all, if one is going to act like a monarch, one should acquire some of the more attractive attributes of monarchy. Image source here.
