Egregious Laws Presented for Adoption in Parliament
Liberals Once Again Shoot Their Democracy in the Foot
Faster than a speeding bullet, on March 26, two days after the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) presented its recommendations to the House of Commons on measures to close down the Longest Ballot Project, the Liberal government responded with Bill C-25, misnamed the Strong and Free Elections Act. In a press release, the government says one of Bill C-25's purposes is to "mitigate unduly long ballots." It says, "Voters may now sign only one candidate nomination paper, and each candidate will be required to have a unique official agent."
It
is never a good idea to enact legislation whose purpose is said
to be
to enhance democracy when the measures enacted are not motivated
by
enhancing democracy and the democratic participation of the
people in
the electoral process. The amendments to the Canada
Elections Act
being
proposed in Bill C-25 to penalize the Longest Ballot Project are
vindictive, petty and self-serving. These amendments are
justified in
the name of high ideals which have nothing to do with democratic
principles. Their effect will be to further discredit the
electoral
system and the self-serving
cartel parties which are using their positions of power and
privilege
in a manner which further discredits them and the institutions
said to
be democratic.
The need to change the Elections Act in a manner which ends the marginalization of the people and does not treat them as voting cattle is objective. It is not going to go away any more than past demands for universal suffrage or women's suffrage or to remove all racist provisions for a White Canada went away just because the white men of property in the House of Commons wished it so.
The blatantly unfair method of counting votes, the provision of public funds to cartel parties and candidates said to qualify because they garner enough of what is called the popular vote all amount to ways to deceive, dupe and fabricate results. Nothing is transparent.
For instance, based on elections, governments are said to rule with the consent of the governed. Elections are said to be free and fair, and to provide an equal playing field for all party candidates and independents. But how many contenders, in order to form a government have to visit banks to provide them with the funds they require to pay for a campaign which can out-manoeuvre all the other contenders? The funds a contender requires to run what is called a credible campaign are far more than what the cartel parties and their candidates can raise from members. Some of the cartel parties even pride themselves on not having many members but, on the contrary, give membership to whosoever visits their websites and signs in to acquire information.
Funds to run what is called a credible campaign are in fact routinely acquired from banks. Every one of the cartel parties does so. These borrowed funds are used not only for the party's campaign, but also to selectively bankroll candidates through party transfers to those determined to have a reasonable chance of winning, while others are left to fend for themselves. Loans are provided on the grounds that polls and studies or possibly even behind-the-scenes deals of future benefits provide credible information that the loan-seeking contender will garner enough votes to qualify for the public funds which are then used to pay back the loans. And this is called holding free and fair elections in which owning property is no longer a criteria to qualify for election.
Until public financing of political parties is eliminated and
contenders to form the next government have to sink or swim just
like
anyone else, talk about enhancing democracy is, by any reckoning
worthy
of the name, fraud.
A member of the King's Privy Council proposed this law in the name
of enhancing the democracy. But whatever he, or the King to whom he
swears allegiance, thinks is not relevant to the needs of society,
except to block it from moving forward. The existence of a King's
Privy Council is itself the remnant of a medieval institution
established to guarantee that the guidance of the King prevails,
based on his beliefs and Christian
conscience.
Whatever their beliefs, this law will go down in history as the first time the ruling class has amended the election law on the basis of the openly stated aim of subverting a protest movement. It will go down in history as making yet another series of amendments to the Canada Elections Act that do nothing to address the central problem of the electoral process -- its disempowerment and marginalization of the Canadian people and failure to provide mechanisms that enable all members of the polity to effectively exercise control over the direction of their own society.
However, despite all this, one thing is certain. These measures will not stop the striving of the people for empowerment. The need for democratic renewal is objective, not a conspiracy theory as those with positions of power and privilege seem to believe. The people are impelled to act in a manner which is consistent with the objective conditions which demand that they, the producers of the wealth society depends on for its living, are empowered to deliberate on the problems they and the society and the world face.
Only
the producers have the motivation, incentive and experience to
create a
situation in which they control the productive powers which are
exploding due to innovations brought in as a result of the
scientific
and technical revolution. On this basis, it is the productive
forces,
the working
class and people who will unleash their capacity to provide the
problems the society and modern world face with solutions which
serve
the people, not narrow private interests which are destroying
the
social and natural environment in search of ever greater private
gain.
Using positions of power and privilege to subject a society to the beliefs of those in positions of power and privilege is an attempt to resurrect medieval clerical obscurantism. Clerical obscurantism was the outlook of the ruling classes at a time Europe was submerged and overwhelmed by the theological world outlook which preceded the Age of Reason and the Renaissance. A modern democratic personality does not pass laws on the basis of personal beliefs but on the basis of addressing the objective needs of a modern society.
This article was published in
Volume 56 Number 3 - March-April, 2026
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/TML2026/Articles/M56031.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca