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Matters of Concern to the Polity Parliament Becomes Increasingly Irrelevant to Decision-Making
Canada's Parliament has become camouflage for decisions being made on the basis of executive-federalism and through supranational bodies in the service of the neo-liberal interests of the most powerful global financial oligarchs. It has become commonplace that when Ministers or their substitutes are asked questions about what the government is doing, such as matters related to the environment or the COVID-19 pandemic, answers are given that begin with the phrase "we are consulting with our allies," or "we are working with our partners," or "we are discussing with like-minded countries." Parliament's irrelevancy was illustrated by the formation of a Special Committee on Afghanistan created on December 9, with the support of all but the Liberals. The preamble to the motion for the appointment of the Special Committee argues that "given that real-time parliamentary oversight was impossible" during the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban (because the election had been called), the Committee is needed to conduct hearings and review all the related events. Why Canada was involved in Afghanistan in the first place is not a matter of investigation, nor is an accounting of the disaster that resulted from Canada's involvement in the U.S. aggression against the country. The Special Committee will focus on how the government handled the evacuation of those who had worked with the NATO-led forces in the country but not delve into why collaborators with foreign aggression and occupation are called heroes or why Ukrainian special forces trained by Canadian special forces were required to pull Canada's chestnuts out of the fire. Meanwhile, in the here and now of "real-time parliamentary oversight," not a word of deliberation or consideration took place in the House of Commons before the newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly and Minister of International Development Harjit Sajjan, who formerly headed the Department of Defence including Canadian forces in Afghanistan, headed off to the G7 December 10-12 meeting of foreign and development ministers in Liverpool, England. It was known that the U.S. would advance its war-mongering agenda against Russia there in regards to Ukraine. Global Affairs' website informs that "Ministers Joly and Sajjan will look to align Canadian efforts with like-minded partners on a number of priorities." It informs that the G7 ministers will "exchange views on pressing geopolitical issues, including Afghanistan, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Sudan and Ukraine." The Foreign Affairs Minister, whose main expertise seems to be inventing myriad ways on how to say nothing, sent out a tweet from Liverpool stating that she "looks forward to engaging in important discussions seeking real solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our time." Accounting for Parliament's IrrelevancyThe irrelevancy of Parliament has become a subject of consideration by various pundits. One aspect is the snail-like pace at which Parliament is being made operational following the September 20 snap federal election, said to have been needed to set a new direction in conditions of the pandemic. The three-term Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delayed convening Parliament for over two months after the election, which returned a House of Commons indistinguishable from the previous one and began with a Throne Speech virtually the same as the aspirational statements it issued after the August 2020 prorogation of the House. Once convened on November 22, the task of re-establishing parliamentary committees, which are supposed to be the forum for elected members to scrutinize legislation and study important matters, was not made a priority. As of December 10, only two committees are operational: the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The list of members for all other committees was tabled in the House of Commons on December 9 and they have been instructed to elect their chairs before the House adjourns for its break. Coupled with this, since the beginning of its second term in October 2019, the Liberal government has taken many measures and attempted-measures characterized by a disregard for the House of Commons as the purported decision-making body of elected representatives for Canadians. This included an attempt to table legislation that would have empowered the Minister of Finance to increase spending without seeking approval from Parliament and challenging a ruling of the Speaker of the House in the Federal Court when it was ordered to provide documents to the House of Commons. The Globe and Mail ran an editorial bemoaning the fact that it appears that the House of Commons will not be "fully functional" until February. It notes that since June 2019, the House has only been in session for 169 days. It notes how the August 2020 prorogation served to snuff out the investigation into the WE Charity scandal and so on. It concludes: "Mr. Trudeau clearly would prefer not to be held accountable by the democratic institutions he claims to believe in. It even seems as though he considers himself above those institutions ... But Mr. Trudeau is not above Parliament. In a minority government, he only serves as Prime Minister at the pleasure of the House of Commons. It is not his place to choke off the debate and scrutiny that are the oxygen of our democracy, and the fact he continues to get away with doing so should worry all Canadians." In a similar vein, other political pundits have taken to calling the Prime Minister "Mr. Dither" and have coined a term to describe the slow-workings of Parliament as "Justin-time." The absence of mandate letters for Cabinet Ministers is also being called out, given that Justin Trudeau presented the publication of these letters as a focal point for how his government would be "transparent" and "accountable." Government "insiders" were promising they would be issued "soon" even 44 days after the Cabinet was sworn in. As diversion is piled atop diversion, the latest is that even within the ranks of the Liberal Party itself, nobody opposes talk about replacing the Prime Minister sooner rather than later.
All over the world the peoples are beset by the
power of neo-liberal decision-making and advisory
bodies established at both national and
international levels. Canada is not alone when it
comes to the irrelevancy of its Parliament to
setting the direction in which the country is
being taken. It is a serious matter of concern for
all the people of Canada and the peoples of the
world who are waging battles for the dignity of
labour, for a solution to the crisis in which the
social and natural environments are mired and for
an end to the dangers of new wars and the
disasters they leave in their wake. We are one
humanity, waging one struggle for the right to be
-- as we define it ourselves, together. The irrelevancy of the Parliament to the decisions which affect our lives signals the end of forms of party rule and the beginning of what comes next. Let us make sure that what comes next favours the interests of the people of Canada and the peoples of the world, not those of the narrow private interests which are fighting to control everything in their favour.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The irrelevance of
Canada's Parliament to important decisions
affecting the future of the country is on gross
display as the House of Commons and Senate
approach the end of their 20-day sitting on
Friday, December 17. As a decision-making body it
is becoming increasingly difficult to see any
purpose in its proceedings other than partisan
bickering and games of one-upmanship that only
serve to further discredit the cartel parties and
system of party rule. Absent is serious
deliberation of any kind. The urgent problems
facing the people and the polity do not appear on
any agenda: from the climate crisis, to the
deteriorating and precarious economic conditions
which are seeing food-bank usage soar and working
people treated as disposable, to the escalation of
violence against the most vulnerable and the
denial of the hereditary rights of Indigenous
peoples, as well as the volatile international
situation and Canada's place within it as a member
of NATO. 
The situation
cannot be accounted for by this or that
narcissistic or vacuous personal penchant of the
Prime Minister. It lies in the very structures of
the party-dominated system of democracy which is
simply not representative of the people because it
represents narrow private interests which are
empowered to rule over the mass to keep it in
check. The crippled state of all the institutions,
structures and civil society agencies that are
said to represent civil society -- from the cartel
parties on down the line through to the notions of
ministerial responsibility which are no longer
practiced -- political discourse has disappeared
to be replaced by a shell-game to find out which
are the scandals and where they lead. All of it is
to divert attention away from where decisions are
made and how to hold the corrupt self-serving
forces who make them to account.