Vancouver Courier
for October 7, 1998

This was a week where we were forcefully reminded that whatever form of government we have, it sure as hell ain't democracy. And I'm in a mood that I've never felt before - pessimistic to the point of despair and sore tempted to suddenly get old and not give a damn any more.

What happened last week to so depress a radical who's always optimistic about the inevitability of change?

Several things, all predictable and pretty routine. The biggest event by far - the world wide economic crisis - will have a calamitous effect on what the lesser events demonstrate about how we govern ourselves.

A world wide depression - it won't be called that until the United States is hit - is here. Horrifying though that is to contemplate, what's even scarier is it's inevitable impact on our fragile democracy. Depressions come and go and, like Caribbean hurricanes, leave devastation in their wake including a fresh and often permanent wave of authoritarianism. The unemployed and hungry traditionally don't place principles of governance ahead of food and shelter. Quite understandably.

The chilling thought is that this authoritarianism in the name of efficiency will come to Canada, already a dictatorship subject only to elections every five years, a system so establishment controlled that nothing ever really changes.

Hyperbole? What changed after the Liberals threw out the Tories? Yes, the deficit went down, but the debt, the real indicator has gone up. Other than that it was as unnoticed as the change of crew on a ferry. We live in a country where ideas count for nothing because our constitution, while permitting change on paper, rejects it in fact. The people simply decide, periodically, who'll be skipper leading the establishment as it lurches from crisis to crisis.

Several things happened last weeks to confirm my gloom.

Glen Clark, shunning democracy, plies us with misleading unto untrue ads re Nisga'a so that we can be "informed" while making it clear that we will not be consulted. There may be a difference between that and totalitarian governments blaring propaganda from every lamp post but it's a thin one.

David Anderson, displeased with the chairman of the Commons Fisheries Committee engineers his resignation under threat that he'll be not on the committee when changes are announced by the Prime Minister this week. (Parliamentary Committees are supposed to be where MPs hold government's feet to the fire under our system of "responsible" government. We've all been vaguely aware that in fact the Prime Minister controls these committees absolutely but there it was, right in our face - the Prime Minister's finger.)

Then some members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, concerned about the APEC disgrace, wanted to summon the Prime Minister to appear and explain his actions. It looked as if they might get their way because the pivotal vote was Ted McWhinney, Quadra, Lib, who had publicly questioned the ability of the Commission hearings to get to the truth of Chretien's involvement.

Again this "independent" committee, designed to keep the Prime Minister and Cabinet "responsible" to the Commons, was fixed by the Prime Minister. Dr McWhinney, a parliamentary secretary with the added money and prestige, received a "word from the wise" (no prizes for guessing who) and quickly did what he was told.

Back to Nisga'a. On my show Glen Clark confirmed it was a done deal, tacitly admitting that the "free vote" in the legislature is a joke. There is no such thing as a "free vote" because they are open votes. Can you imagine any NDP MLA openly voting against his leader? The declaration of a "free vote" was simply a cynical move by which the premier hoped to expose division in the Liberal ranks. Some democracy.

I believe the Nisga'a vote will be in November with the Premier hoping that by the next election it will be behind him and other treaty negotiations won't have heated up (and they probably won't since the natives will want another NDP victory). The public will sullenly accept it because there is no choice, given that we are not the sort to take to the barricades.

Parliament will rubber stamp the deal and we will be over the top and down the slippery slope to 50-60 more deals. (We will then learn, for the first time, that the Nisga'a deal contains a "ratchet" clause which gives Nisga'a another kick at the can if others improve upon their deal.)

We've let the politicians take charge of the people. The NDP caucus is better able to judge Nisga'a - admitted by the premier to be a huge and everlasting change to the social compact - than we are. Prime Minister Chretien runs the country without any real constraints. And now we have a huge economic world wide crisis which will be left in the hands of a system utterly unresponsive to the people.

I'll get over it, I suppose - I just hope that my kids and grandkids do too.