The Written Word
for December 2, 2001

I think Canadians have run out of steam. The theft of parliament by Jean Chretien - now so blatant - has left us all with the feeling, what can we do? The use of closure for the Terrorism Bill is so outrageous that it should almost, not quite perhaps, but almost have the people in the streets.

But what's the point. The deal is done, the House of Commons has been bought off with higher salaries for doing what they're told and there's not a single leader in sight who will stand up for parliamentary democracy.

We started to lose our parliamentary democracy a long time ago, of course. Chretien has simply been the cheerful undertaker at its final demise. It's so bad that its like living in a town that stinks of industrial waste -after awhile you just don't smell it any more.

All countries have a segment of the population that likes authoritarianism and think democracy is only for the easy times. That group is an ongoing threat to our freedom because they often occupy positions of power.

Big business is notorious for not rocking the boat. They don't see
government as a process by which people govern their own affairs but as the authority with whom they must learn to get along. Because governments come and go, business people learn to take the long view which view, sadly, does not concern itself with niceties like the rule of law, the supremacy of parliament and the rights associated with the term freedom. Their job, as they see it, is to make accommodations so that they can maximize profits. Period.

The labour movement is no better. It does a little better job of talking the talk, summoning up ghosts of political rhetoric past, but when push comes to shove they are only interested in issues that impact the members of the unions that vote for them. The intellectuals used to be counted upon to be preservers of high principles but universities have changed to where they are mainly technical institutions where the liberal education with its yeast of political ferment has gone by the boards.

The biggest betrayal of principles is in the media. The ownership is so closely held that brash young reporters like Andrew MacIntosh of the National Post are shunted aside and subtley silenced. I think back to the days when this show was fighting the Kemano Completion Program and suddenly, clearly after pressure from Alcan, courageous writers from the Vazncouver Sun were no longer having their articles printed.

The Asper press - which is to say most of it - is so pro Liberal that not content to flood their papers with toadies, even when the occasional word of criticism of Jean Chretien does appear, the publisher orders that a publisher's letter supporting Mr Vchretien be printed in every Asper paper across the land.

In short, every institution and force making up the establishment has left the field of combat. Even the arts community slavishly follows the government line as the Charlottetown Accord referendum demonstrated. In fact, in passing I note that during that debate one of the then biggest media companies in the country, Maclean/Hunter actually formally signed on to the "yes" campaign.

This is not an editorial with some hope in it, some rainbow appearing on the horizon. Quite the opposite. Things are going to get worse.

Look at us if you will ... we're going to get excited because Stephen Owen will get a cabinet post, maybe even a senior one. When it happens, the Vancouver Sun and other Asper newspapers will tell us all about Mr Owen's achievements and what this means to British Columbia. What they won't tell us is the Mr Owen is a political whore who publicly parked his principles at the door in order to squirm and suck hole his way back into the Prime Minister's good graces after he had the temerity to criticize the Prime Minister in his early days - criticism that was completely justified . Most people in BC, Liberals always excluded of course, know that Mr Owen's pieces of silver accepted won't mean a damned thing for BC. In fact if Owen were the man he once was he would tell his constitu4ents the truth - that in a Chretien government MPs do precisely what they are told to do by the Prime Minister's office and that all he can hope to do, after buying hios way into office by ass kissing, is to be a better beggar at the Prime Minister's door than his predecessors.

The situation is hopeless. We all just sit back and take it because there is nothing we can do. Jean Chretien has crowned himself emperor for life and the Liberal MPs we sent back to Ottawa have been paid enough and promised enough that they say nothing.

For those few left that love liberty, believe in democracy and principle there is only one distant, glimmering hope. Perhaps, when he gets around to it, Premier Campbell will heed the words he uttered before going into government and will let British Columbians truly change their own system so that at least this province will be a faint hope for democracy. This is highly unlikely given the fact that his caucus is full of federal Liberals who believe, as do their big brothers and sisters, that in order for society to survive Liberals must be in government so that any means to that end is preferable to taking a chance that someone else might take power.

If the young people of this province don't rise and make known their displeasure ... if they are content to grow older and just make allowances as they go ... if they are not prepared to fight to bring power back to the people ... we in BC will just slip quietly into the murky waters of authoritarianism pretending to be democrats just as they did in the parliaments in eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain.

This is not a fight for old men like me - but it is my right if not duty to ask the next generations where the hell their fighters are.