Filibuster Cartoons
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So Prime Minister Harper prorogued parliament this week, suspending the chamber’s activities for several months while he goes off and does whatever. The official motivations were varied, but basically he just doesn’t feel like dealing with a bunch of politicians yammering about this and that, asking a lot of questions and trying to pass stupid laws.
The opposition parties have all been shocked, shocked that the Prime Minister would do such a dramatic and undemocratic thing. Suspend parliament! Outrageous! Some of the more liberally-inclined media outlets have likewise made the story big front page news for several days now.
But… of course in the crazy Canadian system of government it’s really not such a big deal for Harper to be doing this, and the prime ministers before him did it all the time for equally duplicitous reasons. It’s one of the many dictatorial powers the PMs legally hold, along with chosing the date of their own election and appointing senators (an activity, incidentally, which Harper says he plans to do a bit of during his time off).
And of course pretty much every other political party in the country has their own share of undemocratic tricks up their sleeves to be pulled out as circumstances dictate. Not to be apologizing for Harper or anything, it’s just that the political system of Canada is obviously very badly broken, and it rings incredibly hollow for certain types to raise a fuss over the “unfairness” of some parliamentary quirk being used against them when they uncritically tolerate so much entrenched absurdity every other day of the year.
