The Americans talk about a "government of laws and not men". The phrasing may not be gender neutral but it does reflect a concept, an ideal, that makes good sense.
Government should not be based on personalities or parties but rather on policy. Once a party is elected it should govern for the whole and no merely the part that elected it. People should be appointed to positions (judges, administrators etc) on merit and not on political allegiance.
This is the ideal and, as usual, ideals are hard to fulfil in practice. Many times people who work hard for one party or another expect to be rewarded (by a job or a contract or at least a nice trip to Parliament) once their party is in power. Looked at otherwise, if I have helped someone get elected and she needs legal help it makes sense for her to turn to someone she knows, me.
Recognising all this I must confess to being a little surprised at how radically feudal the Conservative Party has become. We have Barons and Princes who use government money to reward retainers and solidify support.
The partisan placement of stimulus funds, the novelty cheques and the transparently biased federal advertising make the worst of our excesses (yes, Liberals failed to meet the ideal in the past) seem amateurish.
It is well known (if not openly acknowledged) in the legal community that potential judges are vetted to see who they contributed to politically and someone who gave to, say, the Liberals is pretty well dead in the water absent some really good explanation. I suspect what's true for judges is true for other appointments -- certainly the off hand comments of Stephen Harper do not suggest an open view about appointing non-conservatives.
I had expected the Conservatives to be a little less brazen especially because they were so strongly (and rightly) critical of confusion of Party and Government when they were in opposition.
3 comments:
Your comments are right on, in my humble opinion. Do you think that Michael Ignatieff might approach the ideal if he were PM? I wonder why, although we all applaud high ethical standards, the majority seem to be swayed by the opposite.
I have been contemplating Harper's success at deflecting all criticism and have come to the conclusion that he never allowed himself to be humiliated, no matter how stupid and arrogant and disingenuous his actions. After his disastrous post-election economic statement last year, he simply disappeared for a month and no one seemed able to approach him about anything. When he returned, arrogant as ever, the media just accepted his absence and the fact that Canadians have short memories. I think the Liberal Party just has to find a way to get beneath that arrogant exterior and really rattle him. Certainly, there are many times when he has dropped the ball but we have never been able to capitalize on his incompetence. Of course, the media has been pretty incompetent, too, and Harper is the beneficiary of it.
There is a difference between justice and the law.
I do wish that Canadian politicians would rise above "They did it first" kindergarten politics though. Maybe it'd be better if we eliminated parties altogether and had MPs work directly for their ridings instead of blindly accepting a party line that is often disconnected from reality.
"Once a party is elected it should govern for the whole and no merely the part that elected it."
I hear this statement a lot and it always comes from someone who did not vote for thier current goverment. What ever party is our government they should govern to thier party ideals. Thats why they were elected, anything else would just be dishonest to those who voted for it.
"The partisan placement of stimulus funds, the novelty cheques and the transparently biased federal advertising make the worst of our excesses (yes, Liberals failed to meet the ideal in the past) seem amateurish."
I am not happy at all how the Conservatives have handle the stimulus, putting thier logo on cheques is way beyond bad taste but they have a LONG way to go before they reach anything even resembling adscam.
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