When a government talks of a mandate, you could be forgiven if you were to assume that the government meant that they were operating under a consensus opinion that reflected the stated best interests of all of the citizens. Take the comments during Monday's debate in the House of Commons in Ottawa where the Conservative theme was that “Canadians gave our government a solid mandate to make decisions on their behalf”. In fact, a quick scan of recent Parliamentary debates shows that the expression “strong mandate” is being used as a new slogan by the Conservatives – as if the 23.7 percent of eligible voters who actually showed up to vote for Stephen Harper's party represented a resounding majority opinion of Canadian confidence in his leadership.
When Stephen Harper's team uses the term, however, it is instructive to note the distinct differences between what they say and what they do, because if you look closely at what he does it is clear that while Harper claims a mandate from all of Canada, he is certainly not interested in representing their best interests equally. Not only is he primarily governing for his supporters whom he rewards at every turn, but he also seems intent on punishing those who did not vote for him.
On the reward side, there was, of course, the manner in which he favoured Conservative ridings under the Economic Action Plan, and the continuing awarding of Senate appointments to partisan hacks and failed Conservative candidates. A recent investigation by the Law Times News shows that not only are Senate seats for party insiders only, but that now even judicial appointments are being used as rewards to Conservatives. Clayton Conlan went from Conservative campaign manager to Ontario Superior Court Judge, joining failed Conservative candidates Bruce Fitzpatrick and Brian Abrams as recent appointments on the bench.
This is, sadly, hardly surprising given the patronage track record of Stephen Harper, and is the expected results of his using seats on the judicial selection committees as partisan rewards since 2007. However, when one thinks of the balance of power that is supposed to exist between the official branches of government, this level of reward represents a new and distinct blow to the checks and balances that the system is supposed to provide.
The House of Commons exists to write laws, the Senate is intended to ensure that the laws passed are fully vetted to ensure that they are consistent with Constitutional requirements, and the judiciary is there to interpret and enforce the laws with complete impartiality. If a party is permitted to stack all three branches with purely partisan personnel, then the impartiality of the bench is at risk, and the entire scales of power are tipped in one direction. And when the process of passing and vetting laws is also being corrupted by limiting debate in the House and then restricting public scrutiny of the hearings in the Senate, then what faith can a country have that the stewardship of their supposed mandate is being well managed?
And one must wonder what portion of the Canadian public they think wanted a decision that would make it even more difficult for them to collect EI benefits at a time when new claimants already face significant delays in receiving benefits. Service Canada has being hiring a few more staff to try and get the delays in processing claims under control, at complete odds with Minister Finley's absurd suggestions last year that drastic cuts in staff was not responsible for the increase in processing time for new claimants. But to balance that out, they are adding to the list of EI claimants by closing 100 of the data centers that process EI applications. This represents the closure of five out of every six processing centers, and as always the pain will not be equally shared. If your local data center happens to be in a Liberal riding, odds are it will be closed. If it happens to be in a Conservative riding, well those jobs aren't going anywhere.
In Nova Scotia, only the processing centers in the ridings of Defence Minister Peter McKay and Conservative MP Gerald Keddy will remain open. In Ontario, the recently modernized central processing center for mail from the northeast region of Ontario in Liberal Kingston will be relocated to Conservative North Bay. In Quebec, jobs are moving from at least three NDP ridings to Industry Minister Paradis' riding.
It is hard to believe that this government honestly thinks that they were given a mandate to play partisan politics with the lives of ordinary Canadians. That such a level of mean spirited behaviour is deemed acceptable. But then again, their own words seem to support this very notion.
When former CFL Commissioner Larry Smith ran for office last year, he stated that it was “normal” for governments to favour their own ridings and to financially reward regions that voted for them – an overt attempt to buy votes with promises of pork-barrel benefits should he be elected.
Mr. Smith wasn't elected, of course, but that didn't impact his own personal rewards for supporting this government. He was one of last year's crop of candidates rejected by the voters but then rewarded with an even higher paying job in the Senate. And that is all you need to know about how a supposed mandate to make decisions for all Canadians is being administered by Mr Harper. If you believe him, 76.3 percent of us want him to make those decisions to our own detriment based on the best interests of those we didn't vote for. That his mandate is to operate a government that serves Conservative Canadians rather than all Canadians.
If you believe him that is.
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