Prime Minister Harper Subverts Parliament

The Way I See It!
Don Currie, Editor Focus on Socialism

Good Jobs, Reduced CO2 Emissions - Without Shutting Down the Energy Sector

November 22, 2010

The Conservative Senate has killed an NDP sponsored Bill on climate change to protect maximum profits of big foreign and domestic oil and gas investors and shareholders. Every Senator that voted to kill the bill should be compelled to disclose their personal investments in big oil.

The Senators voted for something even more important than killing the NDP Bill. The unelected Conservative dominated Senate veto of an NDP Bill on climate change, passed by the elected members of Parliament last May, was a political act by the minority Stephen Harper Conservative Government to strengthen extra-parliamentary corporate rule of the people of Canada. Senate hearings were certain to expose the corporate connection to the Harper government.

The NDP Bill alarmed big foreign and domestic oil investors and their corporate shareholders that their privileged position in the state and the backrooms of the Conservative Government was being challenged by the elected Parliament of Canada.
The NDP Bill would, in practice have imposed emission guidelines on big oil and compelled them to divert some of their exorbitant profits to reducing CO2 emissions. When the choice is between corporate profits and a clean environment, the Harper Government has made it clear on many occasions that it upholds the primacy of maximum corporate profit over the needs of the people of Canada.

Prime Minister Harper not only killed a bill, he killed a democratic principle of majority rule.

The subverting of Parliamentary democracy is no small matter. Even more sinister is the statement by the Prime Minister Harper that he killed the NDP Bill in the economic interests of Canadian workers and their jobs. Harper was speaking directly to workers employed in the energy industry. Harper is saying to the people who labour in the energy sector that their only choice is between jobs and a clean environment.

The Prime Minister is fear mongering. The people of Canada can have both good jobs and drastically reduced green house gas emissions, without shutting down the energy sector. To do that, the energy sector must be publicly owned and controlled with big oil monopolies placed under the control of the people and compelled to operate on the basis of the best scientific and technical practices possible.

Harper operates on the corporate principle, espoused by the extreme right wing in Canadian politics that the only responsibility a corporation has is to its shareholders. That principle overrides all others in capitalist society. The tyranny of a handful of wealthy shareholders over the interests of the entire country remains unchallenged in the Parliamentary debate on the issue because all of the Parliamentary parties including the opposition parties do not challenge that capitalist principle.

The principle is obsolete because the system that upholds it is also obsolete. A government is required that will enact plans to expand the economy, take action to reduce green house gas emissions in the only way possible, at the expense of a parasitical class of investors and shareholders whose only allegiance is to maximum profit.

The only type of government that can do that is one that places the interests of the workers and their families first guaranteeing both full employment and a clean environment.

Left Turn Canada!