Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The End of Westminster as We Know It

The House returns in session and we again seem to be hurtling towards the abyss of yet another general election that in the end will leave us gaping at the real problem, an outdated system of governance.

After the election of a fourth consecutive minority government, Canadians will be forced to face up to reality that the country can no longer be ruled by a single political party. From a democratic perspective, minority government which has become the rule rather than exception should not be tolerated.

Personally, I shed no tears for a political system that is a vestige of the British Empire. Like the former Empire, it should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Indeed, Canadians have succeeded, unlike our neighbors to the south, in building a nation where class and material wealth are not the determining factors for establishing a societal order.

Rather than flogging the dead horse of a political system that was designed to perpetuate the order of privilege, we should now be seeking to construct our own system of governance that carries the label: Made in Canada.

Corporate taxes, the gun registry, illegal immigration aside, the real issue of the upcoming general election is that we are no longer able to govern ourselves effectively.

The first step to extricating ourselves out of the carcass know as Westminster is to flush first-past-the-post in order to get a new set of players around the table and a new set of rules for the game. Afterwards, free from the shackles of the past a new order will emerge.

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