Canadian democracy – procedural tricks to kill the planet

Canada’s weak climate change bill was killed by the Senate today (see the star article for example).

The Harper people’s vision for the country isn’t compatible with trying to stop climate change. This is known, and unsurprising. What is interesting to me is the procedural trick used to make this change. The Star story: “A snap vote in the Senate on Tuesday caught Liberals in the Upper House off guard, and not enough Grits showed up to save the bill from losing by a margin of 43-32.”


Canada’s weak climate change bill was killed by the Senate today (see the star article for example).

The Harper people’s vision for the country isn’t compatible with trying to stop climate change. This is known, and unsurprising. What is interesting to me is the procedural trick used to make this change. The Star story: “A snap vote in the Senate on Tuesday caught Liberals in the Upper House off guard, and not enough Grits showed up to save the bill from losing by a margin of 43-32.”

The use of procedural tricks like these is a special and interesting (and widespread) method of showing contempt for democracy. It’s one of Harper’s tactics of first resort – like proroguing parliament, using the immigration ministry to ban critics, and using other ministries to de-fund independent artists or NGOs. The message here is that the government does not believe in democracy, but sees the rules as a set of procedures to be gamed for maximum benefit. Regardless of the stakes, regardless of the consequences. These are the people in charge of the country.

Author: Justin Podur

Author of Siegebreakers. Ecology. Environmental Science. Political Science. Anti-imperialism. Political fiction. Teach at York U's FES. Author. Writer at ZNet, TeleSUR, AlterNet, Ricochet, and the Independent Media Institute.

3 thoughts on “Canadian democracy – procedural tricks to kill the planet”

  1. yes but
    the Tories only have a minority in parliament so their antics also unmask the Liberals to a far greater degree than if the Tories had a majority. To say it another way, if the NDP had a minority gov – and by some miracle tried to implement policies seen as radical left – the Liberals wouldn’t let them get away with it (assuming they were the party with the second largest number of seats).

  2. Yes.
    Yes i agree also as its viewed by many as a Conservative-Liberal coalition just as the United Kingdom as now since the last election this year 2010.

Comments are closed.