In Elizabeth May’s just-published book, Losing Confidence, she talks about how we suffer from collective amnesia. Quoting Jane Jacobs, the Green Party Leader says we seem to readjust rapidly without noticing all that has been lost.
Such is the case, says Ms. May, in respect to the pillars of our parliamentary democracy. They continue to rot, but we’re sort of used to it by now. The media report the latest degradation and move on. A new year comes. Last season’s abuses are behind us, allowed to stand.
Ms. May isn’t about to let us forget. In her well-written book, she witheringly takes stock. She charts the total stranglehold the prime minister has on power – worse, she says, than ever before. She charts how freedom of the press has become the right of a few all-powerful owners – worse than ever before. She charts how our state police have become politicized and untrustworthy – worse than ever before.
“If Canadians,” she writes, “heard about a country where a handful of people controlled all the news media, where the state police could deliberately interfere in an election … where the prime minister enjoyed excessive power, we would justly picture a Third World nation that languishes behind modern democracies.”
