In the blink of eye – they’re gone! Goodbye Ontario parliamentarians and more importantly our democratic process. Suspended! Squelched! Indefinitely! By arbitrarily proroguing the legislature our petulant Premier, Dalton McGinty, put personal position and party preservation ahead of the democratic interests of all Ontarians.
We have been without our essential legislative branch for months as our elected members of parliament have been on summer recess and now their crucial voice is muzzled again and for how long no one knows! Only in tin-pot countries is democracy a transient sham that can be given and taken away according to the mood of its leader.
Businesses big and small should be very concerned at the negative image our Premier sends to the world about investing in a politically whimsical province that closes for business at a moment’s notice; where contracts are not honoured ($250 million gas plant); where entire industry’s can be wiped out overnight (60,000 people in the province’s horse racing/breeding industry); where human’s rights are sacrificed to those of machines (Green Energy Act takes turbine decisions away from municipalities) and where democracy operates only at the convenience of the leader. A scary place for businesses to park their money!
What are business and the citizens of this province to think. Our political system has lost its democratic focus and proroguing parliament is but a symptom. We supposedly have a built in safeguard, the Lieutenant Governor, David Onley, who is charged with protecting the democracy of the people of Ontario. McGinty had to ask him to prorogue parliament and Onley could and should have had the fortitude to have said ‘no’. The fact that he didn’t, demonstrates the extent to which the office has become an anachronistic tool of the party in power and an expense the tax payers of Ontario can no longer afford. If there is any honour in the process, his resignation should be the next one we read in the morning paper!
Paul Pepperall
Kemble,ON
