Monday’s vote represents for me a test of our democracy.
Our system of parliamentary government within traditions of constitutional monarchy is different from the republican form of government of our southern neighbour. We are both, however, democracies where governments should represent the will of the people.
I am reminded about this because governments anywhere invariably tend to become haughty, self-serving, secretive, and corrupt over time.
On this matter, perhaps the most insightful opinion was offered by the American James Madison in the “Federalist Papers,” written in the fall and winter of 1787-88 to persuade voters in New York state to ratify the newly drafted U.S. constitution.
Madison wrote: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
We, you and I, know our flaws. Some among us might occasionally rise to be angels, but most of us need God’s saving hands to secure us from our own devilish temptations. So how can those whom we elect to represent and govern us in Parliament be any different?
They are not, and we forget this at our peril. Our politics is a mirror we hold to ourselves.
Americans devised a constitution of checks and balances to purposely hobble their government by internal quarrels of its three branches and, thereby, make it accountable to the people.
Our parliamentary system—even with the 1982 Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—operates differently, with insufficient constraints on the party holding power. The result can be contrary to the wishes of the people.
The only effective check on government in our system is a regular turnover of parties in power. When we, the people fail to achieve this, we have allowed our flaws to become magnified in the behaviour of those whom we elect to govern us.
Of all the issues discussed during this election campaign, the one that matters most is restoring trust in government.
Liberal party corruption grew because we indulged the Liberals by repeatedly returning them to power. As a result, we weakened Canada’s unity, tarnished our democracy, allowed our politics to be stained by increasing cynicism and weakened by declining voter participation at the polls. This situation we can correct. We can elect an alternative government, and make this alternation a matter of some regularity.
A democratic government is a contract between the people and its representatives. When government dishonours people’s trust, it violates the contract. In the absence of trust, there can be no provision of good government.
The Liberal party of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin broke trust with the people. This is what AdScam represents, apart from all the other scandals that surfaced over the past dozen years even as Liberals were returned to power repeatedly.
We can correct the situation. We need an alternative government, and we can elect Conservatives to power.
This is our responsibility if we want accountability in government.
This is how we also keep Conservatives accountable, and strengthen Canadian democracy.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
- Israel: Decades-old conflict not about to cease - Saturday November 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
- The better man lost the U.S. election - Saturday November 10, 2012 at 9:16 am
- The puzzle in U.S. presidential elections - Saturday November 3, 2012 at 8:43 am
