Today is December 21st , 2024

Jonathan Silbernagel writing on January 8th 2003, to:

The Editor 2836 West 29th Avenue The Vancouver Sun Vancouver BC 1 200 Granville Street V6L 1Y1

The editorial of Mr Asper on, 10 December 2002, is another marker on the trail to tyranny in Canada. In the decision making parliaments, legislatures and council chambers of our country, democracy is dead.

Money in the electoral process has played a key role in its demise. It has removed the decision making process from the hands of the many and placed it in the hands of a few.

The moment has arrived, in our country where elected officials represent only those who paid for their election. Parliamentarians no longer represent Canadians and money in our elections has subjected our nation to the tyranny foreign control. Your editorial headline proclaiming, Disclosing contributions best done early and often, is more of the same.

You propose to let corporations, labour unions and any individual to pay limitless amounts of money to popliticians and political parties. Your newspaper has covered Mr Chretiens move to allow individuals to pay politicians $10,000 while eliminating money from corporations and unions.

No mention is made of the role to be played by other organizations such as societies. Your proposal to allow individuals to pay money will render disclosure irrelevant because it will be next to impossible to tell which individual is directed by a corporation or union to pay the money. This sleight of hand will not be lost on the vast majority of Canadians.

The proposals of Mr Asper and Mr Chretien will keep the front door of government wide open to bribery and corruption. Unfortunately, you people are falling victim to the natural phenomenon described by Lord Acton as Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You know, its like leaving your child alone with the cookie jar and expecting it to eat just one cookie.

There are more impediments to democracy in our country than money. The trail to democracy is further barred by the endless avalanche of lawyers relentlessly pervading our decision making process.

Lawyers have had a legitimate place in our society as advocates in front of the bench.. However, they exceed their field of expertise when they sit on the bench as judges. (No training exists in Canada for the position of judge .)

In addition, members of the law profession exceed their usefulness when they sit in our parliaments and appoint each other, both to the bench and to other key position of power such as cabinet minister.

In parliament, lawyers attain the seat of ultimate conflict of interest. There they write the laws.

Then they practise the law in front of the bench and finally, interpret the law from the bench.

Lawyers are in a position to write their own contract in our land.

This advantage was not acquired by accident. When the constitution of our country was first written it required the prime minister to appoint only lawyers to be judges.

The same is true to today. The rule has made it possible for the legal profession to be in both houses of our nation the courthouse and the House of Commons. This overlap by the bar bridges the separation between court and state and renders impotent a recognized constitutional principle essential to democracy the requirement that there must be a separation between Court and State.

Today, the legal profession finds itself in much the same position as did the clergy in the time of King Henry the VIII.

Under these conditions members of the bar associations of Canada have become the power brokers of our country.

Then there is the commercial media calling itself the free press and hiding behind a real pillar of democracy freedom of expression. As custodians of the free press, the media, through the influence of advertising money on editorial policy, also, has succumbed to Lord Actons phenomenon.

Democracy is all about bringing everybody into making societies decisions.

It was invented for the very good reason of enabling us to conduct our affairs without violence.

However, in the course of its existence, our species has spent a lot more time working out ways of making violence than working out ways of living without violence. So lets get on with making the effort we need to bring Canadians into the decision making process of our nation.

There are no easys solutions that will quickly install democracy into our affairs but there are solutions with which we can make a start.

Firstly, to remove the corrupting influence of money and the commercial media in the placement of people in our parliaments, we can begin to select our parliaments the way we select our juries.

Secondly, to estableish the separaion of court and state we can amend our constitution to prevent lawyers from becoming judges.

Thirdly, we can start the process of getting lawyers out of parliaments. Fourthly, in order to create a free press in our country and balance opinion in the realm of public affairs, we can instuitute a practice of eaqual coverage in the media.

Yours faithfully,

Jon Silbernagel