Dear Editor,
As the federal election campaign progresses, it is obvious Stephen Harper's contempt for Parliament and the parliamentary process has expanded to include contempt for Canada's voters. His "bubble" campaign, his refusal to answer more than five questions a day, his practice of excluding selected voters from Conservative rallies and his intransigent avoidance of embarrassing issues in his government's record clearly reveal this contempt.
Harper's continued misrepresentation of the Canadian political process is either woefully ignorant or wilfully misleading. He erroneously rejects two fundamental tenets of Parliamentary democracy.
1) That a government - majority or minority - must win the confidence of elected parliamentarians in the House of Commons to govern.
2) That a political caucus, with or without a plurality of seats in the House, is eligible to form government if it can demonstrate that it has the confidence of the House.
During the English-language debate, Harper arrogantly diminishes the concept of parliamentary confidence by claiming his government's defeat in the House was "just" a vote of minority parties and not a Supreme Court ruling.
Harper has characterized legitimate parliamentary debates as "squabbling" and has rejected all criticism of his governing record by stating during the televised debate, "I simply don't accept the truth of those attacks."
This is reminiscent of another disreputable conservative politician who operated according to the mantra: "deny, deny, deny."
Is this really the kind of leader Canadians want for our country? We deserve better and we must demand it on election day.
Elgin Wayne Wyatt
North Battleford
