BOURRIE: This Election, Demand Your Politicians Represent Yo

[Oscar]

Mark Bourrie: This Election, Demand Your Politicians Represent You

[ http://thetyee.ca/Culture/2015/01/30/Ma ... Interview/ ]

Eight years of Harper's information iron grip has hobbled Canadian democracy, author argues.

[ NOTE: Kill the Messengers by Mark Bourrie - REVIEW below . . . ]

By Tomas Hachard, 30 Jan 2015, TheTyee.ca

EXCERPTS

Kill the Messengers doesn't reveal any new scandals, but as a compendium of the government's shadier actions it makes for a riveting, if somewhat soul-crushing, read. Bourrie details the most widely reported transgressions, like the robocall scandal and cancellation of the long form census, as well as more forgotten incidents like the government's plan to build a media centre from which it could best control journalists' access to information. He also focuses on Harper's ambition to reshape the history and identity of Canada.

"We never hear the word peacekeeper anymore," Bourrie said, reflecting on the last eight years. "Things that used to be taken for granted as being very Canadian aren't even part of our national discussion."

As much as he lambasts Harper, Bourrie's worries extend beyond the current government. Examining a Parliament now micromanaged by party whips, MPs who see no reason to attend the House of Commons to debate bills, and a media seemingly no longer able or willing to report on Parliament Hill in scrupulous detail or with a critical lens, Kill the Messengers paints a portrait of a democracy that's hobbled or, as Bourrie puts it, "on autopilot."

The result is a book that doesn't allow us to merely sit by and stew in outrage. Bourrie argues forcefully that without substantial pressure from the public demanding fundamental changes, Parliament is likely to retain its hostile and secretive qualities no matter which party is in power.

The Tyee spoke to Bourrie on the phone this week about the upcoming election, the Conservative government's information control, and why we need to put pressure on MPs to actually do their jobs.

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Harper is obviously a huge part of your book. But you also argue that there's a problem with Canadian democracy that goes beyond him. So I wanted to ask you up front: How important do you think the upcoming election really is?

"I think it's really important, but not because of who will win and who will lose. I think it's one of the last chances, the way things are going, for voters to buttonhole their local candidates and say, why aren't you in Parliament debating bills? Why are you acting 24 hours a day as a PR person for your political party? I think that's a question every MP should be asked. There's almost no importance placed by MPs on actually being members of Parliament, which is what they're supposed to be.

"I think people should demand all candidates' meetings, which is something we've seen withering away. I think [this election] is a chance for civil society to get out to all the leaders and put them on the spot and say, what are you going to do about, for lack of a better term, the democratic deficit in this country? Because it's real, it exists. Our Parliament doesn't work, our political parties are becoming professionalized, and marketing is taking over. Our government doesn't tell people what it's doing. And this is something that's becoming engrained in the bureaucratic culture of Ottawa: the default setting for access to information is to say no. On the most trivial material.

"If people don't care about that, then basically the bad guys win. Because the press can't win that war. The scientific community can't win that war. The NGOs are getting their asses kicked. So it's a matter of people saying, do we really want to know what's going on? Or do we just want to hire somebody, once every four years, to put all their friends into power and do what they want with the country? And we'll hope that we don't go broke or that people don't steal too much or that taxes don't go too high."

Let's go back to the MP problem. There's the private member's bill that would at least give members a little bit more power in relation to their party, by giving members the power to initiate leadership reviews and removing a leader's ability to veto riding candidates...

"Oh, I would love it if Michael Chong's bill passed. That would be such a good start."

Is that enough? How much further would we have to go after that?

"It would sure be a good start. I doubt it will pass, but I think it's something that anybody who really wants to raise these questions can hook on to, to ask their local candidate, what did you think of Michael Chong's reform bill? And if they didn't vote for it, [ask] why didn't you vote for Michael Chong's reform bill? It's not the answer to all the problems, but it's the first time I've seen a real chance for this thing to start to roll back and start to be unwound."

You seem to have doubts about Trudeau and Mulcair as well...

MORE:

[ http://thetyee.ca/Culture/2015/01/30/Ma ... Interview/ ]


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REVIEW: Kill the Messengers — Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your Right to Know by Mark Bourrie/b]

[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]

If ever a government wanted to shun the media, it couldn’t have picked a better era.

[b]Kill the Messengers - Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your Right to Know by Mark Bourrie, Patrick Crean Editions, 392 pages, $32.99

By: Georgie Binks Special to the Star, Published on Fri Jan 30 2015

When Mark Bourrie chose the title of his book — Kill the Messengers — he never could have predicted how frighteningly apropos it would be. With the murders in France of eight journalists at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, along with nine other victims, the issue of freedom of speech is at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Bourrie’s book takes direct aim at two issues — freedom of information in Canada and freedom of speech and how the Conservative government under Stephen Harper has stifled both. Taking the reader through a myriad of changes wrought by the government, Bourrie builds a solid, credible argument about how Canadians have been kept in the dark about what the government is doing. He argues that a new kind of government has emerged since the 1980s forged by what he calls “professional armies, marketers, pollsters, strategists and attack dogs.”

MORE:

[ http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo ... eview.html ]