Power moves

Re: Premier not to blame for our mess of a democracy, Andrew Coyne, Sept. 18 Andrew Coyne’s latest piece is a lament on the nature of our democracy. How it is becoming more concentrated in one person. He declares this as if it is something new. Commentators for years have been referencing this —— and I have just written about this on my blog entitled, “The Gradual Decline of Parliamentary.” Donald Savoie, a respected commentator, wrote on it many years ago in a much-heralded book.

What Coyne gets wrong is that the move to one man rule not only sees power move from the people’s house to the Executive and to the First Minister’s office but also to the courts and unelected judges, who have moved from interpreting laws to making them.

That is what this present controversy over Ontario’s Premier Ford decision is all about and what prompted Coyne’s recent outburst.

I mean who in Canada ever thought the day would come when a judge thinks

and then rules, making an art form out of the elasticity of interpreting the Charter of Rights, that he can decide how many councillors should constitute a municipal council.

How dare an elected premier and an elected legislature re-establish their jurisdiction under 92(8) of the Constitution and Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the Constitution? Elected people actually exercising their rights under the Constitution?

Having the elected legislature, with all its warts, continuing to have jurisdiction over municipalities is far more democratic than an unelected judge having such power. Coyne should be celebrating that rather than denigrating it.

Brian Peckford, Nanaimo, B.C.