Not in the same league
Re: Kids Got It Right, letter to the editor, May 20. Letter-writer Cam Finley displays an incomplete understanding of a dictatorship. His evident passionate dislike for our democratically elected and quite competent prime minister appears to lead him to such an extreme comparison. Does Stephen Harper really belong in the lineup of such historical figures as Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong who committed unspeakable atrocities?
As Harper’s most formidable opponent, Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau has said publicly he admires a “basic dictatorship,” such as the existing one in Communist China. He is impressed with the way “things can get done on a dime.” A philosophical and political preference for those kinds of regimes was in evidence with his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was known to be a “friend” of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and an admirer of other dictatorial luminaries, such as Franco, Salazar and the Kremlin. Could there be a hint of some parental influence on the young Trudeau?
He may have revealed his “hidden agenda.” Finley and like-minded voters may want to rethink what they wish for in terms of who should become the next leader of the Canadian government.
Klaus Bretzke, Oakville, Ont. Letter-writer Cam Finley complains that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is turning Canada into a dictatorship. But this surely is the whole point of a parliamentary democracy? Assuming a majority government, we give dictatorial powers to a prime minister, but for a limited period, at the end of which the voters have the option to throw him out. The alternative, which we tend to get with minority governments, results in a slew of independent ministers running their own little fiefdoms according to their whims, and usually leads to chaos.
As for the charge Harper scoffs at Parliament, at least he doesn’t do it openly, unlike Pierre Trudeau who said of MPs that “when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies.”
Roger Graves, North Gower, Ont.