So, we are into another federal election hoopla once again.
On May 2 I will dutifully trudge to the poll, enter the polling booth and mark my X for the candidate of my choice, as I have since I was old enough to vote. That was back in 1945 when the Liberals, led by Mackenzie King, were re-elected, defeating the newly renamed Progressive Conservative party led by John Bracken.
In school I had been taught that in Canada we have a democratic government ‘of the people, for the people, by the people.'
In recent years I've come to the realization that while some of the MPs we elect play a role in minor decisions made by government, it is the Cabinet that plays a leading role in making the major decisions. Members of the Cabinet are the target of intense lobbying by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), a non-partisan organization made up of about 150 chief executive officers of leading Canadian enterprises.
They maintain a force of several thousand lobbyists in Ottawa who meet with and entertain government representatives, their aides, senior civil servants, and their advisors. They represent the financial elite and their function is to influence government policy in favour of their clients and to maintain a constant vigil to ensure that the power and interests of their clients are not infringed.
It is my conviction that the major decisions in Ottawa originate in private corporate boardrooms. Parliament's role is to merely rubber-stamp them and to create the illusion that power lies with the common people.
The reality is that if MPs did control Parliament, Canada's financial elite would not be able to use tax havens and loopholes to get away without paying their fair share of taxes; international petroleum corporations would not be getting away with scandalously low oil and gas royalties in Canada; social programs and infrastructure replacement would be adequately funded; foreign takeover of Canadian enterprises, land, and resources, would be banned; Canadian troops would not be playing a combat role in foreign countries; the export of military hardware would not be a major industry in Canada; ... and the list continues.
So, my trudge to the poll may very well be an exercise in futility.
William Dascavich
Edmonton
