Christopher Hume has a column addressing civic engagement in Toronto...and how it's being 'mitigated' by Mayor Rob Ford's administration.
His final comments are most chilling:
"Most disturbing, however, is that Harper, like Ford, truly doesn’t understand what the fuss is about.
Opposition party members or citizen committee members, it makes no difference; all are enemies who must be thwarted at every chance. Indeed, the very idea of opposition is foreign to Ford and Harper. These self-styled avenging angels serve the cause, not the people.
For Ford and Harper, democracy ends when the election ends. The winner takes all the marbles and everyone else is expected to go home.
As Canadians are discovering, once the processes of governance have been discredited —by those who control these processes— (those being governed) can be safely ignored, and as we have seen in Toronto and Ottawa, even treated with contempt."
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