Supremacy of Parliament: the British Parliamentary System

We Westerners are a pretty Democratic bunch, and don’t go for this “Leader - Dictator” propaganda.  I know it’s much easier for the Ottawa “Aristocrats” who want to rule by Divine Right to have us operate like they do in an Aristocratic Dictator / Follower relationships.  They use the word “Leader” for what is not “leadership” at all. 

Democratically minded “Leaders” do not rule.  Dictators rule.  Democratically minded “leaders” form consensus, and speak that consensus into Parliament, and Parliament “governs” with consensus in mind at all times.  This is a very rare thing in Canada for thirty years or more.  Canadian Governments and Judges do NOT rule by Divine Right.  Their Powers are granted to them IN TRUST.  If they BREACH that TRUST they need to be IMPEACHED.   

The English leveling of the Monarchy happened over a long period of time - certainly starting with the Magna Carta, - 1215, Things really started to unwind after Martin Luther’s Articles in 1517 and the Reformation, debunking the authority of the Priests. The “authority” of the Priests was no more by the Day of Pentecost, AD 30, at the latest.. Elizabeth I (c1558-d1603) was very much a consensus builder – from which came her real “strength”.  All this Reformation thought on which the British System is based culminated in Cromwell’s British Parliamentary system – 1649. In the British system, the “Supremacy of Parliament” has been in place over the Monarch, the Judiciary, and all until the present time.  Canadian Parliament is no different.

If by an Act of Parliament, Trudeau made a mess of our system in 1982, then by Act of Parliament, this can be Un-messed.  Failing this, the Provinces can de-Confederate and reform under the pre-Trudeau system, if they want to.  It is critical to understand that Ottawa gets its power from the Provinces (1867), not the other way around.  The Provinces were here first, and lent their powers to the central government.  These can be withdrawn, and should be on Breach of Trust by Ottawa.

I had to do some checking, but as far as I can tell, in France, overthrowing the Aristocrats – to the degree that they were overthrown - all happened very quickly and well after the British Parliament was already well established.   Guy Fawkes, of course tried to blow up Parliament and the King in 1606.  So far as I can tell, French social fabric seems to have never really made the shift to Democracy, and seems to have had one Dictator after another since Louie XIV’ terminated the absolute powers of Cardinals Richelieu & Mazarin in 1661.  He seems to have been well intentioned, but became more Autocratic in his own ways.  I think it was the debts this Louis racked up that made necessary the sale of the Louisiana Territory to the US in Jefferson’s time.  French feudalism was abolished by declaration in 1789. Robespierre, the Upper Class “leader” of the French Revolution had the impenitent Louis XVI beheaded in 1793 and began his “Reign of Terror” guillotining any opponent, including the moderate Danton in 1794..  Robespierre was himself taken by the mob to the Guillotine in 1794.   Robespierre’s friend, the ever so humble Napoleon Bonaparte shortly thereafter took the crown out of the hands of the triple-crowned Pope’s hands and placing it on his own head, crowned HIMSELF “Emperor” in 1804.  It remained there until Wellington removed it at Waterloo in 1815.  Bonaparte III and Petain were both “contemptuous of democratic devices”.  Petain, though heroic at Verdun in WWI, exaggerated the safety of the “Maginot Line”.  With the Nazis having rolled into Paris in spite of it, Petain was compelled to sign a humiliating armistice with Hitler in 1940, accepting German occupation in the north while Petain’s Vichy Government occupied the south for the Germans.  Hitler was backed politically and financially by the Vatican, which might have had something to do with Petain’s inability to fight the Nazis effectively.  We all probably remember his successor, Charles DeGaulle, who ran off to England to fight the war in France.  He is described as a would be Dictator by the Americans, and as “arrogant and obstructive” by the British.. 

Well!  After that exercise, so far as I can tell, the people of France historically don’t seem to have a head for Democracy, and haven’t the numbers of Democratically minded people to keep the Autocrats at bay.  What can we do if your guys want to follow a “Leader” like DeGaulle, or Trudeau?  We Westerners won’t do it.  The PMO has become more and more dictatorial ever since.  And now the Judges are calling themselves “Priests” of Canada, subordinating Parliament to do the Judiciary’s wishes.  THIS HAS TO STOP!

The Aristocratic and Democratic ways of doing things are irreconcilable. Maybe that a big problem with Canada for the last thirty years.   Aristotle and Democritus were arguing about this a long, long time ago, and the positions are still irreconcilable.  The Aristocrats, be they Liberal, Progressive Conservative, or NDP, are anti-Democratic. I want us to be different, and rather than conform to their Aristocratic ways of doing things, force Ottawa and the Legislatures to behave in a more Democratic fashion, knowing they have to with a lot of unpredictable fathers out there.