Dear Editor,
Thank you to Elizabeth May for her May
3rd article, “The Ongoing Attack on Charities”. I very
much appreciate Elizabeth's representation in parliament and I am
continuously impressed at her commitment to staying in touch with her
constituents. Thank you Elizabeth!
There is one point in her article with
which I disagree: when she suggests that Canadians are losing our
sense of outrage in the face of suppression of dissent. This is not
what I sense.
In my experience, Canadian democracy
has operated on a good faith system: the assumption that politicians
would try their best to do what was right for the public interest
including those who did not vote for them. All we had to do was to
vote, stay informed on the issues and politely speak our views. We
always expected neglect from our leaders, but we expected them to at
least make a show of trying.
The tables have turned rather abruptly
though, with the emergence of tactics such as the willful misleading
of voters away from their polling stations, secrecy of committee
meetings and foreshortening of parliamentary debate. The threat to
charitable organizations is just the next in a line of
anti-democratic actions which this government is taking.
This quick shift from good faith to
suppression of dissent has, I think, caught us all off guard. It is
all too clear that we are talking to people who do not wish to
listen. The abundance of online petitions and the opportunity to try
and find our poling station every four years is obviously no longer
enough for Canadians, the problem is
that we don't know what else there is for us to do!
Sincerely,
Emily McIvor
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