[DOWNLOAD] "Revitalizing Democracy in the Era of Corporate Globalization." by Canadian Parliamentary Review ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

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eBook details

• Title: Revitalizing Democracy in the Era of Corporate Globalization.
• Author : Canadian Parliamentary Review
• Release Date : January 22, 2000
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 245 KB

Description

In the Autumn issue of the Canadian Parliamentary Review, Sarmite Bulte, MP and Chair of the House Sub-Committee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment, wrote an article: "Canada and the World Trade Organization," in which she called for more participation by parliamentarians in the definition of international trade policy. This article suggests that there is a larger issue. Do the WTO and similar trading arrangements undermine the democratic process and the common good by subordinating all things to market values and disempowering parliaments and legislatures? Last fall, I travelled to Edmonton to participate in the "Empowering Canadians" conference organized by Progressive Conservative MP Peter MacKay and Reform MP Ian McClelland. Although it was billed as a non-partisan and non-ideological conference on renewing Canadian democracy, most participants, unlike myself, came from the political right. Not surprisingly, the usual suspects in the right-wing populist discourse on democratic reform -- referenda, recall, free votes, etc. -- were prominent on the agenda. There were some like myself who focused on revitalizing the Westminster parliamentary tradition, and on reforming our electoral system. As the only member of the McGrath Committee (1985) still sitting in the House of Commons, I was eager to reflect on the successes and failures of that committee's recommendations for parliamentary reform. I noted, among other things, that there have been some successes in the area of Private Members' Business, that more free votes were recommended long before the Reform Party came into being, and that the McGrath recommendations for committee reform were never properly tested, this being due to the fact that parliamentary secretaries were only removed from committees for a short period of time and that the power of the whips to replace committee members was never taken away. But there was one other point that I made briefly at that conference which deserves much more discussion. I asked my right wing colleagues to consider the effect that various trade agreements were having on the power of parliament. I begged them to consider that they were missing, for ideological reasons, a big piece of the puzzle vis-a-vis the powerlessness that Canadians feel. Subsequent events in Seattle confirmed my views and I now want to expand on this point.

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