The Rule of Law and Democracy: Do we have cause for concern?

By Paul E Kennedy — National Newswatch — Sep 21 2013

The media in Canada is awash with stories of abusive behaviors by foreign governments designed to suppress the exercise of the most basic rights of their citizens to express dissent. These abuses are most often facilitated through the government’s control of the policing function. Opponents are investigated, subjected to harassment or outright violence and on occasion arrested. The more subtle state practitioners may merely deny a police response in instances where the individual or group has been the victim of criminal acts leaving such individuals at the mercy of criminal predators.

Were the seeds of such behaviors to present themselves in Canada one, rightly, would have expected a strong, vigorous public denunciation. As is evident throughout the world, once such behavior has taken root, it will be extremely difficult to address and society as a whole will suffer.

Actions taken by the current government have attracted serious expressions of concern as to its knowledge of and respect for the traditions, values and conventions of democracy as we have known it in Canada.

PMO officials have made public comments as to the propriety of the collection of firearms by the RCMP in homes abandoned in the wake of floodwaters in the town of High River, Alberta. Those comments coupled with media expressions of concern as to the level and extent of co-operation that the RCMP can expect from the PMO in relation to its investigation of the Duffy/Wright affair touch upon one of the core attributes of a viable democracy which is that “no one is above the law”.

http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2013/09/21/the-rule-of-law-and-democracy-do-we-have-cause-for-concern/