When you think about it all for just a moment...it was once believed that various checks and balances (e.g., social mores, opposition parties, an independent senate - even, to some extent, the authority of the British crown) would be sufficient to prevent the rise of despotism in Canada.
Always a tenuous belief at best, it managed, nevertheless, to lull us into a false state of comfort, thinking, as bad as things might get politically, they would never be so bad as to merit grave concern. Oh, perhaps worried enough to long for another election; but still content to let the electoral train continue rolling along until it finally had to make a next stop.
Well, over the years a few people got on board that train who had been riding other trains - maybe even robbed one or two of them; and they saw that this train was not much different, especially the passengers. Like so many others, they were completely engrossed in their seats, their berths, their traveling companions and neighbours, their luggage, their meals, their departures, their destinations to give much thought to the crew driving the train - who just happened to be wielding the most frightening power imaginable over their lives throughout their entire journey. A dining car waiter, posing no more real danger than slow or surly service and, at worst, a spilled drink, was thought a far more worrisome threat than some anonymous engineer at the throttle. After all, someone or something could be relied upon to ensure that the men in front knew how to run a train, at least. And so they paid them little mind.
Those observant few, however, knew better. Much better. The odd wallet or purse purloined prior to a hasty exit would only deliver an insignificant fraction of the total wealth aboard a train. How much cleverer it would be to take the entire train! All they needed was time to befriend enough of the existing crew - or, better still, recruit them to the plan by adding them to its beneficiaries. Some passengers, too - those whose isolation, eyes and posture betrayed a deep-seated inner anger - could prove useful allies whose loyalty could be had in return merely for a promise that, finally, retribution could be theirs. Simple rural folk disapproving righteously of the self-centred urban swells on board who sniffily returned their disregard, loud, fat and perpetually angry sorts from all parts - these were a rich and ready resource to be mined.
Thus, with many tricks, arguments and distractions, did the observant few keep the passengers fitfully preoccupied, taking little notice of the changes in the crew, the rising temperature in their cars and the diminishing portions on their dining plates.
When word arrived that a sizeable and vocal enough minority of those on board had demanded a new team be given the throttle and full say in the remainder of the route to be followed, it came as but one more unremarkable development atop a long preceding series; and the passengers returned to their prefabricated urgencies. After all, whoever might be up front, they would know enough to be able to run a train and take it down the line: someone or something else would be sure to see to that.
Too late they began to realize the price they might be about to pay for their trustful inattention, as the train began to speed them off in wild and unwanted directions, jostling many of them rudely about, often to the unrepressed delight of their detractors. Of special delight to the plain, rural folk were the antics of the unsteadied city slickers whose overdue comeuppance was finally nigh. Yes, though not for the many, for some on board the fun had just begun and could afford to run on like that forever.
How differently they all might have thought of their plight if they saw the internment camp awaiting them at the end of the line.
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Is this where we have come from, how we have gotten here and where we are going? If I may be allowed to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff, let me, for one, shout out here and now: "No! No! No!"
NOT me; NOT my Canada; NOT my future; NOT my children!
Hear me, Cons, and make no mistake about this: you are NOT my government and you never will be. Leave this engine and find some other train, if you must. This one's being reclaimed and returned to its proper track. Your ticket has been revoked.
And, to complete my original thought, since experience has now taught us how vulnerable to abuse our system really is and how the checks & balances we trusted in simply don't work, we have to stop relying on them to weed out the despots for us. We should, instead, regard our system much as we regard a firearm, something far too dangerous to entrust to an unfit mind. Which means that anyone aspiring to a position of public power should be made to pass a psychological fitness test; and those continuing in such positions should be required to undergo re-review regularly thereafter.)
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