I Want to be Prime Minister so I don't Have to be Accountable for Anything

I want to be prime minister. It's the safest job in the country. When things get tough, you just push the reset button, and start over again. You don't have to do a good job. You don't even have to do a reasonable job. Just keep the Governor General on speed dial and when you run out of options call her up and say you want to prorogue.

Forget that 35 pieces of legislation, a year's worth of work, is erased. You'll just present it again ... or not. It really doesn't matter. Taxpayers love footing the bill for these little follies. Honest they do.

How is Stephen Harper getting away with this? Four times in three years. Of course his latest reasons have nothing to do with the Afghan detainee issue, or keeping possibly damaging memos from the public eye. Or the fact that while claiming that all the stimulus money is out the door, the Parliamentary budget officer can only account for about 12.8%.

It's much easier to have us believe that he is focusing on stage two of his Economic Action Plan. Apparently signs and big cardboard cheques were stimulating enough for stage one.

But he's a clever guy. By neutering that pesky budget officer and pushing out the rest of our watchdogs, he doesn't have to answer to them. And by locking down Parliament, he doesn't' have to answer to us.

You've got to give him credit. In four years he has turned a nice democratic country into an internationally reviled dictatorship. I'm no longer in denial about the death of a legitimate Tory Party, but am having trouble dealing with the death of democracy.

Because by making politics so ugly, with never ending attack ads and hyper-partisan blood letting; he has led Canadians to believe that they have no options at the polls, so most are staying home.

Forget that NDP leader Jack Layton set up a Facebook page to network with the unemployed. Or that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff just made Forbes' top 100 and was named one of the world's top 100 thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine. Or that Elizabeth May of the Green Party is a foremost authority on the environment. We can't have caring, smart or knowledgeable.

But not to worry. I'm sure a dictatorship will be fun, right? I guess we're about to find out.