Here is Stephen Harper as Leader of the Opposition writing
in the Montreal Gazette about a year before coming to power:
Information is the
lifeblood of a democracy. Without
adequate access to key information about government policies and programs,
citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or
corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.[1]
Here is Benjamin Disraeli, upcoming Conservative British
Prime Minister, speaking in the House of Commons to the existing Conservative
Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, March 3, 1845:
Dissolve, if you
please, the Parliament whom you have betrayed, and appeal to the people whom I
believe mistrust you. For me there
remains this at least, the opportunity of expressing my belief, that a
Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy![2]
What's to say? beyond I agree with my heart and soul?
ReplyDeletere: "...citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy."
You have my gratitude for getting directly at a "sine qua non" of an *actual* democracy.
At the moment we live in dark times that feel light for most as propaganda clouds the discussion to prevent the majority from appreciatiing they are amusing themselves to death.