Editor: I awaken with a post-election hangover, with grave concern for Canadian democracy as a result of Stephen Harper鈥檚 Conservative Party forming a majority for the next four years.

I fear for the further erosion of democracy as Harper, besides continuing to thumb his nose at the very institutional practices that define parliamentary governance,  takes away the voice of the people. This wlll happen with the removal of government funding to support the varied political voices that form our country.

The right wing will be delighted with this move, as the only party that is guaranteed financial support is that which appeals to the chambers of commerce, as that special interest group has deep pockets to finance their political puppets in Ottawa.

How is it that we can say we have a democracy, when 60 per cent of the electorate disagrees with the party in power? Can 40 per cent dictate to the majority? Is that not the definition of a dictatorship? How can I feel other than disenfranchised as a Canadian citizen?

The Conservative motto was 鈥淗ere for Canada,鈥�  Whose Canada 鈥� the minority鈥檚? Am I not part of Canada? Or am I only Canadian if I happen to agree with the Conservative agenda?

How can I support a government whose economic development plan is to increase the punitive component of the justice system.  It plans to create jobs by imprisoning more Canadians, and in the meantime privatize the operations of the same to reward those who financed the Conservative election machine.  How is that progressive or even humane?

I know that right-wing media pundits will reuse the term 鈥渨ingnut鈥� on me, but here goes. What would be progressive is a change in how we elect government, moving away from First-Past-The-Post to a proportionally representative type of governance.

However, the current big three, (well two now with the trashing of the Liberals), would never stand for it. Harper wanted it in 1996, but now that he has the majority, forget about it.

The next time we go to the polls, the electorate should take the position that the party that commits to bringing in a proportional type of election process gets the vote of the 60 per cent of the population.

Then we will start catching up to progressive democracies such as Germany and Belgium.

Until then, we are faced with a dictatorship. The damage that the Conservatives will do, now that they are in majority, is yet to be discovered.

J. Evanochko,

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