by The Honourable A. Brian Peckford
December 27, 2022
As the New Year approaches one has to look back and assess just how blatantly dismissive , undemocratic our leaders have become.
October , 2021
I wrote to all the 11 first Ministers of the Provinces and The Federal Government seeking their position on the procedure (that they all had at their disposal ) to test the constitutionality of their draconian unconstitutional mandates initiated allegedly to combat the so called covid crisis.
Most did not even have the courtesy to respond. The one that did respond was my native Province where I had been the First Minister for a decade. In this case the Government there threatened me that if I indicated publicly what their response was and the reason that they provided me they reserved the option to take me to court. Their answer was that they could not tell me . And the reason was they could not infringe upon the lawyer /client relationship—the Province’s Department of Justice and the Government.
April/ May 2022
I wrote all the First Ministers including the Territorial Leaders ( who now go by the title as Premier) to inquire as to whether they would support a Citizens Led Independent National Inquiry to ascertain the constitutionality of the lockdowns and mandates implemented across the country and to the legitimacy of the medical science used .
Once again the silence was almost complete. New Brunswick Government did respond but only to say that they would have the their own Legislature , which they controlled , investigate their mandates investigate the legitimacy of their lockdowns and mandates .
September 2022
I wrote the new leader of the Conservative Party requesting that he do three things to prove he is really different than his predecessors : one have his party complete audited financial statements every year of his Party and have them published on the Party’s website, two , support publicly a citizen led inquiry into the pandemic, investigating the constitutionality of the measures taken, and the science behind the measures and three propose an amendment to the Conflict if Interest Act where by MP’s cannot sit in the Parliament if they violate the law as determined by the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Commissioner or a Canadian Judge.
No response.
Years ago if someone told a Canadian citizen that a former first minister of this country could not get present first ministers to respond to a letter he wrote them on important policy issues I suspect most would exclaim that this cannot be true.
But it is true—and furthermore most people do not care —and the main stream press ignore it because most of them have received money from the very Governments about whom they now are now asked to carry negative comments . Think tanks and other observers of the political scene cast it all off for some spurious reason, and universities, those once bastions of seeking truth and democracy and accountably , have abdicated their mission and responsibility to society. And no opposition leaders in any of the jurisdictions said one word of support to the ideas I was advancing let alone contact me.
Obviously , Governments and large sections of the population have lost their way in the practice of representative and responsible Government, abandoned our democratic reformers who were fighting for such ideas even before Confederation in 1867. For example my native Province , Newfoundland and Labrador , achieved Representative Government in 1832 and Responsible Government in 1855.
How would those reformers view the present leaders of this once proud democracy as they continue to ignore what made this country special and important in the world?
