The Rooster Crows in Ottawa

It was the week of chest thumping. The locker room bravado displayed following the vote that will likely lead to the end of the gun registry. Then Senator Mike Duffy's public meltdown in his debate with NDP Peter Stoffer. These were just more slippery stones in the decline of effective democracy in Canada.Things have subtly changed in the nation's capital, in ways likely to spell a more uncertain future. It used to be said that the Conservatives, so long in opposition, continued to behave in similar fashion after assuming power. The Liberals continued to act in opposition as though they were government. This was all true; I've witnessed it and concur. But it's now changing. While Liberals are forced to come to terms with assuming the duties of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, the Harper Conservatives, comfortable in their lead in the polls, are acting more like a government, and in many serious ways, that's not a good thing.George Stevens, in a moment of introspection, stated: "I see myself capable of arrogance and brutality... That's a fierce thing, to discover within yourself that which you despise the most in others." This is what the Conservatives saw in their opponents, but now they have become Liberals redux. Nobody could escape that conclusion this past week. The party is becoming more comfortable with power - the days of the burlap-cloaked reformers from the West have given way to the limousines and tuxedos of privilege ... and now arrogance. In a phrase: they have become what they most detested in Liberals.The issue here isn't Conservative or Liberal, but the corruption and arrogance that seems to inevitably come with power. For three years the Conservatives still felt they had to storm the ramparts of Ottawa; now they secure the fortress because they are inside. The problem is that they can't recognize this in themselves. In becoming what they hated, they have lost the insight to hate what they are becoming. They have taken on the traits that Scottish philosopher David Hume warned against:

When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly mistaken, giving views to passion without the proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities."

We witnessed some of those absurdities last week; there's more to come as the government, sensing weakness in the opposition, feels it's about to launch into some remarkable open-field running. I sit in the House each day and I can feel it. Arrogance in opposition is one thing, in a government another. Of the two, the last is most to be feared.I know a good number of Conservative friends. In private they are gracious, even humble. That's great in private life, but in government it's an absolute necessity, lest power move to the inevitable paths of privilege and flawed policy. Canada's challenges at present demand a government that is humble and wise enough to work with opposition parties to secure the best outcome possible. Minority government makes this possible. Stephen Harper makes it impossible because his party views humility in the public place as a sign of weakness. What they might be in private as individual members they cannot replicate once the team straps on the pads. And before the inevitable comments come, stating that the Liberals were just as bad in power, I acknowledge it. There is no defence. But the problem isn't the Liberals or the Conservatives; it's power and its insipid ability to make the precarious balance of interests so required in a Canadian federation unstable.Describing the decline into vanity of what was once a good friend, George Eliot wrote: "He was like a rooster who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." Alas, the rooster crows in Ottawa. Corruption has its way once again. It's in times like this that citizens, recognizing this inevitable cycle of events, are meant to come forward and hold its office holders to account. That's not happening and the sun continues to rise above the horizon any time the rooster summons it. Political delusion has begun.