Mr. Speaker, in 1996 a young politician wrote an essay entitled “Our Benign Dictatorship”.
It included these statements:
Many of Canada's problems stem from a winner-take-all style of politics...
Our parliamentary government creates a concentrated power structure out of step with other aspects of society.
...we persist in structuring the governing team like a military regiment under a single commander with almost total power to appoint, discipline and expel subordinates.
Countries governed for a long period by a centre party drift into cronyism, corruption, cynicism and a period of chaos....
A governing party enjoying an indefinite lease on power encourages its supporting interests to become closely interwoven with the state. This may entail...corruption on a grand scale.
Those 1996 quotes were written by the man who is our Prime Minister today.