Stephen Harper - Emulator of All Things American

In what is probably his second step towards cuddling up with the BushCo administration, Prime Minister Harper announced today that that Supreme Court Nominees would be subject to public questioning by MPs.

This is the first step in politicizing the process of appointing the Judiciary of this country, and another step towards making Canada look more and more American.

Conservatives in particular have been exceptionally vocal about their dislike for the way that the Supreme Court has ruled in the last few years - especially on matters of Charter interpretation. What it really amounts to is the conservatives don't like some of the rulings they have seen, and want to be able to gauge the way that a given judge will approach a topic. (Which will ultimately create a spectacle not unlike we have seen this past year in the United States)

The rulings that the CPC has chafed at so much have been rulings that are politically inconvenient to them. Anyone who has read the Supreme Court's rulings in the last decade will realize that the court has done precisely what the CPC claims they desire - interpreted the law. I don't have to like the rulings to respect the fact that when it comes down to it, the Justices on the Supreme Court have done precisely what they were appointed to do. The rulings are not political, they are pragmatic.

We are best served by a judiciary who is focused upon interpreting the law, not the political alliances that put them onto the bench. Making a spectacle out of the nomination process by putting the candidate before the cameras and legislators is nothing particularly productive - it is at best symbolic, and at worst it creates the illusion of "democratization" without actually doing anything truly useful.

In my opinion, this is little more than a symbolic gesture towards the United States by Harper - it says "See, we'll do it _your_ way" to BushCo.