There are times when Canadians have to put aside their political affiliations and stand up for the country, its institutions and its very democracy.

In my opinion, it speaks volumes for the patriotism of Tories that they sit mute, continuing to support their Leader (do I need to translate that into the original German?) when he steadily gags our government, establishing himself as some sort of autocratic emir served by a cadre of faceless, unaccountable political commissars in the Prime Minister’s Office, the PMO.

The essence of democracy is the free flow of information and transparency. There is no free flow of information, no full democracy, when the flow of information is constrained and filtered and manipulated for political advantage. This is not democratic, this is not the Canadian way, but it is very much the way of the Conservative Leader, Harper.

First he gagged Canada’s environmental scientists, forcing them to communicate to the public only through the PMO. Information would be submitted to Harper’s political commissars to be censored, shrunken, warped and shaped, not to reflect the truth but to reflect Mr. Harper’s chosen message. That, friends, is thought control and nothing but.

How many conservatives did you hear howling in protest, coming to defend Canadian democracy when Harper raised that dark curtain around the environment ministry? How many conservatives finally rose up to defend Canada when he did the very same thing to the defence ministry? How many chose Canada over Stephen Harper? Damned few.

Now Harper wants to muzzle Parliament’s independent agencies, institutions such as Elections Canada and the Auditor General in the very same way. The Harper regime has issued draft rules that would require even those who are supposed to be independent, at arm’s length from the government, to submit their intended public statements to the PMO for vetting or filtering, blatant censorship.

Even with the Tory rank and file sitting mute in the face of this outrage, the rest of us, which includes the overwhelming majority that did not vote for this thug, need to yell “no, enough”. We need to show conservatives and their Leader that this is Canada, not Stevieland, and that he’s not the choice of most Canadian voters and he can damn well stop acting like he’s the Dick Cheney of the True North.

It’s time to take the gags off the environment and defence ministries and it’s time to stop Harper muzzling Elections Canada, the Auditor General and others.

Here’s something to think about. If Harper will so blatantly abuse Canadian democracy while he’s in a minority, what excesses will he resort to should we ever be blind enough to give the Tories a majority?