Stephen Harper's decision to kill the current parliament and keep MPs out for an additional month, after an entire summer off, should be unacceptable to his employers, the folks who pay his and the MPs' salaries.

"Our servants" have just announced they're taking an extra month off, and there's nothing we can do, besides send in our tax returns.

don't mean to say Harper and our MPs aren't working. They never stop working, working on their own agendas, and now working without public oversight. Mr Harper is famous for refusing to speak to the press, and keeping parliament closed is a way of saying "no comment" to us in a big way.

He will continue to act as prime minister, run the country, but without the public and media attention of parliament's question period and the attention around introducing bills, defending legislation, introducing policy, and so on. These things all generate questions, and Mr. Harper avoids questions.

Could it be there's nothing pressing for the federal government?

There's Arctic sovereignty Ð a Danish boat, pretending to follow an old Viking route, has just crossed the Northwest Passage Ñ without permission from Canada. "Use it or lose it" were Harper's words on the Arctic, and he's just let someone else use it without comment. Russia's underwater claim to the North Pole this summer received only a pooh-poohing by the ex-foreign affairs minister. Is that "using" Arctic sovereignty?

There are also environmental issues, especially climate change. There are multiple international conferences on these topics, one just wrapped up in Vienna, but where is Canada? What position are we putting forward? Is it still the Bushism, "a made-in-Canada policy"? If it is, we need a policy. Which means a parliament.

Likewise for the loss of Canadian industry and resources. Not just the loss of Alcan, but more businesses are being bought up, and many more scouted Ð especially oil and gas companies with claims in the Arctic. Is this not a serious matter?

Our balance of trade may be fine, right now with high resource prices, but when that market slows, and the whole economy slumps, where will we be, without an industrial sector, one that we can control for our purposes? Our auto industry just had a huge layoff, ordered from outside. If a made-in-Canada environment policy is so crucial, why is a made-in-Canada economy and economic policy unimportant?

Mr. Harper wishes to rule without parliament, simply put. This doesn't mean he's a autocrat, he isn't, but he doesn't like the messiness of parliamentary democracy. He's a policy wonk Ð he wants to institute policy, to reshape Canada according to his neo-con plans, not play the rough parliamentary games of representative democracy.

True, his new ministers are unfamiliar with their posts, and would be made mincemeat of if they had to defend their policies in question period. This is still anti-democratic. Ministers must be accountable. They must explain themselves and their policies, their purchases and their appointments. All other governments did so.

No comment, no press conferences, no questions, no interviews, no committee hearings, and now no parliament Ð this is one more step away from democracy. Shouldn't we be paying attention?

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Copyright © 2007 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/08.07