From Cal Craik:

If one ponders the state of party politics in Canada and BC over the last couple of decades, one cannot help but realize that there is much that needs correcting.  Individual MPs or MLAs are essentially neutered when it comes to offering solutions to problems either in their ridings, or indeed the country.  The party rules everything, and that applies to every single party, regardless of left, right or middle of the road. If one does not fervently toe the party line, he or she is shunned or cast out.

If this continues unabated, one day, perhaps in the not too distant future, we may here the following words echoing in our own Parliament or Legislature…and I quote:

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you?  Is there one vice you do not possess?  Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the Commonwealth?  Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?  Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you who were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.  Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out!  Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! Go!  Take that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!” – Oliver Cromwell – Lord Protector of England, 1653