Right-Wing Populist Limits Ability to Sue Government for Misfeasance or Negligence
Most Ontarians remain blase about how quickly the Ontario Government is moving to shut down mechanisms of independence and accountability
By Ryan McGreal.
240 words. Approximately a 0 to 1 minute read.
Posted April 15, 2019 in Blog.
(Last Updated April 05, 2019)
A central dynamic of right-wing populism is the idea that the real problem is not the system but rather an identifiable group of "enemies" who need to be named, shamed and run out of town.
The right-wing populist approach to governance is to install the "real" people in power and then free them up to make whatever changes to policy they deem necessary, no matter how many people get harmed along the way.
Populists reconfigure the mechanisms of government not to hold the populists accountable but rather to enable their agenda and clear away roadblocks by knecapping competing sources of political agency.
The collateral damage in the populist reconfiguring of government are the very democratic institutions - redefined by the populists as anti-democratic - that exist to maintain balance and accountability and limit partisan mischief.
Left unchecked, the system as a whole slides into a quagmire of illiberal cronyism, a cult of personality, driven by obligatory obedience to the leader and a pervasive fear of shaming, stochastic violence and expulsion for dissidents.
It is in this context that we should regard the Ontario Government trying to hide new legislation in its budget that will make it effectively impossible to sue the government for liability in the case of negligence or misfeasance.
It's extraordinary not only how quickly and systematically Ontario's government has moved to shut down mechanisms of independence and accountability, but also how blasé most Ontarians are to the blatant attacks undercutting our parliamentary democracy.