No Prime Minister in the history of Canada has demonstrated such contempt for democracy and its institutions as Stephen Harper.

The list is shockingly long –- proroguing Parliament twice for strictly partisan reasons, interfering and with and slashing the budgets of numerous Parliamentary watch dog agencies, abandoning Canadian citizens in jails overseas whole ignoring court orders to repatriate them, producing a guide for Conservative chairs of Parliamentary Committees to help them thwart the opposition, abusing their power by cutting funding to groups they don’t like, breaking their own fixed election law, the list goes on and on.

The horrible earthquake in Haiti should remind us that for all we detest Stephen Harper and what he is doing to the country we, all of us, are incredibly lucky to live where we do -- in a "first world" country. It should give us pause to think that we are wealthy because billions of other people are poor. And there are no poorer or more star-crossed than the people of Haiti. It should also remind us that Haiti might well be further down the road to social justice if it were not for Canada's shameful complicity in the forced exile of its popular leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The famous ski resort of Whistler, British Columbia boasts 8,100 skiable acres, 200 trails, three glaciers and 38 ski lifts, and now it's the only Canadian municipality to be "twice prorogued" - at the local and federal levels.

Accountability and democracy are taking an Olympic-sized holiday for 3.5 months as Whistler's mayor cancelled council meetings from December 15, 2009 to March 23, 2010. Not surprising, our elected officials will still be receiving their regular paycheques and perks such as free jackets and gold medal mens hockey tickets.