CANADIAN DEMOCRACY WAS NOT TARNISHED
IN QUEBEC CITY

I am writing in response to the May 9 letter from Prof. David Josephy. I was intrigued by his statement that April 21 "was a dark day for Canadian democracy." I was curious as to how the issues discussed in the letter were a mark on democracy.

According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, democracy is "government by the people." This is a very pure definition. The second part of the definition may be a better description of the Canadian democratic system: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."

According to this definition, the most undemocratic gesture on that day would have been the protests themselves - by trying to prevent the freely elected representatives from doing what they were elected to do by the majority of Canadians.

The infringements mentioned by Prof. Josephy were not of democratic rights, but rather of the fundamental freedoms of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Most poignant would be the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. Even here, there may be debate as to whether or not these freedoms were violated. Was all of the assembly peaceful? Did the spillover from curtailing violent protests infringe your (and others') freedoms? Was the fence not an attempt to protect the same rights of the freely elected representatives?

I do not wish to debate the existence and extent of violations of these freedoms, nor do I want to make a statement for or against the demonstrations in Quebec City. I just wish to note that April 21 was not as dark a day for democracy as suggested by Prof. Josephy and certainly not in the facet presented. There didn't seem to be any violations of Canadian democratic rights, and I don't think your readers should believe that our democracy has been tarnished in any way by the events on that Dark Day.

Jeremy Brown, M.Sc. candidate
Department of Agricultural Economics and Business