Democracy, ewww

Fortier 'didn't want to run' in federal election (CTV) :

Michael Fortier, Canada's new minister of public works, said he didn't run in the federal election because "it wasn't the right situation" for him.

I can see his point. Having to get elected is such a bore. WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

Asked about his reasons for accepting the post despite his reluctance to seek office, Mr. Fortier said: "Well, because the prime minister phoned me and there was this gaping hole in the Montreal area."

This is the most insidious part of this whole affair: the notion that every part of the country must be represented, in decimal-point proportion to its population, in the cabinet. That is supposed to be the job of Parliament. Yet the idea has taken hold that a region is only properly "represented" (knowwhatimean?) by a cabinet minister, in the same way as voters are told, sometimes none-too-subtly, that if they want their concerns to be taken into account, they had better elect a member of the governing party as their MP. This is an affront to Parliament, and to the role of the ordinary MP. It is a distortion of the role of a cabinet minister, which is to make policy for all of Canada, not to haggle for his region. It is pork-barrel, spoils-system politics, and it has no place in a modern democracy.