INSIDE ISSUES
TERRORISM, WATER SUPPLY, IGNORANCE AND OTHER CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY
The Editor’s note
For most Commonwealth citizens, terrorism is a distant threat that presents as a resented added security cost, or an annoying nuisance at airports. For the people of Pakistan, it is a treacherous fact of daily life, striking political targets from party Leader Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto to police stations but more often exploding at random on mothers shopping in bazaars or children riding home on school buses. And it does not stop there: it also strikes at Pakistan’s international reputation as a Commonwealth parliamentary democracy striving to bring good governance and development to its people. Some will argue that Pakistan is
the author of its own misfortune: a breeding ground for forces that would use terrorism against others should not be surprised when the terrorists turn on their hosts. Our leading article in this issue, by Dr Nafisa Shah, MNA, of the Pakistan National Assembly, acknowledges some in her country have contributed to terrorism elsewhere. But, she counters, that is only a small and misleading part of the story about Pakistan and the war on terrorism. As we go to press, Dr Shah is in the midst of a national election campaign that democrats hope will not be scarred as the 2008 campaign was by the suicide bombing that took the life of Benazir Bhutto. The case Dr Shah makes here is compelling reading for all who have complained
about the cost of security budgets or the irritation of airport screenings and searches. From Islamabad we turn to New
Delhi where India faces, among its many challenges, the rising demand for water to supply its flourishing population and its burgeoning economy. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, India’s lower House, Hon. Meira Kumar, MP, writes here that Parliament is playing a prominent role in ensuring that her country’s water needs are met. Its role does not stop with passing legislation and overseeing government water policies and performance; she notes that innovative ways have been developed so Indian MPs and the building in which they meet are all doing their part to make the best possible use of India’s water. On a cold April morning in 1982,
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, sat at a desk on a dais erected in front of Canada’s Parliament Buildings to sign into law the country’s new constitution and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This very public display of the monarchy and Parliament in action was only one of the many examples of how Canada has been well served by its monarchy throughout its history. Sen. the Hon. Raynell Andreychuk, a Saskatchewan Member of Canada’s Senate, enters a debate that has bubbled to the surface in Canadian politics from time to time
4 | The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One
over whether the country should retain the monarchy. Unfortunately, Sen. Andreychuk notes, the debate has usually failed to appreciate fully what the monarchy has contributed to Canadian politics – and Canadian life – thus raising the possibility that, in the words of another Saskatchewan woman, “you don’t know what you’ve lost till it’s gone”. Sen. Andreychuk writes here that the successful conclusion to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year is the ideal time to open the debate again, but this time by promoting the real value of the monarchy in the development of Canadian society. These first three articles and
two others later in this issue are written by women but are not about a gender issue. An article on gender is featured in this issue’s Profile on the Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly, host to the 2013 Mid-Year Meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Executive Committee, where there is a government headed by a woman in a Legislature with a woman as its Speaker. Premier Hon. Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, JP, MLA, leads a government which sits in the Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly under the watchful eye of Madam Speaker Hon. Mary J. Lawrence, MBE, JP, who is ably advised by another woman, Clerk Mrs Zena Merren-Chin. Although the Cayman Islands
has a long tradition of women as Speakers and Clerks and in leadership roles elsewhere in society, Mrs O’Connor-Connolly is the first woman in her current position, the first woman to represent her constituency in the sister islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, the first female Deputy Premier and the first woman to have been a Minister. She is also, at the time of writing, the only female elected Member, so when she became Premier in December 2012, Premier O’Connor-Connolly named Hon. Dwayne Seymour, MLA, as the Minister of Community Affairs, Gender and Housing and it is he who writes about what the Cayman is doing to advance the participation of women in the Caribbean territory’s political life. Mrs O’Connor-Connolly writes
twice in this Profile, once on its constitutional position as an internally self-governing British overseas territory and then on its programmes to protect the environment. Madam Speaker Lawrence, who was appointed to her post from outside the House, also writes twice, first on the long history of the Legislative Assembly and then on the history of the Islands, which prides itself in having always paid its own way and never having relied on funds from the British government. Two other Ministers, Hon. J.
Mark P. Scotland, JP, MLA, and Hon. Cline Glidden, MLA, write
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