“L'etat, c'est moi,” declared France's King Louis XIV.Throughout their eight years in office, the Harper Conservatives have devoted much of their electoral mandate to denigrating and diminishing Parliament, beginning with their blatantly unconstitutional parliamentary prorogation in December, 2008 to avoid defeat on a non-confidence vote.As a result of that unparalleled assault, Canada's parliament has, to all intents and purposes, been reduced to a supine “talking shop.” It's now hog-tied and intimidated, subject to prime ministerial whim, prorogued at will and routinely frog-marched into passing several-hundred-page “everything but the kitchen sink” unamendable budget bills in marathon all-night sittings.Fittingly, these mockeries of democracy carry tin-pot dictatorship titles like “Harper Government Creating Jobs and Growth While Returning to Balanced Budgets With Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No.1.” This most recent Conservative horror show weighed in at 359 pages and alters everything from the food and rail safety regimes to the Judges Act, the National Defence Act and the status of temporary foreign workers.Having brought parliament to heel, the Conservatives have since trained their guns on the courts.The only authority they appear to accept and respect is the power of their own majority.This spring witnessed an unprecedented public spat between the prime minister and the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada over the Conservative government's desire to set yet another unconstitutional precedent by appointing a Federal Court judge to represent Quebec on the high court although he had no background in Quebec's Civil Code. In the end, the prime minister backed down and the appointment went to another with the requisite qualifications.But the damage to Canada's constitutional fabric was done.However, within little more than a month, the chameleon-like ability of the Harper government to switch sides and targets yet again out of political expediency and the desire to seize political opportunity revealed itself.Suddenly, the Conservatives executed a 380-degree turnaround to again become the champions of their routinely despised parliament.Earlier this month, Conservative MP Larry Miller, the four-term MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound in Ontario, attacked the courts as the enemy of parliament.“Taking parliamentary powers away ties into the stories that the courts are making the laws,” he told the National Post's John Ivison. “In my opinion, Parliament should make them and if the public don't like them, then the public will straighten things out. If you take things one step further, why elect people and pay them to do something the courts are doing. But the courts are not there to make laws, they are there to interpret and enforce those laws.”Then Miller, a true blue Conservative, laid out his manifesto:“There are two main reasons I became a Conservative. Firstly, I am fiscally responsible – I want to see smaller government, not bigger government.“Secondly, I'm all for rights and freedoms but the Charter complicates things. Pierre Trudeau did this willfully and deliberately, taking rights away from the majority to protect the minority. The Charter of Rights puts all the lawmaking decisions into the hands of the Supreme Court and to me, that is not what democracy is all about.”Miller went on to claim that NDP leader Tom Mulcair “wants to drive it further and turn it all over to the courts. Realistically, you can change MPs but you can't change the Supreme Court if you don't like their decisions. And there's a lot of their decisions I don't like.”Miller is not the only Conservative MP unhappy with the Charter and “judicial activism.” Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Dan Albas says an increasing number of groups and individuals are using litigation to stymie governments and advance policies with which the government disagrees. "Often the Plan B is to do an end run around our democratic process and turn to the courts where it seems some judges are quite happy to engage," he told the CBC's Rosemary Barton in an interview. “This can result in decisions contrary to what have been decided in our democratic process."Albas was angered by a recent Federal Court ruling finding the government's reduction of refugee health care benefits “cruel and unusual.” Yet he and other Conservative MPs apparently believe that “activism” by an authoritarian parliamentary majority is quite fine, indeed  justified, even if it impacts the health and welfare of refugees.So the Conservatives are appealing that decision to the Supreme CourtCanada's renowned constitutional scholar David E. Smith has warned that parliament is being diminished by the growing influence of mass and social media and “modern participatory behaviour.”The current government isn't helping the situation by its devaluation of the parliamentary opposition, he told Chris Plecash of The Hill Times last August.  “(T)he governing party (the Conservative Party of Canada) has devalued legislative opposition, whose status was long derived by tradition from Parliament and the unwritten constitution, and has devalued it for that very reason – because it was not elected,” he writes in his book, Across the Aisle: Opposition in Canadian Politics.”Earlier this month, the respected British magazine, The Economist, wrote a critical editorial chastising the Harper Conservatives for their hostility towards Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Pierre Trudeau's lasting – and very popular – legacy to Canadians.“The ruling Conservatives in Canada never much liked the Charter of Rights and Freedoms embedded in the constitution by a Liberal government in 1982,” the Economist writes in its July 7 edition.“The muttering among Conservative supporters about 'judicial activism' which began in the early days of the charter when the Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriages and struck down abortion laws, is growing louder…” Worse, the Economist editorial notes, is that “there is more legislation in the pipeline that looks ripe for charter challenges.”So far at least, the Economist writes, one step the government is not prepared to take is to try to revoke the charter.“Even the government's own surveys show the charter is hugely popular…When it asked Canadians to suggest the people and feats they want celebrated in 2017, Canada's 150th birthday, medicare, peacekeeping and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were the top three accomplishments.  Pierre Trudeau, the former Liberal prime minister who brought the in the charter, was the most inspiring Canadian.”It's bitter beer for the Stephen Harper Conservatives. As a right-wing party in a social democratic majority nation, they are in a perpetual minority. At their high water mark in the 2011 election, they represented barely more than one-third of Canadians.Frances Russell was born in Winnipeg and graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science. A journalist since 1962, she has covered and commented on politics in Manitoba, Ontario, B.C. and Ottawa, working for The Winnipeg Tribune, United Press International, The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun and The Winnipeg Free Press as well as freelanced for The Toronto Star, The Edmonton Journal, CBC Radio and TV and Time Magazine.She is the author of two award-winning books on Manitoba history: Mistehay Sakahegan – The Great Lake: The Beauty and the Treachery of Lake Winnipeg and The Canadian Crucible – Manitoba's Role in Canada's Great Divide. Both won the Manitoba Historical Society Award for popular history.She is married with one son and two grandsons and lives in Winnipeg.