How many examples do we need before we wonder about the state of our democracy?

The Harper government’s latest affront to the D-word is attracting a lot of attention. When the prime minister’s operatives frogmarch someone out of a rally because of alleged ties to another party, it well might. The Tory heavies told a 19-year-old student she was not welcome because they had discovered she once posed for a picture with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

As some wag put it, this isn’t communist-era Bulgaria.

And then, of course, there was the widely publicized incident last week at which reporters were barricaded behind a fence and only allowed to ask the PM a few questions. At least the prime minister’s men didn’t act as they once did in Charlottetown when they sent police to remove journalists from a hotel lobby where they were trying to cover a Tory caucus meeting.

We recall last month that Harper was found in contempt of Parliament by the Speaker of the Commons for repeatedly denying the people’s representatives their right to see documents. It was a first in our parliamentary history and if a touch of remorse was in order, it wasn’t forthcoming. The prime minister dismissively described the rulings as parliamentary manoeuvring.

The learning curve. Where is it? It was thought that after the prime minister shut down Parliament at the end of 2009, touching off demonstrations by thousands of Canadians calling him a dictator, he would treat the institution with more respect.

There appeared to be a special need for him to proceed cautiously in this campaign because in addition to the contempt embarrassments, some of his team members were hit with charges related to their financial management of the 2006 election campaign. There had also been the uproar over cabinet minister Bev Oda’s document-tampering and a storm over the government’s commissioner of integrity who turned away whistleblowers by the score and walked off with a half-million-dollar settlement replete with a gag order.

But Harper has appointed fierce partisans in Guy Giorno and Jenny Byrne to run his campaign. They share with the prime minister what former cabinet minister David Emerson, in describing Harper, has termed a visceral hatred for opponents. These people don’t know what a high road looks like. Their pathological partisanship has led to excesses of the aforementioned type as well as many others.

Harper once said the toleration of dissent is the hallmark of democracy. But its toleration has been replaced by something more akin to obliteration. It has been seen in his record number of truth-shaving personal attack ads, in calling the premier of Ontario “the small man of Confederation,” in unfairly smearing opponents as anti-Israel, in attacking diplomat Richard Colvin.

This PM’s view of democracy was exemplified in the issuance of a secret handbook instructing committee chairpersons how to make their committees dysfunctional, in his going back on his promise to allow committees to appoint their own chairs and to muzzling cabinet members in question period, leaving it to House leader John Baird to provide non-answers.

If information is the lifeblood of democracy, democracy is on life support in Ottawa. The PM brought in a government-wide vetting system, a first in Canadian history, under which virtually every single communication had to be pre-approved by central command. He eliminated the long-form census, suppressed studies in such departments as Justice that ran against his ideology and put up myriad roadblocks to the functioning of the Access to Information system. He even tried to have the Auditor General’s communications vetted — until she fought back.

Even though he came out of the Reform movement, democracy Harper style has meant scant policy input from his own party rank and file, or none at all. Democratic challenges to nominations such as that of Rob Anders in Calgary have been ruthlessly snuffed out. The centre has seen watchdogs replaced by lapdogs, agencies and tribunals brought to heel by the firing of directors (Nuclear Safety Commissioner Linda Keen), the stacking of boards (Rights and Democracy), and intimidation by lawsuits (Elections Canada).

Given the record, what happened to the student who tried to attend a Conservative rally shouldn’t come as a terrible surprise. Harper has been told on numerous occasion that if he is to enhance his standing, he need show some generosity of spirit and respect for the system.

But he doesn’t appear to have it in him. He forgets too often that we live in a democracy, not an authoritarian state.