January 2002
The Fundamentals of Democratic Reform—Part IV
by Gordon Gibson
As outlined in earlier articles, the best way to control governments is to keep them small, to have them active only in areas where such activity is a demonstrable net benefit. This quest is for the optimal size of government.
The next best means of control is to diffuse and decentralize power among different governments and levels of government according to the principles of subsidiarity. But once one has defined the total optimal role of government, and diffused and decentralized as much as makes sense, the challenge remains of mandating, controlling, constraining, and overseeing those governmental entities that pass the above tests.
For this task, the Western world has a settled consensus that the proper means is democracy— government "of the people, by the people, for the people," as Lincoln said. Democracy is often defined as government with the consent of the governed, though in truth the support is usually better described as sufferance rather than consent. (No one much likes government, except those who see it as an instrument for shaping the world as their superior wisdom suggests.)
In its rawest form, democracy means that the majority prevail on any given topic. It is a measure of the problems inherent in the democratic idea that this raw form does not exist anywhere. As an ethical matter, such democracy would routinely trample minorities. As a practical matter, the majority desires of any polity tend to be in perpetual conflict—full and free health care coupled with low taxes, for example. So a great many devices have been invented to refine the raw idea.
All modern democracies are constitutional democracies, that is, they are ultimately governed by a set of rules to which every person and every government body is subservient. (Not all of these rules must be written, but they must all be clearly understood and followed).
Moreover, all successful modern democracies are subject to the rule of law, not just of the constitution, but of general law in force from time to time. Agreement on these two things is absolutely fundamental to the implied social contract underlying democratic societies, and to the order and predictability which are pre-conditions of modern life and economies.
Beyond these fundamentals the paths of societies vary. The first branch point is how much decision-making is done by way of direct democracy, and how much by way of representative democracy.
Direct democracy describes the procedure whereby citizens choose policies jointly and directly through voting in a referendum or other means of expressing preferences. Direct democracy has many tools, but the hallmark is direct action by each citizen, unmediated by any representative. What can certainly be said about direct democracy at this point is that it is essential for some things (electing representatives, for example, is the most common act of direct democracy), desirable in others (approval of constitutional amendments, for example) and a useful safety valve within limits in other areas.
It can also be said with certainty that even though it is technically possible today (with remote electronic balloting and so on) to try to decide all questions of governance by direct democracy, this would be utterly impractical. The inconsistency of majority wishes and the tyranny of the majority alluded to above are only two of the reasons. The tolerance of citizens would certainly not extend to such a huge call on their time. The Swiss practice where citizens can vote in a couple of dozen referendums per year may be near the upper limit of direct democracy usage, and democracy in that country is still overwhelmingly representative, not direct.
But if, as a practical matter, direct democracy is little used and even little discussed in the Canadian context, it has a small but essential place in our system. Beyond the election of representatives directly, the direct approval of constitutional amendments is required by law in BC and Alberta, and by quite strong precedent elsewhere. The nation-wide vote on the Charlottetown Accord (which of course rejected that constitutional plan notwithstanding its support by the federal government, every provincial government, most local governments and essentially the entire "establishment" of the country from business through unions, churches, and the media) has probably set a pattern which governments will be unable to ignore in the future.1
Less established in Canada, but equally essential, is the "safety valve" aspect. This does not include referendums proposed by governments, though these have their useful place. Rather, the "safety valve" consists of machinery that can be activated by an outraged public against government action or refusal to act. The two main instruments here are the "Initiative" and the "Recall." The Initiative allows a group of citizens of a stipulated minimum size to force a vote on any given proposition of public policy. The Recall provides for a vote than can potentially prematurely end the term of the local representative.
While Canadians are familiar with these instruments, largely through reading about their frequent usage in many of the American states, both of these measures are in fact available in British Columbia. They were instituted by the NDP government of Mike Harcourt in reluctant recognition of an overwhelming vote in favour of such machinery in a referendum proposed by the losing Social Credit government in 1991. The Socreds lost the election to the NDP, but their referendum on instituting the Initiative and Recall was so popular—over 80 percent in each case—that the result could not be ignored.
The NDP government hated the idea, but managed to live with it by bringing in the machinery in formal terms, but effectively making it impossible to use. To effect a recall of an elected member, one must obtain the signatures of 40 percent of the total voters list at the time of the previous election, even if that list was flawed by containing dead people and the like—and notwithstanding that the recall cannot be triggered for a minimum period of 18 months by which time many voters have moved elsewhere.
The Initiative can only be activated by obtaining 10 percent of the voters list signatures on a petition in every single constituency.
Even against the much disliked (as they came to be) NDP, the Recall was never successfully employed, though its probable success against a Liberal MLA who had written phoney letters to the editor did cause him to resign. And the Initiative option has never come remotely close to being implemented. British Columbia's new Liberal government was elected on a platform that specifically promised easier activation of these two tools. We have not yet had any specifics; this matter may be one that is assigned to the promised Citizens' Assembly on electoral reform. That would be a useful way of dealing with the issue for, of course, the output of the Citizens' Assembly will itself be put to a referendum.
In the opinion of this writer, each of these safety valves should be available to discipline governments or representatives that get too far out of line or fail for too long to address problems, but the machinery should be difficult to use, though not effectively impossible as at present. In addition, legislation passed as a result of an initiative directive from the voters would, of course, need protection from immediate repeal by a hostile legislature, but should also contain mandatory "sunset" provisions for review. Direct democracy is not the voice of God, merely a mass opinion on one issue at one point in time.
Our society is unused to the tools of direct democracy, and given the awesome power of these tools and the ample possibilities for their misuse, the implementation of them should be undertaken cautiously. But the process should begin. Governments need checks and balances. Direct democracy provides some options.
The next article in this series will turn to the far more commonly-used tools of representative (i.e. indirect) democracy.
Note
1 It is interesting that those who claim that "third-party" election expenditure must be restricted on the grounds that money can buy votes ignore the fact that virtually all of the advertising money was on the side that lost the vote on the Accord.
Gordon Gibson (gordong@fraserinstitute.ca) has an MBA from Harvard and is The Fraser Institute’s Senior Fellow in Canadian Studies. He has served in the Prime Minister’s Office under Pierre Trudeau and as both an MLA and as leader of the BC Liberal Party (1975-79).
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