Finally! Reforming Politics: The BC Blueprint

A Fraser Institute Conference,
November 22, 2001, Vancouver, BC, Canada

[Contents]

The Obstacles to Empowering MP's and MLA's
What it Would Take to Empower Them

PETER DOBELL
Founding Director, Parliamentary Centre

Revised 27/11/01

An ambition of mine when establishing the Parliamentary Centre was to contribute to a more effective Parliament and to strengthen the role of Members of Parliament. While I have over the years contributed to some improvements, progress has been depressingly slow. In the process, however, I have learned a lot about the obstacles at the federal and provincial levels to empowering elected officials and I have examined many procedures adopted by other legislatures that have made a difference.

Since the time allotted to me is limited and there is much ground to cover, I decided to prepare a paper that has been circulated. This will allow me to refer to points made in that paper without having to go into detail, so I can concentrate this morning on points I consider most important.

To begin I plan to discuss the obstacles to empowerment of legislation in Canada. It's essential to know the challenges faced by those of us who think it important that parliamentarians be able to play a larger role. The obstacles are substantial and must not be ignored.

It is widely recognized that within their own jurisdictions first ministers in Canada exert more power than government leaders in any other democratic country. Indeed I sometimes compare the power of Canadian prime ministers to that of party leaders in the last decade of the Soviet Union. Why are they so powerful?

Point 1. Leaders are beyond the reach of party caucuses: Canadian political parties elect their leaders through party-wide conventions, a practice first adopted by Mackenzie King. This places the leader beyond the reach of the party caucus. Once leaders are chosen, they are virtually immoveable if they are determined to hold on. Witness John Diefenbaker. And the trauma now being experienced by the Alliance Party results from the absence in Canada of a procedure enabling a caucus – as distinct from party members who have paid ten dollars -- to review its leadership. Here in BC, would Premier Clark have been displaced had he not become the object of police attention? In fact Premier VanderZalm stands out as the only leader in the last generation in Canada to have been driven from office by sitting members. Compare this record with that of the Conservative party in Great Britain, where first Ted Heath and later Margaret Thatcher were both forced out of office in less than a month when the government party caucus felt that a change was necessary. Admittedly Canadian parties hold leadership reviews, usually at two year intervals. But ironically, the move to elect leaders by mail-in ballot or even by telephone has actually further strengthened the position of party leaders.

Point 2. Private members in the federal Parliament are under great pressure to confirm with their leaders for several reasons:

1^st  Federal and provincial politics are team sports and party members sense that they stand or fall together.

  2^nd Party leaders, and especially government leaders, have the power to make all kinds of appointments and equally to withdraw those appointment. For example, Warren Allemand, a long time and senior Liberal was removed from the chair of an important committee because he had voted against the budget.

  3^rd  It is very difficult to get elected in Canada as an independent. If a member is expelled from a party, as John Nunziata was from the federal Liberal party, it is almost impossible to get re-elected as an independent. Nunziata, who had a strong position in his constituency and a sister who represented the same part of Toronto, succeeded once but failed on his second try. There are few safe seats in Canada where a member so inclined could risk with impunity confronting the leadership. In Britain, by contrast, there still are safe seats.

4^th   Under the Canada Elections Act a candidate can only campaign under the party label if his or her nomination papers have been signed by the party leader.

5^th   On top of that most, Canadians vote for the party leader rather than the local candidate. Accordingly, an independent candidate has a modest profile and no party label.

Together these constitute a powerful constraint on independence.

Point3.  The Political Culture favours Party Loyalty and Discipline: The political culture of a legislature has an extremely important influence on how it operates. To illustrate, NWT and Nunavut draw on their aboriginal experience and operate what are essentially representative legislatures where every vote including the election of the government leader is a free vote. The British Parliament until the middle of the nineteenth century had very little party discipline.  It was the struggle in the latter half of the century between Disraeli and Gladstone that gradually led to a premium being placed on party loyalty. Nevertheless, the British Parliament has maintained a more inclusive tradition, manifest in a willingness to try to find a role for private members and to sharing some offices with opposition members. Within Canada the legislature that has made the greatest effort to accord a larger role to private members and to involve opposition members has been Quebec's Assemblée nationale, probably because of the strong sense of community felt by Quebeckers combined with a less automatic endorsement of the British inheritance. In Australia a very different dynamic has resulted in elected members counting for more than they do in Canada. Although party discipline in their lower House is strong, coalition governments have not been uncommon, which leads to some inter-party compromise. In addition, their Senate is elected, which gives it a strong sense of legitimacy and, since the list system is used, a different balance of party power usually emerges there. As a consequence the government is frequently obliged to compromise.

Contrast the political culture of these legislatures with that of legislatures in Canada with their strong emphasis on party discipline. The Canadian culture whose main elements I have described, is so pervasive that many deputies feel emotionally constrained from challenging their party leadership and are readier than in other countries with Westminster style parliaments to accept strong party leadership. These instincts are buttressed by our media which is quick to ascribe any signs of independence by members of a party as evidence of weak leadership, thereby reinforcing the power of party leaders.

Gordon Gibson sent me the paper he referred to committee on possible constitutional and political changes in British Columbia that concluded inter alia that "the concentration of political power in the office of the Premier is unhealthy and needs to be broken".¹ Unfortunately this objective is much easier stated than achieved.

Central to the argument in the paper that Gordon sent me is the assertion that confidence is "the central control mechanism by which the Premier prevents variations in the proposed laws and budget by the legislature". To illustrate how pervasive is this political culture in Canada, let me review for you two real life situations. Some time ago when the federal Liberals only had a majority of seven Gordon wrote an article challenging any seven disaffected Liberal members to join with the opposition to vote in favour of the election of committee chairs by secret ballot. There were lots of frustrated members. So why did it never happen? The first challenge would have been to get the subject on the order paper, which the government controls. True, the opposition could try to use one of their supply days to force a vote. But that would up the ante. And why would Liberal members risk excluding themselves from any future party preferment just to achieve a genuine election of chairpersons, when the initial price would probably be their removal from the committees on which they were sitting and their appointment to the committee on the Parliamentary Library.

And now another illustration. Some years ago I told a friend who chaired the Liaison Committee – the committee composed of the chairs of all committees – that the analogous committee in Britain regularly submits thoughtful reports recommending change in the way their Parliament functions. Why not, I asked, copy your British parent?  Do you think I'm crazy?  He replied. I'd soon be removed from the committee that I chair and which I enjoy and automatically I'd also cease to be on the Liaison Committee. So I trust you can see that the culture causes MPs to police themselves.

Until a change in the political culture can be achieved, which will not be easy,  I have no doubt, that should a bill be defeated, the opposition, strongly supported by the media, would immediately call for the government to resign. Compare this situation with British practice. While government bills are infrequently defeated, when it does happen it is understood and accepted that the bill has been rejected, but the government remains in power. The word "resign never offered. "So Gordon's paper rightly recognizes that if the question of confidence were to be modified, it would be necessary for a very determined government to define the limited circumstances in which an adverse vote would constitute its defeat, as distinct from the rejection of a bill. Moreover, for such a decision to be effective it would be important that members of the opposition and the media be persuaded to refrain from asserting that the government had been defeated when a bill failed to pass. In sum it would take a very determined government to change the confidence convention since this would require a substantial modification of the political culture.

I hope I have demonstrated that the range of authorities and conventions that place power in the hands of government leaders in Canada is so great that, once well established in office, leaders will very rarely agree to any changes in the way their legislature works that might threaten any loss of that power. In the circumstances I suggest to you that it is when new leaders take over that significant changes are most likely to occur.  I've offered in my paper some reasons why new leaders are more ready to initiate or agree to change. My conclusion therefore is that the best opportunity for private members to gain a larger role occurs when a new leader has just assumed office.

The only possible exception is when a minority government is returned. Again I won't go into detail because it is raised in my paper, but the leader of such a government usually has less control, which is why I believe that a decision to modify the electoral system in a way that would normally produce minority parliaments could lead to the substantial empowerment of private members.

Since I've been encouraged to focus on the situation in B.C., I shall pass over a list elaborated in my paper of eleven practices adopted by other legislatures that could, if adopted by legislatures in Canada, lead to some modest empowerment of private members. The first two would marginally increase the opportunity for private members to break party ranks when voting; the next six could make the work of committees more effective, useful and satisfying; and the last three could generate ideas and support for future reforms and reduce the advantage a governing party enjoys at elections. I personally attach particular importance to strengthening committees. They can undertake studies, hear from the public, travel to hear from citizens outside of the capital, offer visibility to members and to the legislature and provide the best opportunity for private members to make a significant contribution. I think the BC legislature would benefit from adopting some of these practices, but I won't go into detail since they are too modest to meet the chair's request for imaginative suggestions.

Now let me turn to British Columbia. Your recent election has produced a government that dominates your legislature simply because the opposition barely exists. You also have a new leader who has asserted that he wishes to strengthen the legislature and improve its credibility with the public. To this end he has revived committees, adopted a parliamentary calendar, established a fixed day for elections and for presenting the budget, invited the public to submit questions that can be used in the legislative assembly and, in an interesting innovation, opened some cabinet meetings to TV. Frankly, apart from activating committees, I don't think any of these changes will empower private members. And as the premier is obviously aware, a legislature without an effective opposition faces particular challenges.

Although a government with a huge majority is new to British Columbia, your neighbour, Alberta, has lots of experience with that situation. When Peter Lougheed first routed the opposition and faced a legislature without a single opposition member, he devised a system which the Conservative Party still uses designed to engage elected members of the government party very actively in policy review. However, the locus of their involvement is the caucus, which, when the legislature is in session may meet every morning for a couple of hours. It even meets frequently when the House is in recess. Every bill is carefully reviewed in caucus and some 25 per cent of bills are returned to the responsible departments for revision before they are tabled in the House. All members of caucus are free to propose motions and votes are held. It even happens that the government leader may sometimes be on the short end of the vote. Not surprisingly, government members feel genuinely engaged in forming party policy. So significant is the involvement of government private members that a man who had been dropped some years ago from the position of deputy-premier to the back benches told me he was quite satisfied with his new role. It is also a system that ensures that the concerns of all parts of the province are fully aired in caucus. But, once a party position has been determined, all members of the caucus must vote with the government. In effect, the caucus becomes the true legislature, and the House proper becomes a rubber stamp where opposition members are powerless.

This is not to say that committees became redundant in Alberta. What is unusual, however, is that ministers sit as members of the committee that monitors their ministry, while opposition members are so stretched that they scarcely attend. Thus committees, which do meet in public, become an additional instrument enabling government private members to hear witnesses and to interact with ministers in a substantive way, which adds to their sense of engagement.

Is the Liberal government in British Columbia likely to go down the road built by Peter Lougheed? It would be surprising if a decision to do so was not welcomed by members of the government caucus because the Alberta practice would offer them substantial empowerment. It also tends to generate policies that fit the needs of the whole community. Its main cost is that there is little policy debate in public and the lack of opposition parties can mean that the electorate is not offered alternative policies.

Such a situation could be substantially rectified if the new Liberal government, which has already opened some cabinet meetings to the cameras (and in effect to the public) were similarly to open meetings of their caucus to the cameras. That would be truly a revolutionary step. But I doubt that it will ever happen and I would not recommend it. Party members need to be free to challenge their leaders in private.

Alternatively, rather than following the requirement of the Lougheed model that party members must support in the House all positions adopted in caucus, I would urge the government to consider the practice which Dalton McGuinty, the leader of the Liberal opposition in Ontario, has proposed, namely, that -- except on matters of confidence -- private members of a Liberal government would be free to vote against government bills. Because there is practically speaking no opposition in the BC legislative assembly at this time this practice should not present a difficulty. Since it is inconceivable that any bill would be defeated, it is a risk that the government could safely take.

I remember sitting in sessions of the Kenya legislature when Jomo Kenyatta was President. Kenya was a one party state at the time. It was the most liberated legislature I have ever witnessed. Because everyone belonged to the same party, no one could not be accused of being in opposition and the President had made it clear that every private member was free to make up his or her own mind on legislation. It strikes me that such an approach would be more democratic than the Lougheed system. The fact that, when in opposition BC Liberal members were on a few occasions free to vote as they wished suggests that some ground has already been laid. 

I would propose, however that the merits of the British varied level of whipping might be explored, since I find the distinction between confidence and free votes somewhat stark and too limiting. The British House has three levels of whipping in addition to free votes. A three line whip is a signal to party members that the confidence of the government is at stake and failure to vote with the government would have harsh consequences. Two and one line whips represent correspondingly lower degrees of pressure to vote for the bill. In effect the government differentiates between bills of central importance where it is ready to put its fate on the line and those where rejection of the bill would simply mean that the case for its passage had not been sufficiently persuasive. Naturally all ministers of a government want to see their legislation adopted. For this and other reasons it would take a determined leader to initiate such a change.

If the premier genuinely wishes to improve relations with the public, there has to be debate in the House. Since there is scarcely an opposition, debate would have to come from government members. Asking questions submitted by the public would not be sufficient. I believe that, if debate were to take place publicly between members of the same party, who obviously could not be perceived as seeking to form an alternative government, the credibility of the legislature should be increased.

With such a large majority, this would be an ideal time to try out such an approach. A successful experiment along these lines could serve as a model for the whole of Canada and could even contribute to transforming the political culture of the country.

It is good that committees are meeting once again, hearing from the public and travelling around the province.  The absence of opposition members might even offer an advantage since it would eliminate the partisan tension that can on occasion seriously diminish effective inquiries by committees The participation of ministers is also a good development, since it exposes them to another source of opinion than that offered by their officials. In. Britain ministers join a committee as a member, not as a witness, when it is reviewing their legislation. The interchange can be good for ministers and for private members alike. My one concern is that I have been told committees meet with some frequency in camera. Except when preparing a report, I think it important that committees meet in public. And if the proceedings are carried on television so much the better. Studies in Britain and in Ottawa have shown that the public relates much better to committee proceedings than to debate in the House.

I look forward to the observations of the discussants who are to follow. I hope to learn more about the political culture of B.C and to benefit from their broad experience.

Notes