We don’t impeach in Canada, but maybe ought not feel smug
By some cosmic coincidence, the United States and the United Kingdom have both arrived at a political crisis at the same moment. In each, a reckless, polarizing leader, emboldened by his uncritical followers, has pushed the limits of his power and taken liberties with the law: conspiring with foreign leaders to dig up dirt on political rivals, in the case of Donald Trump; shuttering Parliament to evade its scrutiny, in the case of Boris Johnson.
Both, when caught, have sought refuge in the argument that they are too focused on jobs to worry about the niceties of the law. Both have attempted to invoke executive privilege to prevent evidence of their wrongdoing from coming to light, ultimately unsuccessfully. And both are now locked in mortal combat with their respective legislatures, who have begun to rein in their abuses of power.
Surveying the carnage to the south and east, Canadian observers will be tempted to compare it to the relatively soporific state of our own politics, with the usual self-satisfaction. Say what you want about Canada’s politicians, but at least we haven’t gone there! Madness may be the rule elsewhere, but in this country we’re still governed by good old Canadian common sense.
Not so fast. If our cousins in the English-speaking world are now consumed by political crises, as we are not, it may have less to do with the insanity of their politics or the excesses of their leaders, and more to do with the ability of other branches of government, legislative and judicial, to hold them to account. The difference may simply be that ours were able to get away with it.
For we have our own reckless, polarizing leader, with his own uncritical followers, who has taken liberties with the law. Justin Trudeau’s attempt to interfere with a criminal prosecution on behalf of a Liberal-friendly corporation in the SNC-Lavalin affair was certainly unethical and possibly illegal, a clear violation of constitutional rules of prosecutorial independence if not obstruction of justice.
Like his more blustery counterparts, he has attempted to bluff his way out of it with appeals to expediency — I was just standing up for Canadian jobs — as if this justified meddling in a prosecution, pressuring and undermining his attorney general, and other actions that subvert the rule of law. And, like them, he has claimed privilege to prevent key witnesses from giving evidence — first to the Commons justice committee, then to the ethics commissioner, ultimately to the RCMP.
The difference is that in Canada that is as far as things got. The legislative revolts that have at long last begun in the U.S., with the move to impeach Trump, and the U.K., with Parliament’s moves to prevent Johnson from imposing a no-deal Brexit upon it, are nowhere evident in Canada or even likely.
In part this is a matter of differing institutional settings. The formal checks and balances that are a hallmark of the American system, notably the strict separation of executive and legislative powers, are not so potent here. The conventions that constrain British prime ministers, though we share the same parliamentary heritage, have in Canada been allowed to lapse.
But in part it is a matter of politics, and the willingness or otherwise of elected officials in each country to put principle before party. Admittedly, the confrontations now embroiling the U.S. and U.K. would be less likely were the opposition not in control of the lower houses in both legislatures.
But what has really brought Johnson low, and may yet bring down Trump, is not the attacks from their political opponents but the refusal of members of their own party to tolerate their lawlessness. That’s been more apparent to date in Britain, where 21 Tory rebels voted with the opposition to block Johnson’s attempt to circumvent Parliament, than in the U.S., where Republican members of Congress have until now hesitated to break with the president. But that appears to be changing.
But what is striking is that what is viewed as an aberration in the U.S. — the unwillingness of members of the governing party to hold the executive to account, even in so serious a matter as upholding the rule of law, for which the Republicans have been roundly and rightly criticized — is considered the norm in Canada.
It is probably too much to say that a prime minister in possession of a majority of the House of Commons could, like Trump, shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. But only slightly.
In the matter of SNCLavalin, the Liberal majority on the justice committee did exactly as they were ordered by the Prime Minister’s Office, calling only such witnesses as the prime minister preferred to hear and ending the committee’s inquiries before they had gotten very far. The prime minister decides how and whether he should be investigated by Parliament, just as he decides when and how far to relieve potential witnesses of their oath of cabinet confidentiality.
Which is why, seven months after the SNCLavalin affair came to light, we have still yet to get to the bottom of it. Nine witnesses told the ethics commissioner they had evidence to give in the matter, but could not; witnesses reportedly told the same to RCMP investigators. And there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.
That, as much as the prime minister’s actual misdeeds, is what is at issue. It’s all very well for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to demand, as he has in the current campaign, a judicial inquiry into the affair.
But I’m more interested in knowing how he would constrain his own and future prime ministers’ behaviour than whether he would investigate his predecessor’s.