The Speaker speaks his mind

Levac laments a political system where MPPs are losing their independence

The legislature’s longest-serving Speaker doesn’t customarily speak his mind, but Dave Levac can’t contain his thoughts any longer.

With barely two weeks left in the ornate speaker’s chair and an election campaign just days away, Levac is going public with his private fears about where provincial politics is going. The speaker has announced his retirement, but he’s not about to go quietly over his concerns:

Our democracy is only as robust as its democratic institutions. Members of Provincial Parliament are losing their personal power in a struggle with party leaders who centralize authority inexorably.

Interviewed in his ground-floor office of the legislature, directly underneath the premier’s office and two floors below the opposition leader’s office, Levac frets about “the power that they wield” over MPPs.

Sitting in his speaker’s robes, Levac muses that he wants to “de-brainwash some of the members” who cloak their independent judgment upon entering the legislature, induced by the prospects of cabinet appointments or opposition privileges.

“We whip that out of them: ‘No, no, no, you just follow the party line and do what you’re told.’”

As partisanship gets fiercer, Ontario must reinforce legislative supremacy lest it falter under its own dead weight. It’s not just majority muscle that he worries about, but gridlock in minority legislatures where partisan battle lines are firmly drawn.

After nearly seven years on the job, Levac has seen the province’s democratic underpinnings go from bad to worse. He struggled to maintain control during the bitterly-divided 2011-14 minority legislature, then presided over the fractious majority years that followed.

Now he frets about post-election stasis if there’s another minority legislature with no clear winner.

“As one would be concerned about the dominance of a majority government, be careful of the dominance of the opposition in a minority government,” Levac tells me.

Opposition mischief can come back to haunt a party that one day wins power: “Be careful of what you want, because you might get it” — only to see the roles reversed.

Levac says Liberal government dominance of legislative debates has also set a poor precedent, citing the “excessive use of time allocation” measures to rush bills into law through closure tactics that limit the opposition’s say. “They forget that one day they will not be in government and they will suffer for it.”

For all his pessimism, Levac has some surprising prescriptions for how to preserve and revive the legislature’s standing at a time when few people sit down to watch the daily Question Period. He believes it’s possible to have too much of a good thing, by overdoing democratic activity to the point that people tune out. Among his proposals:

Dial down the 60-minute question period, which lasts longer than any other Commonwealth parliament. It is only 45 minutes in Ottawa.

Focus the debate by holding a premier’s question period just once a week, as in Westminster.

Curb the theatrics, without cutting them out entirely. Levac points to the relative decorum in Quebec’s National Assembly, where members have agreed to stop rote applause and disruptive heckling.

Strengthen the role of MPPs by reclaiming some of the authority they have delegated to an unwieldy roster of eight independent officers of the legislature — an auditor general, ombudsman, and commissioners for the environment, privacy, integrity, financial accountability, French services and child advocacy.

The previous ombudsman, Andre Marin, ran as a Progressive Conservative in a byelection shortly after he was refused a third term, and unsuccessfully sued the legislature, behaviour Levac believes was deeply inappropriate.

With the current auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk, “there are people that question certain things that are being done and certain battles that are going on,” Levac noted. “It is very easy to create a ‘gotta get you,’ or a “gotcha moment,’ for any government.” That’s why MPPs need auditor’s reports that can be relied upon as “factual, that have merit.”

Levac believes MPPs should form a special all-party committee to oversee and possibly consolidate the various officers of the legislature, ensuring they are mindful of their mandates: “Who’s watching the watcher?”

Levac’s last words to his fellow MPPs: “They are 107 members chosen out of 14 million people.”

Martin Regg Cohn is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @reggcohn