Standing on guard for democracy
She is custodian of the crown’s authority, the personification of its power.
Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell cannot wield it at will, but she has her ways.
Yes, there are clear constraints on the Crown — elected officials shall prevail in our democracy, provided they have the votes.
But in revealing comments this week, Dowdeswell made it clear that she will jealously guard the prerogatives of her high office. It’s part of her job description as someone who is both passionate about democracy, and a protector of our democracy.
Speaking to a Ryerson University democracy forum — A Conversation with the Crown: Sustainable Democracy — she outlined her role as a constitutional and electoral umpire who must rise above the partisan fray. What happens when the public is up in arms about a politician who claims a mandate from the people? The first instinct of many voters is to demand the Crown intervene from on high, as happened last year when Premier Doug Ford downsized Toronto city council in mid-campaign, without warning.
What does Dowdeswell tell petitioners who march on Queen’s Park to protest government policies they consider unjust or unconstitutional, notably the Toronto controversy?
“Very often people just want to be heard, and I think that’s the first step,” the lieutenantgovernor told me in a rare joint appearance with her predecessor, David Onley.
But, she added pointedly, there is also a second step in her dealings with the premier of the day — and she has dealt with two so far.
“I think it’s also important for people to understand that a lieutenant-governor has certain rights: You have the right to be informed. You have the right to encourage and to advise. And you have the right to warn.
“That is not done in the public eye, it’s done in confidence. But you can be sure that it is done.”
In other words: A premier cannot take the Crown for granted.
Half-jokingly, I asked what she told the premier on this topic. Unsurprisingly, she parried the question.
But Dowdeswell seemed dead serious about her role in “convening conversations” with the people of Ontario, conveying those consultations to her premier — and questioning him.
“The other thing we can do is ask questions, and that is definitely part of the due diligence,” she continued. “Ultimately, you take your advice from your first minister and the executive council (premier and cabinet) because it’s their responsibility — they are the duly elected ones, the lieutenant-governor is not. And in that case, they are held responsible for the decisions they take.”
Politicians come and go. But the Crown endures.
It is a delicate dance. Neither side dares overstep or overreach, lest they be trampled underfoot.
But it happens. Onley recounted his own misadventure with former premier Dalton McGuinty, who asked him to prorogue the minority legislature in 2012 — essentially a timeout to press the reset button.
Prorogation is a relatively routine piece of parliamentary housekeeping, which has never been refused in Canada since Confederation, Onley points out. But it became controversial when then-PM Stephen Harper used it to stave off defeat in 2008, and again when McGuinty used it to buy time so he could hand over power to a successor.
In the aftermath, the lieutenant-governor’s office was flooded with demands that he revoke prorogation, recall the legislature and rescind the premiership from McGuinty. Onley responded to the outcry by granting me an interview at the time, explaining in unprecedented detail how the prorogation power play unfolded, and the limits to his authority.
But a column cannot truly clarify an office cloaked in opacity, nor can a university forum easily explain what remains inexplicable.
Ontarians tell Dowdeswell they see her office as a “guarantor of democracy” and the “conscience” of the province. Yet it remains remote to many.
Even the Speech from the Throne, which outlines the government’s agenda for a new session of the legislature, remains a misnomer wrapped in a mystery: The text is prepared by the party in power, then handed to the lieutenantgovernor to read from the Speaker’s chair (No, there’s no throne).
It didn’t escape notice that the first Progressive Conservative speech from the throne dropped the now traditional Indigenous greetings or acknowledgments, omitted any French usage and made no mention of the fight against climate change. Given Dowdeswell’s distinguished environmental credentials — in a previous life, she headed the United Nations Environment Programme — and her own preference for Indigenous greetings in her own speeches, was it difficult to read the throne speech?
Onley came to her rescue by joking that it was nothing new for him to have people “put words in my mouth” — in his previous work as a newscaster, he routinely read scripts written by others.
More seriously, Dowdeswell noted that those aren’t her decisions — whether debating global warming or refurbishing the throne speech:
“You have to be apolitical, non-policy-prescriptive, nonpartisan,” she mused. “It’s not up to me to tell citizens what they should believe and what they shouldn’t believe.”