Senate mess propels Chong’s Reform Act
Scandal, PMO bungling put rare support behind MP’s private bill
Let’s dispense, to begin, with the quaint fiction that MP Michael Chong’s proposed Reform Act has nothing whatever to do with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Senate spending scandal. It has everything to do with both.
Granted, the WellingtonHalton Hills MP has long been engaged with democratic reform, having tried and failed in 2010 to impose intelligence on the daily Question Period in the House of Commons.
Yes, this particular bill was in the works when Senator Mike Duffy was still a twinkle in the Prime Minister’s eye, and Nigel Wright his trusted consiglieri.
This in no way alters that, were it not for the scandal and monumental bungling that have overtaken the Prime Minister’s Office since last May, Chong’s bill would have zero hope of surviving first reading. As things stand, it has significant multiparty support and momentum — most tellingly, from backbenchers respected in the Tory caucus, including James Rajotte and Larry Miller.
Any number of factors could derail the bill.
But the fact it has drawn such broad interest is entirely due to timing and context.
That context includes the Wright-Duffy scandal, but extends to the seven-plus years of Harper government, during which the modern tradition of MPs as talkingpoint babblers and imbeciles, already entrenched when the Conservatives took power, has reached a new low. Exhibit A: Paul Calandra. If enacted, the bill would not take effect until a week after the next federal election, but never mind.
Its energy is all about now.
Next let’s acknowledge, upfront, the good work Chong has done.
Canadian democracy is sick. The lopsided accumulation of power by party leaders, the PMO in particular, is at the heart of the sickness.
The quiet Tory caucus discussions that preceded Chong’s Reform Act began amid the furor last year over the Harper government’s first, massive omnibus budget bill, C-38, which neutered ordinary MPs as legislators.
Through initiative and perseverance, Chong has toppled the applecart.
Whatever comes of it, it seems unlikely MPs of any party will happily revert to being lemmings.
Once enjoyed, power is not readily ceded.
There are problems with the Reform Act.
First among them is that the threshold it establishes for initiating removal of a party leader by caucus, a letter signed by 15 per cent of members, seems intuitively too low, and an invitation to perpetual instability, particularly among parties with a smallish seat count.
A party with a caucus of 35, such as the Liberal party has now, could see a leadership review triggered by six MPs. That would strike some as an arbitrary seizure of power from the grassroots, by the party caucus in the House.
Second, the placing of all authority over nominations in the hands of local ridings, while good in principle, needs to come with a caveat; should a riding association be taken over by forces hostile to the parent party, it must retain the right to disavow or decertify that association — not the candidate directly, but the entire local board.
In practice this would be rare, because of the upheaval it would cause.
Nevertheless it must remain an option for use in extremis, as it is now, as a matter of common sense.
The bill and accompanying literature are silent on this.
Third, the Reform Act encroaches on areas in which government has not before intruded, in any Westminster-style parliament that I am aware of.
It’s true that it enshrines practices common in the U.K, Australia and New Zealand; but in these cases, most famously the Conservative party in Britain, these are party practices, not legislated and not in use by all parties. Political parties’ historical rights are integrally bound up with freedom of association.
The Reform Act in effect big-foots over parties’ traditional prerogatives. Maybe that’s necessary under the circumstances. It should be discussed.
Here’s what’s truly intriguing about the furor surrounding this bill: Its natural momentum is such that, in one form or another, assuming no election call or surprise prorogation obliterates it, it may be unstoppable.
Chong’s timing could not have been more perfect. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, weakened by scandal, is in no position to move openly against it. By convention, he won’t whip the vote. The New Democrats and Liberals, meantime, can’t afford to be seen ragging the puck on any reform aimed at fixing what ails Parliament. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau have already mused favourably about the Reform Act. If they have misgivings, there’s not a great deal they can do about it, beyond offering careful suggestions for amendment, should it ever reach that stage.
This is the simple genius of Chong’s move, so clever it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened before: It pits 304 — every MP in the House who is not a party leader, plus Elizabeth May — against three, or four if you include Bloc Leader Daniel Paille. With the deck stacked that way, it’s no surprise the ground has shifted. It is, indeed, the stuff of which revolutions are made.