National Post (National Edition)
Quebec legislature’s real scandal
Oh, here’s a scandal. “Within Quebec Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec caucus, the most prestigious and best-paid jobs most often go to men.” Those mean men.
If you read further, which isn’t hard since the whole CP story in the Post was one paragraph long, you discover that “Of 75 (CAQ) legislature members, 65 of them — 42 men and 23 women — have extra functions that earn them a boost in pay.” And we’re meant to be shocked at those CAQ chauvinist pigs because “women make up 44 per cent of the legislature members whose income reaches $167,482, 33 per cent of those at the $129,000 level, 25 per cent of those making $119,630 and 30 per cent of those whose salaries reach $114,845.”
Which falls into the math am hard category. Women make up barely a third of those getting extra boodle but nearly half in the top tier so they’re overrepresented there. As for “there are more men than women at every level of extra pay” it’s hardly surprising since there are more men than women period, including below the salt.
With female MNAs overrepresented at the CAQ trough the supposed problem isn’t sexism within Legault’s caucus. It’s that not enough Quebec women feel an uncontrollable urge to seek office so they can tell fatuous lies, beat partisan drums, cover up scandals, promise the moon and deny
the obvious. Boo! What’s the matter with these people?
Many first-wave feminists had a ready answer: nothing. The problem is that politics is ugly because it was designed by men. So if more women become candidates, office-holders and engaged voters it will become kinder, gentler and more woman-friendly. Yet more than half the Quebec electorate are women and most, polls suggest, hold impeccable progressive values. So what went wrong?
To second-wave feminists it’s that this whole man-woman thing is a huge misunderstanding. As Simone de Beauvoir put it, “Mind has no sex.” So getting more women into politics won’t help make politics less ugly. It will just help women behave worse. Yay!
Or maybe help men behave better. Perhaps “men” aren’t the template, “women” are. Or, the modern view, there is no template. So the problem should fix itself in short order because with gender a fluid social construct there aren’t women so they can’t be victims of discrimination.
Nor can anyone know they’re “really” a woman, which could prove awkward. But not to me, because this column isn’t about gender, which apparently doesn’t exist. It’s about government, which definitely does.
See, CP managed to look right through the real scandal here, constitutional theory being hard too. Since the entire CAQ caucus has 46 men and 29 women, you could complain that 42 of 46 men were in the pocket of the executive and only 23 of 29 women. And I intend to. But not because it’s 91 per cent of the hommes and just 79 per cent of the women, who won’t enjoy true equality until more of them slither up the greasy pole all the way to the executive branch. Because it’s 86 per cent of the whole rotten bunch.
As in most modern legislatures, the largest single grouping is the executive phalanx, those legislators enjoying extra money, perks and prestige because they’ve abandoned keeping an eye on cabinet’s deeds for keeping a tongue on its boots. (Including, under Kathleen Wynne in 2013, all but one caucus member.) The shade of George III is green with envy at this comprehensive, painless suborning of legislative independence, not to draw more talent into policymaking or PR but to buy their acquiescence. And ours.
Periodically we deplore spineless legislators. But we expect governments to do so much so fast, to fill our lives with meaning or at least our pockets with money, that a balky legislature where members of the first minister’s own party ask hard questions would be intolerable.
There are alternatives. As Dicey observed a century ago, there have only been four periods of “legislative activity” in the long history of parliamentary self-government: Edward I, the Tudors, the Restoration “and the years which … followed the Reform Act of 1832.” The first three accomplished their purpose and stopped. The last has gone on so long I think it’s fair to ask “Are we there yet?” Or has governmental hyperactivity become a vicious circle where ever more rules and spending seem crucial to undo the harm of the last batch?
If so we’re on the wrong track. But we can’t complain about the quality of government we receive, its quantity or the lack of accountability when we learn that seven of every eight members of the Quebec majority caucus are in the pay of the executive, and can only think to say “Why not more women?”
Jane Addams might have replied “Because it’s disgusting.” But we’ve moved on. Nothing to see here, folks.
MEANT TO BE SHOCKED AT THOSE CAQ CHAUVINIST PIGS.