One tiny victory ahead for democracy
In the last election campaign, Michael Ignatieff spoke persuasively, often and at length about the importance of Parliament, complaining that Stephen Harper had shown contempt for our democracy’s central institution. Harper, on the other hand, talked about something more interesting to most voters: the economy.
Voters sent Ignatieff back to the lecture hall and gave Harper a majority.
Having run a presidential-style campaign, he received a presidential mandate, and governs as a president does, issuing fiats through unelected staffers in his office, who are able to control MPs to a degree that would shock MPs in Britain.
Our political campaigns are so leader-centric that most MPs understand that their masters are not really the people in their communities but the party leader who got them elected.
This is not only true of the Conservatives. What else explains the many formerly unknown students and CEGEP professors elected under Jack Layton’s banner in Quebec?
I think this leader-centric politics is the result of Canadians’ confusion about our system. We don’t elect a prime minister, as the Americans elect a president, but everybody acts as though we do.
But presidential systems are designed with checks and balances, not a Parliament that rubberstamps everything the prime minister wants.
Our parliamentary democracy is degraded and debased, fulfilling a largely ceremonial function while the real work of governing takes place in secret.
Individual MPs can’t meaningfully review spending before voting on money bills. They do not have the right to rise in the House of Commons to ask questions of concern from their constituents without the approval of party bosses. Legislation is rarely meaningfully amended in committees.
Everybody knows that the system is broken, including a growing number of Conservative backbenchers who are bravely pushing for reforms.
The catalyst was a motion condemning sex-selection abortions that British Columbia backbencher Mark Warawa introduced.
The prime minister had promised voters that his government would not allow debate on abortion — a presidential veto — so the party killed the bill at committee.
Warawa wanted to complain about that in the House of Commons during the daily 15-minute period allotted for members’ statements. But just before he was to speak, the party yanked his slot.
He stood to complain to Speaker Andrew Scheer that “he experienced the removal of my right and my privilege” as an MP, which seems to be true.
Government whip Gordon O’Connor told Scheer that Warawa was wrong: “It is not your job as referee to tell the coach or manager which player to put on to play at any given time. That is a question for each team to decide.”
Theoretically, all MPs have the right to make statements, but for decades the party whips have parcelled out the slots — just like a hockey coach shifting lines.
The Conservatives use this control to get MPs to stand every day to tediously denounce the NDP’s supposed plans for a job-killing carbon tax.
Many backbench Tory MPs would prefer to have the freedom to stand up and talk about something important to them or their constituents, and 12 of them have now stood in the House to speak in support of Warawa’s complaint, calling on the Speaker to let them speak without party permission.
If the Speaker says yes, they could sometimes ludicrously attack a mythical carbon tax and other times talk about oil seeds or local music festivals or whatever.
For a year, a group of about 20 Conservative MPs has been holding quiet meetings on the Hill to discuss ways to advance democratic reform. This is a democracy movement, not an anti-abortion movement in disguise, as some have written.
The MPs who have stood in the House — including John Williamson, the former director of communications to Harper — are likely sacrificing their career prospects by speaking out, but the PMO has not put the muscle on them, likely because what they are seeking is entirely within their rights, and because they are otherwise loyal soldiers.
On Friday, new Liberal leader Justin Trudeau announced that the Liberals would move a motion Monday to give MPs the right to speak without permission from party bosses.
It looked like the motion could have passed with the help of the pro-democracy Tory MPs, but the government quickly postponed the Liberals’ opposition day, pointing to the terrible events in Boston and saying MPs need to debate an antiterrorism bill, a tissue-thin excuse for avoiding a humiliating defeat at the hands of the new Liberal leader.
The Speaker is expected to rule next week on Warawa’s motion before the Liberals can bring the question to a vote.
The Conservatives are likely now hoping that Scheer will rule against them and for Warawa, which will quietly resolve the issue without giving Trudeau a win, and Parliament will take one very small step in the right direction.