Case for more independent politicians
Something rare, perhaps historic, occurred recently in St. John’s, N.L.: a sitting member of Parliament and a sitting provincial parliamentarian, who were elected as Independents, shared the stage.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, independent MP for Vancouver-Granville, participated in a discussion on Thursday night about party discipline with Paul Lane, a St. John’s independent MHA. The occasion was a panel discussion about navigating party discipline, moderated by the Samara Centre for Democracy. Former Ontario MP Jane Philpott and former Newfoundland MP Ryan Cleary joined them.
How rare? Since 1972, the first year that party labels appeared on federal election ballots, just 11 people have been elected as an independent MP in Canada. Across the country, voters in four provinces (Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and P.E.I.) have yet to elect an independent to the provincial legislature.
In that time span, no province has elected more than a grand total of three independents. Quite simply, if you want to get elected to Parliament or a provincial assembly in Canada, you had best run with a political party.
If you assembled all of these people from the past half century, the ones elected with a party label would fill a mid-size hockey arena. What about the incumbents who were originally elected with a party, got into a disagreement, stood for re-election as an independent and managed to be re-elected? There wouldn’t be enough of them to join Wilson-Raybould and Lane to assemble a hockey team roster. The nonincumbents elected as an independent? Barely enough to ice a starting lineup.
What wasn’t rare at the Memorial University event was that the independents and former MPs repeated a common lament: Canada’s political system is broken. Well-worn themes arose that MPs have vocalized over and over to Samara about the iron grip of political parties.
MPs are given scripts to read. They cannot speak freely in the legislature, if they are even able to get the opportunity to do so. They see the budget moments before the public does. Unelected staff in the Prime Minister’s Office and leaders’ offices have too much power and too little experience. MPs are given messaging multiple times a day to repeat.
Bursts of spontaneous applause from a captivated audience Thursday night demonstrated that the public is hungering for authenticity that scripted party robots fail to deliver.
Yet these two independents’ approach to politics is quite different. Wilson-Raybould is a defender of the national interest and a policy thinker. She has served in cabinet. As an Indigenous woman, she is a trailblazer — the first woman since party labels appeared on ballots to be elected as an independent to Parliament. She became a household name during the SNC-Lavalin affair in 2019. The hackneyed expression of speaking truth to power applies.
History will be kind to Wilson-Raybould in light of the ethics commissioner’s investigation. Moreover, SNC-Lavalin’s threats of job losses — frequently evoked by the PMO — have not materialized after a subsidiary of the company pled guilty in December to fraud.
In contrast, as a provincial politician, Lane has only ever known life as a backbencher. When Wilson-Rayboul d tweeted a photograph of them together, former independent MP Celina CaesarChavannes commented: “This is one of the best pictures on the internet!”
Lane is the classic constituency-focused politician. Actively engaged in local organizations, he served on municipal council and has a reputation for returning messages promptly. He has the further distinction of having been elected as a Progressive Conservative, next as a Liberal, and then as an independent.
A parliamentarian who is bound by party chains lacks freedom. Sadly, parties are unlikely to let up on clamping down on what party-affiliated candidates and parliamentarians can say.
Thursday’s discussion made a strong case that Canada would be better off with more independents elected to its legislatures. Here’s hoping that the rarity of Canadians electing Independents becomes a little less rare.
Alex Marland is a professor of political science at Memorial University of Newfoundland and a member of the Royal Society of Canada College. He is the lead editor of “Inside the Campaign: Managing Elections in Canada,” to be published by UBC Press this spring.