Discipline
versus Democracy: Party
Discipline in Canadian Politics
by David Kilgour, M.P.
John Kirsner
and Kenneth McConnell
(published in Crosscurrents:
Contemporary Political Issues,
second edition, Edited by Mark Charlton
and Paul Barker)
Representative
democracy in Canada is so dominated by political
parties that some experts believe the party
discipline exerted on most votes in our
House of Commons and provincial legislatures
is the tightest in the democratic world.
Defenders of our model argue that many Canadians
prefer it this way because each party's
candidates can be assumed at election time
to share the party's position on every issue.
Others contend our executive democracy,
patterned on a system prevailing in Great
Britain about three centuries ago, requires
iron party discipline if our fused legislative
and executive branches of government are
to function effectively. Another reason,
probably the most important, is that our
practice makes life easier for leaders of
both government and opposition parties.
Unlike parliamentary
systems in places such as Great Britain
and Germany, virtually every vote in Canadian
legislatures is considered potentially one
of non-confidence in the government. Even
a frivolous opposition motion to adjourn
for the day, if lost, can be deemed by a
cabinet to have been one of non-confidence.
The whips of government parties have for
decades used the possibility of an early
election to push their members into voting
the party line. The opposition attitude
is so similar that we had a few years ago
the spectacle of both opposition parties
in our House of Commons arguing that a free
vote on an abortion resolution would "rip
out the heart" of our parliamentary
system of government. The constituents of
both provincial and federal legislators
would be the real winners if party discipline
is loosened. Private members from both government
and opposition benches could then take positions
on government bills and other matters based
on assisting their constituents instead
of their respective party hierarchies.
Party
Discipline in Canada
W.S. Gilbert
put the present Canadian political reality
succinctly; "I always voted at my party's
call and I never thought of thinking for
myself at all". Canadian members of
Parliament are essentially passive observers
in the formulation and administration of
most national policy. Indeed, Sean Moore,
editor of the Ottawa lobbyist magazine,
The Lobby Digest, told a committee
of MPs in early 1993 that they are rarely
lobbied by the almost 3,000 reported lobbyists
in the capital because "elected officials
play a very minor role in governing".
MPs from all
three parties vote in solid blocs on almost
every issue. Government members do so from
a fear that a lost vote on a measure will
be deemed by their prime minister as a loss
of confidence. This stems from the early
to mid-nineteenth century British concept
that a government falls if it loses the
support of a majority in the Commons on
any vote.
Besides the
threat of parliamentary dissolution, private
members are also subject to rewards and
punishments from party leadership, depending
on how they vote. A 'loyal' MP who votes
the party line will be a candidate for promotion
(if in the government party, perhaps to
Cabinet), or other benefits from the party,
such as interesting trips or appointment
to an interesting House committee. A 'disloyal'
MP who votes against the party leadership
may be prevented from ascending the political
ladder and could ultimately be thrown out
of the party caucus. In light of this, "caucus
solidarity and my constituents be damned"
might be the real oath of office for most
honourable members in all political parties.
Reg Stackhouse,
a former Tory MP for Scarborough West, in
a submission to the Task Force on Reform
of the House of Commons in 1985, commented
on the discipline imposed on private members
of the government party:
"Not
only is it demanded that [the member]
vote with the government on crucial matters
such as the Speech from the Throne or
the budget, but also that he vote, speak
or remain silent according to the dictate
of the government. Even though a government
may be at no risk of falling, it requires
this all but unconditional commitment,
and renders the member a seeming robot,
at least imaginatively replaceable by
a voting machine."
This is the
major defect in Canadian Parliamentary democracy:
most MPs are essentially brute votes who
submit it to any demand from their respective
party whips. In Canada's current political
culture, a prime minister or premier could
in practice on all confidence votes cast
proxy votes on behalf of all government
members. The same practice prevails in the
opposition parties because they think themselves
obliged to vote in uniform party blocs virtually
always. If not, some of our media, apparently
unaware that parliamentary democracy has
evolved elsewhere, including in the matters
of the parliamentary system in the U.K.,
report that the opposition leaders cannot
control their caucuses. This status quo
has persisted for so long primarily because
party leaders and policy mandarins obviously
prefer it. Measures going into the House
of Commons where one party has a majority
usually emerge essentially unscathed. Everything
follows a highly predictable script: obedient
government members praise it; opposition
parties rail against it; and plenty of bad
measures become law essentially unamended.
The present
regional differences and priorities require
much better public expression in Parliament
at least if one central institution of our
national government is to reflect adequately
all parts of the country. Regional voices
are frequently suffocated by rigid party
discipline and the entrenched habit of all
three national caucuses to maintain a close
eye on what opinion leaders, particularly
columnists, in Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal regard
as the national interest on any issue. Therefore,
reforming the role of MPs is not only essential
for parliamentary legitimacy in post-modern
Canada, but is vital to "nationalizing
Ottawa".
Eliminating
Excesses
A report by
the late Eugene Forsey and Graham Eglington
(The Question of Confidence in Responsible
Government) lists a large number of
measures defeated in the Westminster Parliament.
On most, the cabinet of the day simply carried
on, presumably either dropping the failed
proposal or seeking majority support for
a different measure.
For tax bills,
the list of such defeats begins in 1834.
During 1975, for example, a financial bill
of the Harold Wilson cabinet dealing with
their value-added tax rate was defeated,
but the ministry carried on in office, treating
it not as a confidence vote.
The Forsey-Eglington
report also emphasizes that in earlier years,
government MPs in Canada were permitted
to vote against cabinet measures. For example,
between 1867 and 1872, their study lists
fully 18 pages of cases in which Conservative
MPs voted against measures of John A. Macdonald's
government. The sky did not fall; Macdonald's
government was able to function effectively;
government MPs could keep both their self-respect
and their membership in the government caucus.
The study
also provides interesting data about voting
in our House of Commons during other periods:
- in 1896,
fully 16 Conservative MPs voted with Laurier's
Liberals to adjourn a Conservative measure
intended to restore Catholic schools in
Manitoba,
- in 1981,
16 Conservative MPs, including three who
later became ministers, voted against
the final resolution patriating our Constitution.
The all-party
McGrath report on parliamentary reform came
to the conclusion that the role of the individual
member must be enhanced. As James McGrath
himself said in 1985, "I wanted to
put into place a system where being a member
of Parliament would be seen to be an end
to itself and not a means to an end".
On the question of non-confidence, McGrath
recommended:
- a government
should be careful before it designates
a vote as one of confidence. It should
confine such declarations to measures
central to its administration,
- while a
defeat on supply is a serious matter,
elimination or reduction of an estimate
can be accepted,
- in a parliament
with a government in command of a majority,
the matter of confidence has really been
settled by the electorate,
- government
should therefore have the wisdom to permit
members to decide many matters in their
own personal judgements.
Reg Stackhouse
agrees that party discipline must have limits:
"Tight party lines need be drawn only
when the government's confidence is at stake,
i.e., when the government decides the fate
of a bill is absolutely essential to its
objectives".
One way to
reduce party discipline in the interest
of greater fairness for every province would
be to write into our constitution, as the
West Germans did in their Basic Law, that
MPs and senators shall "not [be] bound
by orders and instructions and shall be
subject only to their conscience".
Party discipline diluted this principle
in West Germany, but when it was combined
with another feature of their constitution
- that no chancellor can be defeated in
their equivalent of our House of Commons
unless a majority of members simultaneously
agree on a new person to become chancellor
- there appears now to be a more independent
role for members of the Bundestag than for
Canadian members of Parliament. For example,
in the case of the defeat of the minority
Clark government in 1979 on its budget,
the West German rule would have kept Clark
in office unless the Liberals, New Democrats
and Social Credit MPs had agreed simultaneously
on a new prime minister who could hold the
confidence of a majority of MPs. A similar
rule, if adopted by the House of Commons,
would inevitably weaken our party discipline
significantly because MPs from all parties
could vote on the merits of issues, knowing
that defeat would bring down only the measure
and not the government.
Another approach
would be for each new federal or provincial
cabinet to specify at the start of their
mandate which matters at the heart of their
program will be confidence issues. The Mulroney
government, for example, might have spelled
out in late 1988 that the Canada-U.S. Free
Trade Agreement would be a confidence issue.
In those situations, party discipline would
be justifiable. Otherwise, its backbenchers
would be free to vote for their constituents'
interests at all times. This restored independence
for legislators would lead to better representation
for all regions of Canada and much more
occupational credibility for Canadian legislators.
A study of
the Thirty-Second Assembly of Ontario (1981-1985)
indicated that its members voted in uniform
party blocs about 95 per cent of the time.
The same pattern has applied in at least
the past four Parliaments in Ottawa. The
Canadian pattern indicates that all of the
various party leaders could cast a proxy
vote on behalf of all their followers without
even bothering to have them physically present.
It also overlooks that a majority or even
a minority government can function effectively
without our present stratospheric levels
of party solidarity.
The American
Way
In the United
States Congress, where admittedly there
is a strict separation of powers between
the executive and the legislative branches
of government, legislation does get passed
with far less party loyalty. The constitutional
separation of powers and the weakness of
party discipline in congressional voting
behaviour greatly facilitate effective regional
representation in Washington. Unlike the
situation in Canada where a government falls
if it loses the support of a majority in
the House of Commons on a confidence vote,
U.S. presidents and congress are elected
for fixed terms. Neither resigns if a particular
measure is voted down in either the Senate
or the House of Representatives.
The practices
in our two countries are so different, that
The Congressional Quarterly defines
party unity votes there as those in which
at least 51 per cent of members of one party
vote against 51 per cent of the other party.
Under this definition, itself astonishing
to Canadian legislators, the Quarterly
notes that for the years 1975-1982 party
unity votes occurred in only 44.2 per cent
of the 4,417 recorded Senate votes and in
only 39.8 per cent of those in the House
of Representatives. This sample, moreover,
includes the years 1976-1980, the last period
before 1992-96 when Democrats controlled
the White House and both branches of Congress.
Another feature
of the congressional system that fosters
effective regional input in national policy
making is territorial bloc-voting - something
quite unknown in Canada's House of Commons.
Representatives from the two political parties
of the Mountain states, Sun Belt states,
New England states and others vote en bloc
or work together in committees to advance
common interests.
A good example
of how effective regional representatives
can influence the geographic location of
federal government procurement, which affects
the geographic distribution of the manufacturing
sector, is the Southern congressional influence.
It played a major role in the post-war concentration
of federal military and space expenditures
in the South and in the general economic
revival and growth of the Sun Belt. And
during 1981-82, the height of the "boll-weevil
era", the long-time legislative coalition
of Southern Democrats and Republicans was
successful more than 85 per cent of the
time, due to mutual areas of agreement and
interest.
The point
of this comparison is only to emphasize
that, unlike the American Congress, Canadian
bloc voting makes bi- or tri-partisan agreement
on anything in our legislatures exceedingly
rare. In our current political culture,
if a government or opposition MPs loyalty
to his/her province clashes with the instruction
of the party whip, putting constituents'
or regional considerations first in his
way of voting implies considerable risk
to one's prospects for party advancement.
Backbench MPs in Canada are thus far less
able to represent regional interest effectively
than are their counterparts in Washington
where the congressional system provides
the freedom for effective regional representation
when an issue has clear regional implications.
This, of course, is not to suggest that
Canada should duplicate the American Congressional
style of government. Rather, it is to point
out that the best solution to ongoing problems
of representative democracy in Canada might
be to adopt attractive features from various
systems, including the American one.
Putting
Constituents First
Canada is
a federal state and federalism means that
on some issues the will of the popular majority
will be frustrated. If the biggest battalions
of voters are to prevail over smaller ones
under any circumstances, we should drop
the charade that we have a federal system
of government that respects minorities in
times of stress. The notion that the largest
group of Canadians, i.e., southern Ontarians
and metropolitan Quebeckers, must be accommodated
always has resulted in discontent everywhere
and accompanying feelings of regional irrelevancy.
In an increasingly
interdependent world, many Canadians in
our outer eight provinces and territories
at least want new or altered institutions
that will represent the interest of both
"Inner Canadians" (those who live
in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor)
and "Outer Canadians" effectively.
Unless we move away from the notion that
"the national interest" is merely
a code-phrase for the most populous region
dominating all corners of the country, frictions
between Inner and Outer Canada are likely
to worsen.
If party discipline
in Canada were relaxed, representation for
all areas of Canada would be improved. It
would be easier for, say, Western MPs to
defy their three party establishments, if
need be, in support of Western issues. Coalitions
composed of members of all parties could
exist for the purpose of working together
on issues of common regional or other concern.
The present adversarial attitudes and structures
of Parliament or legislatures in which opposition
parties oppose virtually anything a government
proposes might well change in the direction
of parties working together for the common
good.
Members of
Parliament today represent an average of
about 87,000 voters. At present, few government
and opposition MPs have any real opportunity
to put their constituents first in votes
in the House of Commons. Real power is concentrated
in the hands of the three party leaderships.
Canadian democracy itself would benefit
if we put our present mind-numbing party
discipline where it belongs - in the history
books.
|
