Whoops. That should read Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Sorry.
These days it's easy to get confused about the role of Harper, who is nominally the prime minister of a Westminster cabinet government in which the central functions of government are carried out by Parliament.
Over time, under successive prime ministers, power has shifted away from Parliament, but under Harper it has become thoroughly subordinated to the backroom operatives in his office, who wield the real power.
It is not, as Rick Mercer suggested last week, time to shut down the House, since Parliament can still serve as a helpmate to the anonymous men and women who really run the country, but we ought to acknowledge that we are in a new era in which Parliament is a shadow play.
In the days of John A. Macdonald, Parliament was the place where the nation's key debates took place. There were plenty of "loose fish" back then, MPs who would vote for or against bills depending on their judgment, so the debates were crucial.
Macdonald lamented the difficulty of herding those loose fish. "Anyone can support me when they think I'm right," he said. "What I want is someone that will support me when I am wrong."
Harper couldn't make a similar complaint, because every single member of the Conservative caucus supports him, every time, right or wrong.
These days, the important debates take place not in the House but on TV screens — much in the form of paid advertising — and each party is therefore run by marketing specialists.
All but a handful of very strong MPs are elected by those marketing teams, so they can't claim an independent mandate. The recent orange wave, where dozens of unknowns were swept into office on Jack Layton's coattails, shows that our system is becoming more leader-centred.
In a traditional parliamentary system, leaders win their mandate from MPs in the House. Thus, John Diefenbaker was effectively taken down by his own caucus. By 1988, when a majority of Liberal MPs tried to oust John Turner, he was able to beat them back, claiming a direct mandate from party supporters.
Over time, prime ministers have used that direct authority — a result of electronic media — to strengthen their hand, starting with Pierre Trudeau, who weakened ministers by strengthening the central agencies.
Harper has continued that centralization and subordinated the public service, so that significant plans are drawn up in his office, not the offices of his ministers or bureaucrats, and the legislative process in the House is an empty ordeal that must be endured.
So the cabinet is a focus group, and most ministers are best understood as spokesministers, reading lines written by the PMO.
(For that reason, I find it hard to work up much enthusiasm for calls for the resignations of ministers like Bev Oda or Peter MacKay, even when they have misled the House.)
In this session, Harper's people have used time allocation as never before, cutting off debate to force through their bills.
It is possible that after Christmas, once he has got the urgent stuff through, Harper will make greater use of parliamentary committees, allowing them to actually work on bills, but for the moment, we have legislation by fiat.
A nasty recent push poll in Montreal — in which the Conservatives told voters that Liberal MP Irwin Cotler would soon be leaving his seat — suggests that the Tories intend to conduct a permanent campaign, as in the United States.
This presidentialization of the Canadian system is worrying, not because of some fetishistic attachment to the trappings of Parliament, but because it allows for greater centralization than is found in other democracies.
In the United States, Obama can't act without Congress. In Britain, prime ministers can never impose iron discipline on their huge, leaky caucuses.
A better comparison to the current Canadian situation might be Russia, where Vladimir Putin is able to act without concern for the formal role of institutions, although in Canada there are a series of extra-governmental actors — the premiers, the courts and the media — that would prevent any government from going too far.
And we have watchdogs — the auditor general, the parliamentary budget officer and the like — but according a count by Queen's University Professor Ned Franks, Harper has fired or forced out 10 watchdogs, which tends to cow the others.
In the last election, in the face of a Liberal campaign that attacked him as an enemy of Parliament, Harper communicated a powerful message of strength and stability and convinced Canadians he was best equipped to manage the economy.
Voters will judge him on those terms in four years. Until then, he has extraordinary latitude to act as he sees fit.
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Source: Canada.com
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