Governments and oppositions alike have openly lamented multiple problems which are often attributed (somewhat ambiguously) to parliamentary ‘dysfunction.’ Our argument is that the most fundamental problem with our democracy is that too much power over Parliament has become concentrated in the hands of Canadian prime ministers. This power makes it difficult, if not impossible at times, for the House of Commons to hold government to account.
Where does this excess power reside? In three places.
First, prime ministers enjoy virtually unchecked access to the Crown’s reserve powers, which include summoning, proroguing and dissolving the House. This means that the prime minister can decide when elections are called, when and for how long the House sits, and even, in some circumstances, whether or not the government has the confidence of the House.
The use of these reserve powers is governed by conventions — the unwritten parts of the Constitution. Over time the shared consensus necessary to ensure that these conventions serve as effective constraints has broken down. So, while these reserve powers are legally in the hands of the governor general, for all intents and purposes the prime minister has sole discretion over their use. Although some would argue the governor general could still have the final say, only once in Canadian history has a governor general ever told a prime minister “no,” and that was a long time ago.
Second, prime ministers and governments have far-reaching control over the day-to-day operations of the House of Commons. Through the applicable rules and procedures, prime ministers not only control the agenda of the House, but also weaken the democratic scrutiny of the government’s legislation and performance by setting committee membership among the members of Parliament belonging to the governing party and determining how legislation proceeds through the House.
Third, prime ministers have a variety of sticks and carrots that can be used to command the loyalty of party members, who rely on the prime minister’s support for their career advancement. Agreeable MPs might be rewarded with cabinet posts or coveted committee positions, whereas rogues might be disciplined or punished by being removed from caucus or even barred from running as a candidate for the party in future elections.
Taken together, these tools confer an enormous political advantage on the governing party yet serve no democratic purpose. In fact, they frequently work against the public’s interest in healthy, fair democratic competition.
We have identified a number of practical reforms that could address this imbalance and strengthen Canadian democracy. Some of these reforms are relatively modest and easily implemented, yet they would go along way toward preventing prime ministers and their governments from dominating political party structures and parliamentary procedures. These should include reforms such as reinstating the ability of party caucuses to remove a leader and giving them the power to choose an interim replacement until a new permanent leader can be chosen. It would be also good to limit the size of cabinet, which would cut down on the number of plum jobs the prime minister has to hand out.
But beyond these, we also believe more substantial reforms are necessary to attenuate the most wide-sweeping powers held by prime ministers over Parliament.
For starters, we should establish a deadline requiring that the House of Commons be summoned no less than 30 days after an election. This way, there is a maximum time frame within which a new government must face the House. There are a variety of reasons why a prime minister might want to put off reconvening Parliament, but few of them are democratically legitimate. Currently, the Constitution permits a prime minister to avoid the House for up to a year. This is an unacceptable and unnecessary amount of time for the House to be silenced.
There should also be fixed election dates, set every four years in a manner that removes the discretion of both the prime minister and the governor general unless two-thirds of MPs vote to dissolve the House at an earlier date. This would remove prime ministers’ ability to call ‘snap’ elections favouring the governing party’s interests. While we do currently have fixed election date legislation, it has already been demonstrated to have significant loopholes. A two-thirds threshold ensures, in most cases, that at least two parties would have to support this measure in order for it to pass.
Third, we should adopt what is known as the “constructive non-confidence” procedure. The foundation of our system is that governments require the confidence of the House — that is the support of the majority of MPs — to govern. This procedure requires that if the House defeats a government on a confidence motion, it must at the same time identify the MP who would become the new prime minister, having the confidence of the House to govern effective immediately. The motion must be supported by a simple majority of MPs. This would eliminate the power of the prime minister to treat some votes as not actually withdrawing confidence, while making clear that we could change governments between elections. This would also diminish the electoral brinksmanship that is used to force through legislation that may not pass on its own merits or to blackmail the government for opposition pet projects.
Finally, any attempt to prorogue Parliament must obtain the consent of a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons. The effect of proroguing Parliament is to stop all House procedures: committee work halts and any government bills that have not yet received royal assent die on the order paper. Going back all the way to Sir John A. Macdonald, several prime ministers have used prorogation as a way of silencing the Commons to avoid its scrutiny. There is no democratic justification for this. So, as with early dissolution, we propose requiring that the House consent to prorogation by at least a two-thirds majority. This would prevent prime ministers from ceasing debate and escaping accountability when it suits his or her partisan interests.
No magic bullet exists when it comes to fixing the problems we have identified, but the changes we are proposing would go a long way to correcting some of the greatest deficiencies plaguing our democracy. As a bonus, they may help minimize the day-to-day fractiousness that has come to characterize Canadian politics.
The House of Commons, to quote the eminent political scientist David Smith, is meant to be “the people’s House.” It is this chamber that purports to represent citizens and to hold our governments to account. We have a responsibility to ensure that the House of Commons is restored as the robust check on power that it was intended to be in our political system. After all, this is the raison d’être of parliamentary government.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Mark Jarvis and Lori Turnbull
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