By Beryl Wajsman
Monday, November 20, 2006
The recent expulsion of Member of Parliament Garth Turner from the Conservative caucus brings to light once again the quasi-democratic nature of the Canadian parliamentary system. In recent years, particularly from the time Liberal John Nunziata was expelled from the Liberal caucus for voting to rid us of the Goods & Sales Tax (which had been a Liberal campaign promise), it should have become eminently clear that our system does not allow for government by the people.
as a nation we have not kept faith with the legacy of Louis-H. Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin who introduced in the Canadas the first responsible government in the British Empire. Our development was stunted. We have never progressed beyond "order-in-council" government indirectly responsible to the populace through our out-dated "first past the post" electoral structure and an arcane adherence to party discipline that is almost proto-Stalinist in nature. It is time to face this hard and bitter truth and work toward a more perfect Dominion. It is time for the Canadian Republic.
This is not meant as a blanket defence of Garth Turner. Prime Minister Harper is a good and decent man who has shown remarkable boldness and vision in setting a just, new direction for this country after years of lethargy. In the past he too has expressed disaffection with the narrow confines imposed on MP's which forces them to have more fidelity to their party's leader than to the people who elected them. But as Prime Ministers before him, particularly leading a minority government, he too may have become constrained at the apex of power.
What Garth Turner may or may not have done in violating party discipline is not the issue. He is however yet another flashpoint for re-opening the debate on the nature of Canadian governance. This is a case of the principle being more important than the man. Turner is wrong in donning the cloak of political virginity when he calls the Conservative leadership "unrepentant" and "arrogant". anyone who wants to lead people needs a certain degree of arrogance. God knows we've had enough of the feckless leadership of "consensus" driven by polls and focus groups. Much toil and trouble signifying nothing. With Stephen Harper we know where he stands and he governs with a consistency and courage that has resonated with Canadians.
Turner may well be what the National Post called him. a "shameless self-promoter". But, and I certainly don't mean to draw a parallel, Winston Churchill said the same thing about himself. "I may be a shameless self-promoter," said he, "but no one can do it as well." The point here is that whatever we may think of the personalities of our elected representatives they must have the power to express their views, raise holy hell and be answerable only to their constituents without fear of being neutered and marginalized by "the party". This requires radical systemic change. Canadians' trust has been betrayed time and again most recently when Prime Minister Paul Martin pledged to cure the "democratic deficit" and ended up centralizing even more power in the Prime Minister's Office.
Lest anyone think that the needed changes would take years of constitutional wrangling they are mistaken. The reform of the Canadian system could be accomplished in a hundred days of purposeful action. President Franklin Roosevelt restored american consequence and confidence at the height of the Depression in his first hundred days through revolutionary economic legislation. Canada can do the same through revolutionary political reconstruction. We have it in our hands to do so since the repatriation of our Constitution. and lest we forget, when Prime Minister Trudeau couldn't get all the provinces to agree…he just went ahead and did it anyway. "Just watch me" was not just for the FLQ Crisis.
Reconstruction must begin with an end to "order-in-council" power that is vested in the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. This will require a severing of Canada's monarchical ties from whence this power stems. The monarchical connection, and the offices of state that accompany it, created from Canada's beginnings the walls of secrecy in council rooms apart that proved endemic to the development of a true liberal pluralistic democracy fuelled by an engaged citizenry of independent thought and action.
It is unconscionable that we live under a system of government that allows executive authority to push through any measure it deems fit simply through the use of an antiquated instrument of colonial governance. The order-in-council power is a remnant of 19th century authoritarianism in a 21st century world of growing empowerment.
It sustains the centralizing force of influence and imperative in the PMO and suffocates the consequence of the people's suffrage. It is symptomatic of the inherent problem of reconciling British North america act government, emblematic of parliamentary democracy, with the reality that we live in a Charter of Rights and Freedoms system that created a constitutional democracy. Despite the fact that we still don't know how to use the Charter properly, and despite the fact that many have learned to pervert its intent, the Charter opened the door to wholesale changes in our national political governance. The Charter is one of Rights and Freedoms. For two decades too many have concentrated on the Rights and created a judicial authority almost as invasive and stifling as our executive authority. Now we must learn to exercise the Freedoms.
In and of itself the severing of ties to 19th century political instruments will not be sufficient. Modern democratic governance must allow for the people to vote directly for their head of government. Only with this oversight can the power of the executive be restrained. an elected head of government will still be the leader of a party. But answerable to the people at the next ballot, not merely one of a pack that gets first past the post.
Yes, dear readers you are hearing the pealing of the bells of Republicanism. The Oxford Dictionary defines Republicanism as "…the belief that the supreme power of a country should be vested in the electoral power of the people…" What a concept. Supreme power vested in the people's voice. That's a lot better governance than the ermine robes of a Governor-General cloaking our fidelity to the supremacy of bloodlines of familial descent.
a directly elected leader would have a selected Cabinet. Hopefully of the best and the brightest. This new executive authority will have its power balanced and held in check by an elected Senate and House whose Committees will be given real budgets with effective staff so that law and legislation will be a joint effort of the legislative as well as the executive branch of government. Elected representatives will be able to voice open opinions unfettered by party solidarity and restrained only by their consciences. Much as the United States has conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans we will see dynamic new coalitions arise on an issue by issue basis.
Reforming the executive and legislative branches of our government will not be sufficient however. The third leg of the Canadian shaky stool must be repaired as well. We need more courts and more judges. Law in this country has been made a two-edged sword of craft and oppression rather than the shield of the innocent and the staff of the just.
Centralized executive power has found it too useful too often to create useless rule and regulation merely to have something to insert into flyers at the next election. Citizens are confused and constrained, constantly caught in legal quagmires that, in Viscount Buckmaster's words, are nothing but "…snares for the unwary…" Our legal system does not reflect the equity of just consideration when it takes an average of three years to get your day in court on most challenges.
The Canadian national delusion that our appointed judiciary is somehow purer and morally superior to the american system is nothing but a farce as anyone familiar with the workings of the judicial councils that submit names for judgeships can tell you. We need at least twice the number of judges we now have and they should be elected at least through the Superior Court level. Justice will be no more politicized than it is now. But at least it will politicized through the diffusion of power to the people, not through the concentration of power in the elites. an elected judiciary will be the final, and equal, check and balance on the powers of the executive and legislative branches, and all three will derive their authority from the consent of the governed.
John aimers, former Dominion President of the Monarchist League, once said in an interview that Canadians have "…no appetite for constitutional discussions on whether links to the monarchy, and thereby the office of the Governor-General, are necessary." He said Canada is well-governed and that Canadians are more interested in "…a chicken in every pot and shorter waiting times in hospitals…" In his words we can uncover the reasons for the compromise of Canadian consequence.
Canadians have been conditioned to abdicate their individual imperatives and the sovereignty of their suffrage to institutions. It's a top down process. When citizens are raised from childhood on bended knee to authority, they can never arouse in themselves the spirit, or confidence to take control of their own lives. Buck-passing becomes a way of life. From the office of Governor-General to the notion of supremacy of Parliament, to choosing judges behind closed doors, the national political will in this country has become as petrified as the trees in Soviet gulags.
No, Canada is not well-governed. Not in any meaningful systemic sense. Though Prime Minister Harper is well-intentioned looking forward, he will have to overcome decades of abuse by statocratic engineers in Ottawa and the provincial capitals who have so incessantly intervened in every aspect of Canadians' lives that we are rendered senseless, and scared, to voice opinions that might inflict more interference in our privacy and prerogatives from state agency. This fear is perfectly mirrored in the timid behaviour of our MPs who are more concerned with pleasing their parties, and their leaders, than in representing the people. That is why there is no option but radical reconstruction. Gradualism never comes to full flower in Canada. There is a fierce urgency of now.
We cannot be considered well-governed when, prior to the election of Stephen Harper, Canadians witnessed one Prime Minister use his executive authority to set aside Charter guarantees of due process; witnessed a previous one use the unbridled power of the PMO to try and destroy an official who would not bow to his will on a loan to a constituent; and witnessed yet a third who emasculated federal power by caving in to jurisdictional demands of provincial premiers in return for their political support.
The English political philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote that, "The Republican form of Government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature." americans may not have perfected the "highest type of human nature". But every american citizen knows his birthright bequeaths to him an inherent superiority over his governors. That birthright is the genius of the american experiment. It is time for Canadians to find the courage to reclaim ours.
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