Point of View 2-Book Bundle. Douglas L. BlandЧитать онлайн книгу.
chamber will effect a noticeable improvement. All too frequently, the Senate caucus is as disciplined and deferential to leadership as the House caucuses. More rubber stamping is unhelpful. Until we are in a position to have actual senatorial elections, democratic reformers will be limited to insisting that future appointments be based on merit, experience, policy expertise, or outstanding achievement in a chosen field.
The greatest factor in our democratic deficit is not the unelected Senate, but the ebbing of power away from Parliament and its concentration inside the Prime Minister’s Office. However, a Senate operating as a PMO branch plant, as it has been recently, serves no purpose whatsoever. For a chamber to provide sober second thought, it must have some notional objectivity. A Senate full of partisan appointments and government cheerleaders provides the farthest thing from that objective standard.
Appointing senators based on the quality of the representation they might provide, rather than according to their partisan pedigree, will be an integral interim step to an eventual constitutional amendment providing for a fully elected Senate. Our broken democracy needs more and better-functioning checks on centralized power — not fewer.
5.
Cabinet: A Representative not a Deliberative Body
I grew up in Melville, Saskatchewan, and have always had an interest in local history. Once I became a parliamentarian, I decided to research Melville’s political history.
For almost a half-century, Melville was represented by two high-profile Liberal MPs, both of whom served in the federal cabinet as the minister of agriculture. The second, elected during the Second World War, was former Saskatchewan premier Jimmy Gardiner. His predecessor was a homesteader from the Abernethy district named W.R. Motherwell.
Motherwell was initially elected to represent the riding of Regina. But due to electoral redistribution, Motherwell decided to contest the riding of Melville, for which he was elected to the 16th Parliament on September 14, 1926. However, he promptly resigned the seat on October 11, forcing a by-election for Melville, in which Motherwell was acclaimed on November 2, 1926.
Why were there two elections in six weeks?
According to the Parliament of Canada’s records, Motherwell’s resignation from the House of Commons was necessary because of his “acceptance of [an] emolument under the Crown.” An emolument is simply a salary, fee, or profit from employment or an office. So, Motherwell received employment from the federal Crown necessitating his resignation from Parliament.
What was the federal appointment that constituted a conflict with his role as a member of a Parliament which he was elected to less than a month prior?
On October 11, 1926, Prime Minister Mackenzie King appointed Motherwell to his cabinet as minister of agriculture. The acceptance of this emolument under the Crown necessitated that Motherwell resign his recently acquired seat in the House of Commons. The seemingly strange convention of the day was that a newly appointed minister had to resubmit his candidacy to his constituents in a by-election to determine if he still had their support. And so, Motherwell was forced to resign his seat and run again. He did so and was re-elected.
Today, it would appear inconceivable that a riding would not want to be represented by a powerful cabinet minister. But this interesting parliamentary anecdote is an important reminder of the distinction and potential conflict that exists between being a member of the legislature and being a member of the executive government.
The House of Commons was created to represent and defend the English commoners from the excessive demands and needs of the Crown. The monarch would have to submit his request for taxes to the House of Commons. The House existed to ensure that the king’s requests were reasonable and that the taxpayers were not overly burdened.
The House exists to represent the citizens who elect it. The executive government was disassociated from the elected Parliament. As a result, an MP asked to sit as a cabinet minister would have conflicting roles, a situation requiring him to seek reconfirmation of his legislative role from his constituents.
Remember from Chapter 2 that in British North America the governor in the colonies was appointed by Great Britain; thereafter, the governor appointed his executive council. However, the emolument rule prohibited members of the legislature from becoming cabinet ministers unless and until they resigned and then were re-elected in a by-election. The maintenance of this convention was an express attempt to reduce British executive influence in the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada (which would later become Ontario and Quebec). This convention was carried on and codified after Confederation by the act appropriately named The Independence of Parliament Act, 1867.
This rule, maintained until 1931, members of the Canadian House of Commons were prohibited from serving as cabinet ministers, unless and until they resigned and then were re-elected in a by-election. The convention was an express attempt to reduce British executive influence in the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada. (Remember from Chapter 2 that the governor in the Colonies was appointed by Great Britain and thereafter, the governor appointed his executive council.)
This convention was carried on and codified after Confederation by the act appropriately named “The Independence of Parliament Act, 1867.”
Accordingly, this convention, then codified in statute, represented an attempt to manage the inherent conflict that exists between the ministers of the executive, who spend money appropriated to it by the legislative branch, and the legislative branch itself. It was thought that perhaps the taxpayers in a riding might prefer to be represented by a legislator who was a fiscal hawk rather than by a free-spending minister. Accordingly, that question was put to them in a by-election.
Followers of American politics understand this concept, and conflict, as the American Constitution establishes a complete separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. Accordingly, Barack Obama had to resign his Senate seat upon being elected president, and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both had to do likewise on being called as successive Secretaries of State.
In Canada, becoming a cabinet minister is the pinnacle of career advancement for most MPs. Cabinet ministers are referred to by a variety of monikers: Minister, Honourable, Privy Councillor, and member of the executive council. However, despite these grand-sounding titles, the reality is that the importance of the position has continually declined as more and more power is concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The decline in ministerial input inside the Ottawa Bubble has been evolving for nearly a half-century and has been commensurate with the growth in size of government and in the size of the cabinet itself. Originally, the Canadian cabinet consisted of twelve ministers. The number of members has ballooned since then. Brian Mulroney had the largest Canadian cabinet with forty ministers. In July 2013, Prime Minister Stephen Harper increased the size of his cabinet to thirty-nine. Add thirty-one parliamentary secretaries, who are not currently sworn to the Privy Council but serve an executive function (in that they answer for the government in the House in the absence of their respective minister), and the current executive numbers seventy. With a caucus of approximately 160 members, the odds of an MP eventually being promoted to the executive are better than one in three. When one adds the positions of committee chairs and vice chairs, which also come with an emolument, the odds improve to almost one in two. Clearly, the odds of reaching the executive ranks are pretty good for loyal soldiers, i.e., those who serve the interests of the executive rather than hold that executive to account.
Over time, increasingly large cabinets have proven themselves too unwieldy. Anyone who has ever tried to have a board meeting with thirty-nine people seated at the table appreciates the frustration. Decision-making requires units of a workable size, and as a result, a secretariat and cabinet committee system have developed. The secretariat for the cabinet and its committees is provided by the Privy Council Office, which reports to the prime minister.
The most powerful cabinet committees are the Treasury Board and the Priorities and Planning Committee of Cabinet. Senior non-elected public servants participate in cabinet committee meetings