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assemblies that control the executive branch of government and not the other way around. Responsible government is the constitutionally enshrined convention that governments are responsible and accountable to the democratically elected assemblies. Responsible government ensures that if the elected assembly loses confidence in the government, or if the government loses the support of the assembly, the government can govern no more.
Under the British parliamentary system, we do not elect our governments, we elect our legislatures. This is a fundamental and frequently misunderstood concept. It is still the prerogative of the governor general (or lieutenant-governor of a province) to ask an appropriate leader if he or she is able to form a government. By both convention and practical reality, the individual chosen will be the leader of the party in the assembly who has the confidence and support of the majority of the members of the assembly.[3]
When one party has a majority of seats in the assembly, the choice becomes obvious. However, when no party has a clear majority of seats in the assembly, that matter becomes more complicated. The queen’s representative’s first and most important constitutional function is to ensure that at all times Her Majesty has a government in place. In a situation where no party has a clear majority of members in the assembly, the person chosen will be the individual who has the support of the majority of assembly members, not necessarily the leader of the party with the most members.
Technically speaking, the person chosen to serve need not even be a member of the assembly, provided that he or she has the support and confidence of the majority of the members.
Twice, Christy Clark has been asked to form a government in British Columbia notwithstanding the fact that she was not a member of the legislative assembly at the time. In 2011, she became the leader of the B.C. Liberal Party but was not an MLA. She formed a government, chose a cabinet, and governed from the gallery of the Victoria assembly for several months before obtaining a seat in a by-election. Then, in the 2013 B.C. general election, her Liberals retained a majority of the seats, but she lost her own. She was still the premier and she chose a new cabinet. Within months she was able to win a seat, again in a by-election.
The point is that one can lead a government as long as, but only as long as, one has the support of the Legislature or Parliament, as the case may be.
Media often refer to governments as serving terms; technically this is incorrect. Although legislative assemblies and legislators serve terms, governments are elected without term. Governing is a continuous process, as there must at all times be a government in place. Accordingly, once sworn in, a first minister (prime minister or premier) remains so until he or she resigns from office and is replaced by a new leader who has the support and confidence of the assembly.
My political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan, David Smith, explained responsible government in a simple but profound way: those who advise the Crown must command the support of the popularly elected chamber. Lose the confidence of the House and you must resign.
Canadian voters elect legislators; they do not select governments — that is the responsibility of the queen’s representative. Accordingly, if democracy is to be maintained, the legislative branch must remain supreme and the government accountable and responsible to it.
When the government of the day ceases to be responsible to Parliament, responsible government is lost and democracy is imperilled. As we shall explore in the following chapters, that is exactly what is occurring in Canada today, and the product of this lack of accountability is questionable decisions made by governments that are not responsible in either meaning of the term.
* Mercantalism was the main economic system used in the period from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Its main goal was to increase a nation’s wealth by imposing government regulation on all of the nation’s commercial interests. It was believed that national strength could be maximized by limiting imports via tariffs and maximizing exports.
2.
Public Debt: A Runaway Train Wreck
Canada is in debt. In 2014, the federal public debt is in excess of $600 billion; if you are Canadian, your share of that federal accumulated debt is $17,500. The debt grows by over $49 million every day; over $2 million every hour.[1]
These numbers are staggering, but they tell only a partial story. The provinces and territories have amassed in excess of half a trillion dollars in debt as well: $547 billion to be exact.[2] Accordingly, Canada’s total public debt is a just shy of $1.2 trillion, or a sobering $33,800 per Canadian (exclusive of unfunded pension liabilities).
Currently, eleven cents of every tax dollar goes toward servicing the above debt.[3] If Canada could have avoided paying $31 billion in interest, it would have recorded surpluses in the last several fiscal years. No past debt would have meant no current deficit!
The International Monetary Fund has warned that if Canada does not reduce its spending from 43 percent to 38 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), the inevitable result will be higher tax burdens, dangerous debt loads, or both.[4] As countries of Western Europe such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and even Great Britain have all painfully demonstrated, growth in public sector spending in excess in the growth of the economy cannot continue indefinitely. High deficits and growing public debt inevitably lead to higher interest rates, higher exchange rates because of a devalued currency, and eventually to capital leaving the country.
There are other direct and immediate consequences of public borrowing. With eleven cents of every tax dollar going to pay interest on the federal debt, that is 11 percent of federal revenues available to fund programs and services. The current generation must pay for past borrowing and therefore deny itself 11 percent of the services it is actually paying for. The same will be true tomorrow. Public debt mortgages our country’s future and imposes higher taxes on future generations, who will be forced to pay for our current borrowing. Paying taxes for a previous generation’s consumption is the ultimate violation of the principle of “no taxation without representation!”
But the principle of no taxation without representation exists to ensure that taxpayers are not overly burdened. Parliament was created in the thirteenth century when King John agreed to submit his requests for taxes to a House of Commons. This time-honoured principle remains, at least in theory, to the present day. The government must submit its spending estimates to the democratically elected Parliament. The government can only spend money once Parliament has approved and authorized it.
But in the last half-century, Parliament’s ability to hold government to account has declined significantly. At the same time, Parliament’s ability to control the public purse strings has been increasingly compromised, and now is almost completely neutered. The result of this increasingly weakened parliamentary oversight of federal public spending has been a runaway train of spending and dangerously accelerating public debt.
In 1970, the federal public debt was $15.3 billion. By 1980, it had grown to $61.6 billion. By 1990, it had exploded to $336 billion. In 2000, it had grown at a somewhat decelerated rate to $550 billion. It actually fell to $477 billion by 2010; but recent out-of-control spending has caused the federal public debt to grow to $526 billion in 2011, $558 billion in 2012, $587 billion in 2013, and $616 billion by the beginning of 2014.[5]
From $15 billion to over $600 billion in forty-three years, with over $125 billion of that additional debt added under the watch of the current Conservative government.
According to the Fraser Institute, “The bottom line is that the Conservative government is simply not budgeting in a conservative manner. Not only is it failing to conservatively forecast GDP growth and revenues, or [put] … forth realistic spending projections, it is not dealing with the root cause of the deficit: excessive increases in spending.”[6]
With the entire Canadian public debt, including that of the provinces, in excess of $1.2 trillion, many economists have warned all Canadian governments to stop searching for additional revenue sources and spend more time and energy finding ways to curtail and reduce their own profligate spending habits.
Several interrelated