History of parliament: What would Robert Baldwin say

"Doug Ford fires PC Caucus Chair" says the Toronto Star headline,  

But why doesn't the PC caucus fire Doug Ford instead? You know they have the power.  Let the caucus fails to show up just once for a Ford government legislative bill, and the guy is toast -- that's their superpower, and the essence of parliamentary accountability. 

Meanwhile Althia Raj documents the bullying tendency of Prime Minister Carney, whose billionaire-CEO mindset is more deeply engrained than his parliamentary understandings as he deals with a caucus afraid to apply its authority to him.

“He yells,” said one MP who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from the Prime Minister’s Office. “He punches down at caucus all the time.”

But the bit of the TorStar file on parliamentary ignorance that really sticks is one from Christopher Hume.  Hume is an architecture critic and a friend of cities, but on parliament and the constitution, he's as deluded as, well, as everyone else in this amnesiac political culture of ours.

Because Canada’s bizarrely conceived constitution reduces cities to mere creatures of the provinces, the premier can interfere to his heart’s content.” (Toronto Star, May 30, 2026.)

Actually the constitution doesn't. That phrase about cities as creatures is not in the constitution at all.  It's from a Supreme Court of Canada opinion of 1993. It's a legal fiction. The BNA Act, which is more democratic than most of us today, gives the provinces the responsibility to create municipal governments. It was the SCC's ignorance of constitutional history that gave them the right to tyrannize the cities.  

It's bedrock in Canada's constitutional history: once you create a level of government accountable to voters and authorized to tax and spend on their behalf, then you are stealing their money when you meddle in its affairs. That was how Canada became self-governing in the 1840s. It was the basis on which Macdonald's misuse of disallowance powers against the provinces was struck down. Far from authorizing provincial bullying of civic governments, the Canadian constitution rejects it as defiance of the principles of parliamentary democracy. The SCC will figure this out when friends of cities who figure it out start publicizing the idea.

Jeez, Robert Baldwin understood the principle  of municipal self-government a couple of decades before Confederation. This is the historian Michael S. Cross describing Baldwin's Municipal Act of 1849:

For Baldwin it was a rational division of power that required municipalities to accept responsibility for their own progress…. A measure of local autonomy gave elected township councils unlimited taxing and debt authority.  (Cross, Robert Baldwin, p.283.)

Some years later, as co-premier of the United Canadas, Baldwin retired from parliament and from politics the moment he lost the support of his parliamentary caucus. His caucus would not have tolerated any other choice. 

Baldwin could tell Mark Carney a thing or two about accountability.  He could tell Doug Ford too, but Ford would not have a clue.

Canadian at the Giro d'Italia

Jonas Vingegaard left, Derek Gee right

The Giro d'Italia ended on Sunday with a crazy sprint through the streets of Rome, and I feel I have been remiss in not keeping you up to date.

I've mostly been keeping up with the race through the daily "extended highlights" (on the Cycling part of the streamer FloSports).  These last about 20 minutes, and give a sense of the route, some of the landscape and monuments, and a least a sense of who's winning.  But not watching about three hours a day, you are a bit on the outside.  It's hard to get informed about all the teams' new colours, and the riders numbers, and the thousand of ins and out of who's crashed, who team looks strongest, and who might step up in the big mountains.

So briefly Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark is king of any race that Tadej Pogachar of Slovenia does not enter.  Tadej skipped this year's Giro, so Vingegaard dominated whenever he chose, and looked like being winner long before it ended on Sunday.

Notons, however, number five in the overall standings, and second only to Vingegaard on the highest peak of the whole 21 days of racing, was Canadian Derek Gee.  Gee is now definitely the heir to Ryder Hesjedal and Michael Woods as the latest "big Canadian boy" who can storm up the mountains with the best of him.  (Recently married, he's now Derek Gee-West, not that it gets him any more coverage in the Canadian sports press.)

Last year Gee suddenly quit the Israel-Premier Tech racing team, seemingly in protest of the actions of the Israeli state sponsor in Gaza.  In response the team threatened to keep him off the road for the duration of his contract.  But this year the Premier Tech has a new co-sponsor, and Gee is riding for one of the very strong teams, Lidl-Trek.

Both Vingo and Gee are expected to contend in the Tour de France in July. And so will Tadej Pogachar

History on the beach

Now this is a historical conference!

I don't understand why this year the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities is not holding its enormous conference of all the "learned societies" of Canadian academic disciplines. Is it just that Zoom is trying to kill every kind of in person human contact? 

Nevertheless, the Canadian Historical Association is bravely going ahead with its own annual multi-day meeting in Charlottetown, June 1-3. (Program here; registration is now closed). 

But if I was tempted to attend an academic conference, I could really get behind the one the Canadian History and Environment Summer School is holding the day before the CHA one starts. Since it's just one day, Sunday, May 31, they are calling theirs SpeedCHESS. The program:

9:00-10:00 Bus to St. Peter’s on the Island’s North Shore.

10:00-1:30 Tour the Canadian Centre for Climate Change; hear from Don Jardine on the environmental history of the Greenwich peninsula; & enjoy lunch from Black & White café.

1:30-4:00 Bus takes us to Greenwich Interpretation Centre, PEI National Park, where we get a guided tour from Parks Canada staff; hear from Barbara Rousseau about coastal change; and have a great walk at Greenwich Beach.

4:00-5:00 Bus takes us back to UPEI.

5:30-6:45 Prof. Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown U, author of Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean & host of The Climate Chronicles podcast will give a public talk, “Reflections on Resilience: 20,000 Years of Climate History,” at UPEI’s Murphy Student Centre 110 (McMillan Hall).

Take some sunscreen. 

 

Danielle Smith on constitutional history

At The Tyee, David Climenhaga expresses astonishment at Premier Danielle Smith's bizarre understanding of constitutional history

Ms. Smith said, “Canada is very different from the United States and many other Western democracies. For example, the U.S. centralizes the majority of power and decision-making in its federal government. In Canada, we chose a decentralized federation composed of very unique and diverse provinces left to govern themselves in almost all matters with the main exceptions of national defence and international affairs.”

This is the polar opposite of the facts. She either missed the lecture on the Constitution during her years at the University of Calgary or someone was guilty of educational malpractice!

For sure it's hard to look at the constitution and conclude that the federal government's role is limited to defence and foreign affairs.  But section 92 did indeed provide the provinces with a broad array of powers, and Ontario Premier Oliver Mowat soon established that the provinces were indeed sovereign in all those matters allocated to them.  

A sovereign Alberta within a united Canada -- Ms Smith's professed desire -- has been on hand since 1905, or at least from the 1930s.  She's the one who wants to move in on a vast array of powers always held by the federal government.  

Despite all the efforts of John A Macdonald, Canada did indeed began -- and continues -- as a notably decentralized federation, with education, health care, housing, and yes, natural resources confirmed to lie within the powers of the provinces. If only they were more willing to use the powers they have wisely, and not blame Ottawa for all their failings.    

Book Notes: Macfarlane and Puddister on lawyers and political scientists; Boyko on Sandford Fleming

I

At Substack, the political scientist Emmett Macfarlane reports on his new edited collection with Kate Puddister, Disciplinary Divides In The Study of Law And Politics, on the subject of how differently lawyers and political scientists look at questions of law and politics and the constitution and federalism and the Charter and all that. It's a set of academic essays by law profs and polisci profs who work on the contested territory between them.

Having written a bit about both constitutional politics and legal history, I'm tempted to read in it. I can certainly believe in the difference in perspectives. I'd be even more interested in a book about how differently historians and political scientists think about these things.  Or about how differently historians and lawyers do.  

I suspect too few historians care about such theoretical matters to engage the way the political scientists and the law profs actually do. Come to think of it, there are not that many who even engage with, say, confederation any more.

But I do sometimes reflect that a lot of political scientists say "in the time of Jean Chretien" (or the older ones "the time of Pierre Trudeau") to mean what other people mean when they say "in the mists of antiquity." A historical sense does not always seem to be a prerequisite.

II

John Boyko is launching a new biography of Sandford Fleming, In Pursuit of Tomorrow. I recall a previous Fleming biography, Time Lord by the Canadian-American novelist Clarke Blaise, an original and idiosyncratic appreciation.  It was very much focussed on Fleming's role in establishing global time zones and, beyond, on the very nature of time and how it was changing in the 19th century. I remember liking it quite a lot.

I have not yet read Boyko's but it is clear this seeks to be a complete and straightforward biography of the man and all his diverse accomplishments (and some failures too, maybe).  More comments may follow, as Sutherland House publishers has kindly send me a copy to peruse.

History of vote-buying, item 4287

Recently Nathan Erskine-Smith, a federal MP and former Liberal cabinet minister, lost a nomination race to determine who would represent the provincial Liberal party in an upcoming by-election. He appealed the result based on allegations of improper voting.

Tempest in a teapot, sure. Who cares, really? 

The issue prompted veteran Ontario broadcaster and political observer Steve Paikin to write, "The Nomination Meetings are the Problem," an opinion piece that made no accusations against the winning candidate but fulminates over the disgraceful state of party political elections as he has observed them for decades. You might wsnt to read the piece even if you are not a Liberal, not in Ontario, and generally uninterested in minor-league party squabbles. Paikin:

This week on my podcast, I asked former Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay to characterize party nomination meetings. Her answer: “rife with corruption.”

She’s not being hyperbolic, and this isn’t just a Liberal thing. Political parties are private organizations and, as such, are under no obligation to run these meetings under the auspices of more reputable outfits such as Elections Ontario. But after watching these processes for decades, I confess I’ve pretty much seen it all: police brought in to break up fights; lax oversight; dubious ethics; dead people signed up to vote.

After listing more of the routine improprieties that typify party elections, he wraps up, cautiously ("even going so far as..."?) but with a thoughtful suggestion:

It would be a good thing for politics if Erskine-Smith’s experience brought about a renewed commitment by the parties to clean up their acts, perhaps even going so far as to give responsibility over their nomination meetings to Elections Ontario, which has a lengthy history of competent election oversight.

In general, I take the view that if you enter a vote-buying competition and lose, you are not on solid ground to complain that the other side was buying votes. But Steve Paikin, who cares about these things, makes a strong case for finding a legitimate and independent authority to take over these nomination processes, which in their current form undermine the very heart of our parliamentary system, federal and provincial.

And for sure he should extend his analysis to federal and provincial party leadership races, even more corrupt because even more consequential.   

PS (same day):  Today it was reported that an Ontario Liberal Party internal investigation into the contested nomination found no evidence of improprieties. (Surprise!) The matter is closed.

 

History of Maple Syrup

In the Globe and Mail, Maura Forrest reports on how the mayor of Plessisville, QC. (pop. 9000), the until now undisputed "Capitale mondiale de l’Érable" is responding to the adoption by the Montreal suburb of Mirabel of the title "Capitale internationale de l’Érable."

The depth of Mr. Morin’s displeasure is not easy to translate. “J’étais en tabarnak,” he said.

Which is a good hook on which to hang a mention of journalist Peter Kuitenbrouwer's recent history of the industry, Maple Syrup: A Short History of Canada's Sweetest Obsession. and particularly its chapter on Plessisville's own Cyrille Vaillancourt, who in the 1920s organized Quebec maple syrup producers into a cooperative that  helped put an end to the reign of the "Maple King," an American commercial monopoly that for a time had been able to offer "take it or leave it" offers to unorganized producers across New England and Quebec. (That chapter was excerpted in The Walrus last winter.)

Matthew Thomas, the maple sugar historian (who knew!) and biographer of Viallancourt'sNew England rival Thomas Cary, has written an amused and sympathetic review of Kuitenbrouwer's book for the Maple Syrup Digest (again, who knew!), while expressing some observations about the limited amount of history in Kuitenbrouwer's mostly contemporary history.  

The DCB on Herbert Molson

The new Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on Herbert Molson (1875-1938) is a blockbuster, worth reading even if you have no interest in the scions of old Montreal families  -- Herbert being the fourth descendent of the original Molson brewer of Montreal. It's by Robert C.H Sweeny, the Montreal historian and Memorial University emeritus professor.

I'm ambivalent about the little potted summaries that the DCB has started placing at the top of its biographies. At first glance, I thought this one editorialized a little too much about how it felt about the subject of the biography.

Then I got into the meat of this biography, and boy, it delivers. For his account of Herbert Molson's life and career, Robert Sweeny seems to have tracked every penny that ever went in or out from the Molson's business and in or out from Herbert Molson's personal wallet. It's not a pretty picture. The market rigging! The price-fixing! The tax-dodging! The profiteering! The honours for his philanthropy set against the microscopic share of his income it represented.

In 1909 Molson’s entered into a cartel with its much larger rival. From April of that year through to September 1925, the two firms shared monthly returns on how much ale, porter, and lager each had sold in both Canada and Newfoundland. All sales in excess of a set market share were to benefit both firms, at a fixed profit per gallon. 

... 

It is not clear how Herbert managed to avoid incurring a heavy tax bill on these appropriations. His private ledgers show that in 1928 he paid 25 per cent in taxes on a net income of $311,812, but in 1929 he paid only 2.8 per cent on a revenue of $5,187,519, and in 1930 a mere 1.8 per cent on $4,877,352.

...

Throughout the 1930s he donated only 1.56 per cent of his $17.1 million income to charitable causes.  

Lately the DCB has been engaged in an ambitious fundraising project seeking to build its endowment to the size it needs. One cannot help speculating about how potential major donors might react if they saw this work sample. 

Which is why it's important that the DCB has published it. 

 

History of bootin' 'em out

The Guardian publishes a story about a process that is fairly routine in parliamentary governments all over the world:  an unpopular party leader flounders, and members of his cabinet and caucus begin discussing whether or not to remove him. 

It's Britain this time, where Keir Starmer's incompetence is driving Reform toward power, and driving his caucus crazy.  So in the next few days they may launch the process of removing him and choosing his successor.

Why can't we have this in Canada? What is a parliament for, if parliamentarians cannot or will not review and amend the plans of their leaders, and if necessary change them? 

 

Book Notes: Jill Lepore on constitutional amendments.

 "It is intended to be amended," is the epigraph that starts Jill Lepore's We The People, a history of the U.S. constitution .  She actually takes the quoted line from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but it is no joke. 

She means it absolutely seriously, and much of the argument of her book is how the eighteenth century aspirations of the American constitution has hardened into stone, into bone, and how it has in recent decades become pretty much unamendable.

Now the US constitution is well over 200 years old, and showing its age. Many of its fundamentals  -- the Electoral College, the Senate -- were intended to prevent and negate popular (and even representative) government, and have succeeded very well even as popular sovereignty -- "We the People" -- has become the nearly universal expectation. How does the United States move forward when so much amendment is needed and so little is possible?

In general, the mid-nineteenth Canadian constitution is much more flexible and much less in need of fundamental amendment, in my opinion, but the problem is there.  The Canadian amending formula is not yet fifty, but our constitution is also pretty much unamendable. Who in Canada is writing a big popular book about that? 

Book Notes: Carleton and Sinclair on Residential School Denialism

University of Manitoba Press announces a forthcoming title for September 2026: Truth before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism, edited by Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair.

Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, along with a team of expert historians, educators, Survivors, archivists, and archeologists, analyze the genesis, methods, and consequences of denialism; push back on denialist claims; and highlight some of the primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship that denialists ignore or misrepresent. Importantly, they also document the harms denialists have inflicted on Survivors and communities.

It's  a timely topic, it seems. British Columbia's The Tyee has a Emily Enns feature up on the topic, focussing mostly on denial actions around British Columbia and the West, but linking in some national organizations and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     networks of retired academics. It doesn't mention Toronto's Canadian Institute for Historical Education, which began mostly to assert that John A Macdonald is blameless in all things indigenous and deserves more statues but has hosted residential school denial talks by Nigel Biggar and David Frum.  

Update, May 11: Molly Ungar comments:

The CIHE should re-name itself The Canadian Institute for Historical Gatekeeping.

 They might take it as a compliment.

History of Governors General

I hope Louise Arbour will be an ornament to the office of Governor General. She is almost eighty, but like a lot of senior judges she seems to retain limitless energy -- enough, I hope, to carry her through a full term of office. Her distinguished public service and her globally recognized achievements in human rights and justice make her a symbol of Canadian respect for the rule of law in these times. It's an excellent appointment.  

Upon her appointment, Mme Arbour declined to call herself a monarchist, and went on to offer her preferred choice of words for her new role: 

I will be the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement that I think has served Canada extremely well.

That seems excellently phrased. To my ear, it acknowledges an actual monarch is superfluous to a parliamentary democracy -- as is indeed the case in most of the world's parliamentary democracies, from Ireland to India to Germany. 

Describing herself as "the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement," Mme Arbour nicely suggests we hardly need a foreign king and the royal family and all those trappings in our egalitarian society. A distinguished Canadian represents the state, and our politics are handled democratically through our elective institutions. What's not to like?

At his Substack, constitutional scholar Philippe Lagassé, an advocate of monarchy, calls Arbour's statement 

fairly pro-Crown when measured against contemporary Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy. It may not be sufficient for the decorative plates crowd, but it's sufficient for those who emphasize the constitutional in constitutional monarchy.

 I can agree with that. 

Meanwhile, Parti Quebecois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, he of the slightly aristocratic name and the democratic politics, said, "Regarding the institution, I repeat that it is one of the worst wastes of public funds."

It's not in any sense a waste of public funds to support the office of Governor General in the role Louise Arbour explains so diplomatically!  But I agree with him when he goes on to say: 

We are still in an archaic system where the king of England has anything to say in our democracy.

John Fraser approves, too   My notes on his recent book on the GGs here