Story here about ex-prime ministers Martin, Campbell, Mulroney, and Clark musing about how unappreciated they are.
Okay, if you can stop giggling, there may be a point here.
It's the unique power of a Canadian prime minister's position that makes ex-PMs so disposable. Consider deputy prime ministers. Sheila Copps was deputy PM. Then came a new PM and she was out of politics, could not even hold her own riding. John Manley was deputy PM, and then he was out of politics, back in a law office somewhere.
Lesser cabinet ministers? Backbenchers? It's the same but more so. In Canadian politics, either you are the big guy, or you are nobody. And it applies to the prime minister. Let go of the job and everyone treats you as you treated them.
Doesn't work this way when parliamentary regimes function properly. In cabinet government , in majority government, there really is collective responsibility, and the party leader is accountable to cabinet or caucus or both. The PM ain't the only power. Influential MPs and cabinet ministers deploy personal influence, no matter their titular rank. In Britain Ted Heath remained a backbencher, a focus of Conservative reservations about Maggie, throughout Margaret Thatcher's tenure. That's influence. Thatcher did the same to her successor. They had allies, they had at least residual power. They did not exist at the whim of the new boss, as Copps and Manley and everyone else in Canadian politics does.
Okay, it's counter-intuitive, but it's true. Prime ministerial usedabees would have more standing if they had been a little less absolute when they held the big job.
