I began drafting the following piece as a blog post, in response to what seemed to me a truly fat-headed editorial statement by the Globe and Mail that misunderstands virtually everything about the parliamentary system in Canada.
Then I thought, the damn Globe itself ought to run this as a kind of correction. So I sent it to them, not really expecting much, but thinking maybe the opinions editor would also be unimpressed by her colleagues on the editorial board.
Well, op-ed space at The Globe is always at a premium, and maybe ones telling the editors they don't have a clue aren't going to be favoured. But I still like it, so it's a blog post again. (In case you are a regular reader and feel you have heard this before, I've put most of it below the jump.)
To Restore Accountable Leadership
A recent editorial in the Globe declares that the principles of accountability at work in parliaments around the world do not apply in Canada. Civics education really is failing if the editorial board of the Globe and Mail is so wedded to such misconceptions. Let's run through the editors' notions one by one (the Globe's claims in italic).
In Canada, MPs are much less apt to publicly disagree with the party line or call for a leader to step down.
Such has long been the case in Canadian parliamentary practice. But the fall of Erin O'Toole established that leaders are accountable to the caucus of elected MPs whenever the MPs want them to be. There, the MPs used the process laid out in the Reform Act, 2014. But controlling their leaders is an inherent power of the elected representatives of the Canadian people, whether or not the Reform Act is in force.
Ottawa has a fetish for party discipline that is ruthlessly enforced. And that’s because, in any contest between party and MPs, the party – meaning the leader – has all the power.
A leader can discipline MPs only as long as the party caucus supports or tolerates the discipline fetish. Caucuses can prevent unwelcome discipline from the top by disciplining the leader, with the nuclear weapon of dismissal to back them up. In a contest between leader and MPs, the MPs have all the power they need when they choose to use it.
The parties control who can run in an election.True, the Elections Act requires party leaders to sign off on candidate nominations. But a caucus can tell its leader that bullying or threatening MPs or imposing a candidate against the will of caucus would be grounds for immediate removal. Parties are private extra-parliamentary organizations run by their own rules. They have no standing to dictate the actions in parliament of MPs duly elected as the representatives of the Canadian people.
The leader’s office controls cabinet posts or shadow cabinet posts, jobs as parliamentary assistants, and spots on important committees.
Again, since the caucus has in reserve the power to withdraw its support from the leader, it can use that authority to ensure that the leader's office consults caucus on all such appointments. This is routine parliamentary practice in parliamentary democracies around the world. Only misguided tradition prevents its operation in Canada.
They can also punish disloyal MPs with demotions to the back benches, and even boot them out of caucus and strip away their ability to ever run for the party again.
Only in Canada do editorialists believe "back benches" must mean "impotent" or "useless." No self-respecting body of MPs should tolerate a threat of any caucus member being punished, or "booted," or denied renomination, unless the caucus itself approves. The caucus's inherent power to hold its leader accountable enables it to prevent such autocratic actions by rogue leaders.
In other words, an MP’s political fortunes lie almost entirely in the hands of the leadership – especially on the government side, where the all-seeing and all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office has over the course of many decades neutralized the ability of the House of Commons to act as a check on the executive.
In reality, the leadership's political fortunes lie almost entirely in the hands of an alert caucus. This is particularly the case for a leader who is prime minister. Prime ministers can do nothing unless their caucus is prepared to vote for their legislation and save them from being defeated in the Commons. In functioning parliaments around the world, government backbenchers' threats to withdraw their support are generally sufficient to bring prime ministers to heel. This power is rarely used in Canada, but it exists on Parliament Hill as in any other parliament.
The Editorial Board seems to believe some deep constitutional or legislative woowoo forces MPs to obey leaders. There is none. In reality, the constitution mandates precisely the opposite. Only the government can introduce money bills, but only the legislative majority (as a rule, the prime minister's backbenchers) can pass the legislation. Facing a caucus threat to withdraw support from the leader's program, the leader's only recourse is persuasion or compromise with caucus. Constitutionally, the caucus of elected MPs retains final say.
The words of the Reform Act apply even when the Reform Act is not in force: "the leadership of political parties must maintain the confidence of their caucuses."
All that protects unaccountable and autocratic leaders is the deference of Canadian parliamentary caucuses to a misguided tradition. That, and the advice of the Globe and Mail and those who rely on it for how parliaments work.
