Changing the broken rules of Canada's Parliament

Pick up any Canadian newspaper or turn on the nightly news and you will see a fevered excitement spreading among our nation's leading political observers. As daily reports continue to tell us, the Liberals are stumbling, the Conservatives are rising, and the Bloc appears poised to recapture Quebec. Among the pollsters and pundits, what all this means is that Canada could soon have its first minority government since the short-lived Joe Clark administration of 1979.

The talking heads and political analysts in the media are having a field day with these latest uncertainties, gossiping and speculating like giddy teenage girls. Will a Liberal minority align with the NDP? Will a Conservatives minority suck up to the Bloc? What if no two-party combo can command a majority? Will Adrienne Clarkson step in? Will there be another election within a year? By Canadian political standards, this is exciting stuff.

In the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, no one in town had the conviction to step away from the crowd, and point out the ridiculous spectacle of the naked king. Similarly, in contemporary Canada it seems there is not a single pundit or self-proclaimed political expert who is willing to take a stand and point out just how fundamentally stupid our current system of government is. Instead, they gush about how interesting it would be if Adrienne Clarkson had to resolve a coalition deadlock between the Conservatives and the Bloc, with no one questioning the sanity of a political system in which an un-elected talk show host and openly separatist political party are able to hold the balance of power.

Amid all the giddy gossip of coalitions and minority governments, no one seems willing to stop and say, "gee, maybe some of these traditions have outlived their usefulness." Canada's political culture of blind, unquestioning allegiance to the status quo is deeply damaging for the future of our democracy, for it perpetuates the belief that our present system of government is fundamentally ideal, and save for a few tinkerings with the Senate, needs little reform. In reality there are many, many areas of the so-called "democratic deficit" that need to be adressed through parliamentary reform. However, the area most needing reform continues to be the one most overlooked by the majority of mainstream pundits and critics. If Canadian democracy is ever to experience any truly meaningful change, the reforms will have to start with the undemocratic and antiquated British traditions, practices, and protocols which continue to be perpetuated in modern-day Canada despite having long outlived their usefulness.

Take the concept of confidence votes, for example. Few mainstream analysts question the contemporary relevance of perpetuating a tradition in which the government voluntarily "collapses" if the votes of the ruling party MPs are drowned out by the votes of the combined opposition. This tradition is in turn used by the parties to justify their extremely hard-line party discipline, in which rebel MPs can be expelled from caucus (or worse) for daring to vote against the party. As a direct result of this practice, Canada's parliament has evolved into a mere rubber-stamp, with members of parliament serving as mere party robots, whose votes have little purpose other than to prop up the Prime Minister of the day. MPs are instructed to always vote the party line on virtually everything proposed by their leaders, and rather unsurprisngly, the voting patterns of parliament have become as predictable as the Saskatchewan sunrise

Though pundits often decry the lack of "free votes" in the House of Commons, few bother to address the underlying cause for the lack of free votes in the first place. When every vote in parliament is a "matter of confidence" that could potentially see the government collapse if not passed, it's only logical that the ruling party would use every tool at their disposal to see the motion succeed. Of course, not every vote has to be a motion of confidence. We do have the occasional "free-votes" on irrelevant, usually non-binding issues of morality, such as the recent vote on the definition of marriage. When critics plea for more of these kinds of votes they miss the point. As long as the ruling party gets to dictate which votes are confidence motions and which are not, there is absolutely no incentive to increase free votes. If the party wants to get a key bit of legislation passed, they will inevitably declare the bill a matter of confidence. Allowing a free vote on meaningful legislation is pointless, for it allows for the possibility that the bill might not pass, especially if internal dissent within the party is significant enough. Given the choice between uncertainty and certainty, a party will always choose the latter when it comes to passing legislation. Both Paul Martin and Stephen Harper use a lot of rhetoric about bringing "more free votes to parliament" but ultimately, unless serious changes are made, the issue will remain one of "self-regulation." And if there is one area where Canada's government has repeatedly proven it has absolutely zero credibility in, it is setting its own rules.

When a government "collapses" new elections are almost always held, with the hope that the ruling party will be able to secure enough seats in the next go-around as to prevent such confidence votes from ever occurring again. This is what Joe Clark unsuccessfully attempted in 1980, after his government fell following the defeat of his budget. The oft-cited rationale for holding new elections in the wake of a confidence vote is that "the people" must be given a chance to express their confidence in the government, seeing as how parliament has not. This is, simply, an absurd and laughably outdated notion. We live in an era where the voting public is increasingly detached and apathetic about the affairs of our politicians in Ottawa. The idea that the defeat of some trivial bill in parliament is suddenly a rousing cry for a new national mandate is an antiquated belief that has evolved into a truly cumbersome tradition. A Federal election in Canada costs millions of dollars to successfully plan, organize, and execute. In a saner system they would be held on a neutral date, at a time when no one party should be given an unfair advantage over the other. Emergency elections held in the wake of a confidence vote put the ruling minority party at a great disadvantage, because the entire premise of the election is clearly based on the notion that the party cannot govern parliament effectively. As well, the entire exercise is profoundly undemocratic for it essentially serves as a rejection of the will of the voters. It's quite unfair for a man to be elected Prime Minister in a full and free democratic election only to have his office taken from him by the non-governing opposition, usually for the most trivial of reasons.

The current debate ongoing in Canada right now is one of alliance building in the context of an expected minority government. No matter how hard a party whips its MPs into voting the "right" way, mathematical logic dictates that unless that party has a majority of seats in the House, there will always be a chance that their legislation will be defeated, and thus that the government will fall. Since there seems to at least be somewhat of a consensus that collapsing governments may not be the most efficient thing in the world, the three main parties are being forced to anticipate possible deal making amongst themselves. Or rather their leaders are.

Essentially, the controversy is over exactly which large, unthinking blob of robot-MPs will be aligned by their leader with another large, unthinking blob of opposition MPs. The MPs themselves will have about zero say in all this. What makes this practice particularly nonsensical is the way in which it assumes that all parties are uniform in their ideology, when in reality all the parties have within them great divergence of opinion. During the rare specatale of a non-binding, free vote, we occasionally get a glimpse into just how much diversity of opinion lies within our two major parties. If Mr. Harper does in fact become Prime Minister of a minority government, and the Liberals (for some bizarre reason) decide to let all the MPs vote freely on legislation, it is more than likely that Harper could remain in office for quite some time. The Liberal caucus contains many small-c conservatives, who share much of the Tory Party's views in areas such as fiscal discipline and moral issues. This will more than likely not happen, however because Paul Martin, assuming he is still Liberal leader by this point, will no doubt decide it is much more benefitical for his own political future to instruct his party to always vote en masse against Conservative-proposed legislation. By doing so he can ensure a confidence vote will occur at the earliest avaialble opportunity, which would then in turn trigger new elections in which the Liberals would hold a strategic advantage.

Our political system in Canada has evolved to a truly pathetic state, unparalleled by any other contemporary western democracy. The Parliament of Canada has become a true rubber stamp in the most literal sense of the word. Within the ruling party, disagreement and divergence continues to be strongly discouraged, and opposition is basically considered high treason. Our democracy is held hostage to a number of nonsensical, ancient British traditions with little relevance to the realities of contemporary Canada or modern interests of stable, effective governance.

Of course, whenever someone dares suggest change or reform to the antiquated parliamentary traditions of Canada, he is quickly shushed by the political pundits and professional academics, to whom antiquated political traditions are their very lifeblood. Canada's contemporary political climate has evolved (or more specifically not evolved) in such a manner as to promote the most rigid thinking possible among those who analyze the system. Even the smallest proposed changes are characterized as being "completely impractical" "unworkable" or worst of all "violating key constitutional traditions." The fact that many of these traditions are mere myths in reality is rarely acknowledged. The myths about the system itself must be preserved. True, they may acknowledge, perhaps the system does not work exactly in practice as it does on paper, but theoretically it could, and therefore we should not tamper. We are taught from a young age that the principles of confidence voting and unscheduled elections create a "responsible government" that is profoundly democratic and efficient. In reality the exact opposite is true- the principles we have been taught to hold the most dear are actually the ones which inflict the most damage.

May I be so bold as to promote a few simple changes to the system that would require no constitutional amendments, yet go a great way in solving the current "democrat deficit" in our nation's parliament.

For starters, make every vote in parliament a free vote.

Canada is supposed to be a representative democracy, and the parliament of Canada is a body of elected men and women who are, in theory, supposed to be voting lawmakers. Regardless of the what parties are present in the House of Commons, as long as the people of Canada elect members to fill all 308 seats, the government should be able to operate in some form.

We elect our members of parliament to make laws to govern the country, and represent the views of the constituents who elect them. When someone is elected to the House they should be free to vote however they please on all legislation brought before them. If they are a member of the ruling party and they vote against the wishes of the Prime Minister and cabinet, he or she should not be expelled from caucus, nor should the government "collapse." Canada's parties should acknowledge the reality of political dissent within their ranks, and accept it, rather than seek to crush it with draconian rules of party discipline.

Rule two- no more confidence votes, confidence motions, or any other practice in which the democratic decision-making process of the parliament is hijacked to preserve the ruling party's hold on power. When every vote in parliament is a free vote, it is inevitable that the governing party may occasionally see one of their own votes fail to pass, as a result of internal dissent. When such a thing happens, the parliament should not be shut down or dissolved, and new elections are not necessary. A defeated bill in the house is not a mandate for a new, costly, national election, instead it is a mandate for compromise and bi-partisanship. If a party's budget is so unpopular it gets voted down in the House, the solution is not to attempt to hold new elections until enough submissive MPs can be gained to shoe-horn it through the approval process. A more democratic and fair process would be to make compromise and concessions until the bill is acceptable to the majority of parliamentarians, regardless of partisan stance. Though many parties pledge support for free votes, such support is almost always tempered by statements that free-voting will not be allowed on motions of confidence. And since just about any bill can be (and usually is) dubbed a "motion of confidence" promises of increased free-voting will be forever ring hollow unless the practice of confidence voting is formally retired.

This leads into reform number three- set election dates. Letting the Prime Minister decide the dates of his own election is an absurd practice justified only by the continued existence of confidence votes, which can cause unpredictable elections when evoked. If the Canadian parliament was to have set election dates, as the BC legislature already does, then no longer would parliamentary governance be in a constant state of uncertain limbo. MPs would know exactly when their terms would expire, as would the Prime Minister, and a full five-year term in office would be planned accordingly. No longer would we have un-elected Prime Ministers like Kim Campbell, John Turner, or Paul Martin making policy without public mandate. As in the United States, candidates would have to run for the office without the benefits of being automatic incumbents, with access to taxpayer dollars to use as campaign cash.

It should go without saying that reform four would be the total removal of the Governor General from the political process. True, the Governor General has important constitutional duties, but these should be continued to be exercised in a non-partisan, symbolic capacity, and nothing more. Though it is the GG's duty to formally appoint the Prime Minister, we should stop thinking of this as being a job which requires personal discretion. Though the present system of appointing the leader of the majority or plurality party in parliament seems to be an adequate method of selecting the PM, other equally valid systems are worth considering. In a closely divided parliament, for example, allowing the MPs to collectively vote for a Prime Minister, as they do for speaker, is a feasible alternative. This is the system used in much of the Commonwealth, perhaps most notably in India and South Africa, as well as other parliamentary nations, such as Germany. Collation governments are a perfectly feasible attempt to govern a divided parliament, but at the same time such coalitions should be based on co-operation and not fear and exploitation. A coalition government is a means to an end, namely efficient governance, and not an end in itself. Coalitions should be allowed to disagree amongst themselves once in a while, but not bring the whole parliament down with them every time the factions don't agree 100%. Likewise, coalitions do not need to be set in stone. Legislation being as diverse in nature as it is, here may be times when the Liberals and the Bloc agree, or the Bloc and the Conservatives agree, or even the Conservatives and the NDP agree. Like every other vote, how parties chose or chose not to align themselves which each other is something to be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the MPs themselves doing most of the decision-making. Parliament no longer requires a Governor General to play "referee."

When the results of this election are revealed on June 28, let's hope that our leaders use some creativity and insight in deciding what style of government our next parliament will operate under. In 21st Century Canada, it is time for our parliament, and other institutions of government to evolve with the times, and reflect the contemporary political reality, and not antiquated, 18th century British ideals.