Canadians Deserve Parliamentary Reform

Posted on 09 January 2010

The Problem

Ok so we’re all frustrated with Stephen Harper.

We’re going to protest what he did.

His actions are blatantly degrading our Parliamentary system and rendering our House of Commons more and more redundant with his every move.

We all agree?  Alright, so what’s next?

Being completely honest here we need to realize that at this point Parliament is not going to be called back until March.  It is great the Liberals are going back, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see the NDP and Bloc follow suit, but lets be honest, Parliament will not formally resume until March.  This is not going to change.  We are all angry about it obviously, but lets focus on legitimate goals moving forward.

So when Parliament resumes in March what will be on the agenda?  Obviously the economy and some of the scrapped bills will be reintroduced… but what else?

Well, this whole debacle (and last year’s painfully similar debacle) has shown us that we need serious democratic reform in Canada.  People from all party’s seem to agree these days, with the exception of the Conbots who are stuck on their baseless talking points, but even a good number of Conservatives I have spoken to agree with me here.

This article in the Globe and Mail was the one that really got me thinking about this.  It’s a very smart article, and I hope all Canadians take a read though it.  I think it is very important.

But to actually be successful at democratic reform our party’s need to drop the partisan talking points and do what is best for Canada, not what’s best for their party’s electoral chances. This needs to include the Liberals taking accountability for their part in the degradation of our Parliament, because this was not solely a Conservative problem.  Canadians need a democratic, responsive, and effective government but there needs to be significant change in order for this to happen, and this change will take multi-partisan cooperation.

There have been many times Canada has taken on Constitutional reform – 1982, Meech Lake, Charlottetown – but I can’t, at least off the top of my head, think of a time that Canada’s government focused directly on overall democratic reform, but this is what we need right now.

Most of the reform ideas I have heard of recently have been focused in certain areas – Senate reform and Electoral reform the most popular of these – but recently there have been no high level talks about a legitimate overhaul of our democracy as a whole.  Admittedly this will be a lot of work, but for the integrity of our country’s government it will be completely worth it.

We need a legislative system that cannot be called to a halt on a whim.  We need a legislative system where our MP’s have the power and ability to actually represent their constituencies, without the fear of the party whip.  We need an electoral system that allows for the number of votes cast to actually be represented in the House of Commons.  We need an Upper House that has a purpose and some semblance of democratic legitimacy. Canadians are becoming very disillusioned with our system and it can be seen in both the grassroots Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament movement and can be seen even clearer in our abysmal voter turnout in recent elections. Our system has many problems, and we need to look towards a solution to restore our Parliament’s legitimacy both domestically and on the world stage, because our current system is a massive embarrassment.

The Solution

It is time to restore Canadian democracy, and this will be through how we legislate.

We need to look at everything we do and look at the best practices of other countries.  We need to assemble a multi-partisan group of leaders to lead this charge along with top political academics.

I am not going to claim being an expert on the subject, but I do know that we need significant change in this country.  Just off the top of my head I can think of a good number of areas that we need to look at:

Ties to British Monarchy. Honestly, why are we still a part of the monarchy?  To me this makes no sense.  The Governor General herself has proven the position redundant over the past year or so.  She gives in to every request by the Prime Minister, costs taxpayers a fortune, and runs “ceremonial” events.  We have other people who can do these things.  And by getting rid of the Governor General we can then vest ultimate power in Parliament.  What a novel concept…

Our electoral system. Our current system consistently elects false majority governments, the last few aside.  Often majority governments are elected with significantly less than a majority of the legitimate votes cast, making many Canadian votes mean essentially nothing.  Groups like Fair Vote Canada have been working on this for years, as well as referendums have taken place in multiple provinces.  It is time that our Federal government starts to look at a more fair electoral system.

The Senate. Ah the Senate.  Honestly, what do you do?  Yes you read through and pass bills from the House of Commons.  Often you send Bills back for review as your position of “sober second thought.”  There are generally three options I hear on this one.  First, keep our current system.  Second, elect our Senators, and realign where Senators come from in the country (equal representation).  Third, simply abolish it.  There are arguments for all three, but this is something that needs to be seriously looked at from a Constitutional level.  This body is incredibly expensive for Canadian taxpayers, so it certainly better serve a purpose, and in my opinion, right now it barely does.

MP’s job description. MP’s need to be more independent.  They need to be able to do investigative research – not just depend on what the PMO will agree to release.  They should actually be responsible to their constituencies because lets be honest, right now they are far more responsible to their party brass than to the constituents who they theoretically represent.  Also, MP’s who show discontent and disagreement within a party should be allowed to do so.  Someone shouldn’t be turfed from the party or blocked from running for reelection for having a different opinion.  Obviously, from a party’s standpoint, there is always hope that unity holds up, but if there is enough disagreement between backbench MP’s and the Cabinet (for example) it is likely that they could change the course of the party.  Right now we have a Parliamentary system where the individual MP’s opinion doesn’t matter.  They must submit to the will of the leader, and that is the end of the story.  In this system there is little or no way for an MP to effectively represent their constituency.   This needs to change

Number of MP’s. This I feel should be seriously looked at.  How many people can one person effectively represent?  Is it more, less or the same as our MP’s currently are representing?  Especially if their job is recalibrated to be more legitimately representative to their constituents this number may be significantly different.  We need to do studies and figure the proper number out.

Size, purpose, and power of cabinet. We have a very powerful executive in Canada.  Now it would be completely idiotic in my opinion to suggest getting rid of this function because then nothing would ever get done, but to look at its size, purpose, and specifically power would be a very good use of time.  The cabinet needs to remember that it is indeed responsible to the legislature, but historically has not always done this.

House of Commons procedure. As it is the topic of the day, lets use prorogation of Parliament as an example here.  We need to look at who holds decision-making power over procedures like proroguing Parliament, and why.  Should there be a majority vote of the House of Commons needed?  In any case, there needs to be serious discussion into placing limits and rules surrounding these procedures.

Coalition governments. Is this term almost a curse word in Canada these days?  I have no idea why coalition governments are such a scary concept to Canadians.  They actually allow a minority government to function because you can have a majority of MP’s on the same page.  We could actually have stable and long lasting minority governments if a coalition was an option to Canadian political parties.  We as Canadians need to accept that this is a legitimate option.

Set election dates. Ontario has implemented this quite effectively, but federally Harper’s attempt was killed by… umm who again?  Oh, by himself.  This is an initiative I do agree with though, because it allows all party’s, not just the sitting government, to know when an election is coming up in order to properly prepare.  This of course comes with challenges when it comes to minority governments, but if we effectively move forward with democratic reform minority governments should be much more stable, like in most of the world, thus making set election dates possible.

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If all of the sitting party’s were to get to work on the task of democratic reform it would also be a great opportunity to practice being a minority government.  No one party’s single agenda should or will be the one passed.  There need to be negotiations, party’s giving up things in order to get others.  It’s a give and take people.  You run a minority government (Harper, listen up here) and everyone should get a say at some point, proper negotiations need to take place.

Lets restore confidence in our government by creating a system that actually works – because clearly our current system does not.  We have a Prime Minister running a minority government, but acting like a majority because when an opposition party threatens an election the Prime Minister’ polling numbers skyrocket because Canadians don’t want another election.  He can call off the legislative session whenever he wants and run away from controversy.

Canadians clearly want a Parliament that actually works, and the one we have does not.  You can look at the plummeting voter turnout rates simply to prove this.  Canadians have become apathetic because of a broken system (incredibly successful Facebook group aside) and it is time for the Canadian political party’s to step up, take responsibility, and fix it.

I realize this will take a lot of work, and both legislative and constitutional changes, but if it restores our Parliament to a high standard of governance it absolutely makes it worth our legislators investment of time and resources.