Background
– Excerpts and Findings of The urc Report
What The underground royal commission
Report found was that the relevance of Parliament has declined precipitously
over the past four decades. We lack the necessary checks and balances
to reign in executive power, to provide balanced and reasoned debate
and decision-making, to prevent poor public policy-making and, most
importantly, to hold government accountable for its decisions and
actions. The fundamental problem is that Parliament is supposed
to control government. Instead, government controls Parliament…the
balance has been lost, and effective parliamentary oversight of
government has been lost.
In the book, A
Call to Account, the Right Honourable Joe Clark explains how
Parliament lost its most important mechanism for holding government
to account:
Parliament has not worked for a long time for
a couple of reasons. One was a mistake all parties made about 35
or 40 years ago. We ended a system in which there could be control
of spending by something called the “committee of the whole.”
Once Parliament lost its control of spending, it lost its control
of the government because the only way you can control any government
is through their spending power. Parliament was once able to debate
spending proposals as long as it wanted. Until Parliament said “yes,”
the government could not spend a cent. That obviously could be abused
and it was changed. Now, we must bring in a system in which we restore
that kind of control over spending by the Parliament.
Since that point in the late 1960s, we have moved to much more of
an executive-centred political system, and away from a legislative-centred
system. The powers of the executive (the prime minister and Cabinet
ministers) far out-strip the powers of the legislature (the Senate
and House of Commons - Parliament.)
Patrick Boyer, who served as a member of Parliament from 1984 to 1993, knows
first-hand of the frustrations and feelings of uselessness as an
individual MP. In these clips from Does
Your Vote Count? and A
Question of Honour, he describes what is expected of MPs in
today’s Parliament:
Possible Reforms
Electoral Reform
Many believe our first-past-the-post electoral system often creates
significant distortions between votes cast and seats won. For example,
the Liberals won a huge majority of seats (57%) in the House of
Commons in the 2000 election with only 41% of the popular vote.
This has the effect, in essence, of disenfranchising large segments
of the population. In a democratic system, every vote should carry
equal weight. However, some members of Parliament feel that, in
the first-past-the-post system, votes are weighted depending on
what party the voter happens to support in an election. Introducing
some form of proportional representation would eliminate these anomalies
and more closely reflect the popular will, as expressed in the popular
vote:
Honourable Lorne Nystrom, NDP member of Parliament, in A
Call to Account
The reason we need electoral change is our current
electoral system really distorts the results. The Parliament that
people elect doesn't in any way reflect how people vote. We have
a majority government now that was elected by a minority of the
people. … There was an election in British Columbia not so
long ago where the opposition got more than 40 per cent of the vote,
but only got three seats while the government got 76 seats. People
are becoming cynical about the electoral system because it doesn't
reflect how they vote. Too many people are wasting their votes,
or feel their votes don't count. If you had a mix of proportionate
representation in our system, then every vote would count and we'd
not only have equality between citizens but the Parliaments we elect
would better reflect how people feel.
The counter argument to proportional representation is that it
is flawed in its underlying assumption, as Don Boudria explains
in this excerpt:
Honourable Don Boudria, Liberal Cabinet minister, A
Call to Account
What proportional representation purports to
say is that 100 percent of the people who voted for me, voted Liberal.
They only wanted to vote Liberal and there was no other consideration.
And anyone who voted against me in my riding voted Alliance. Therefore,
all of those votes belong to a party, and none of them to a candidate.
So the party should have a proportion of that, as votes assigned
to them, even though that may not have been the intention of the
voters.
The inherent flaw of proportional representation
is that it gives seats to people who didn’t win, on the premise
that all votes belong to the political parties.
Parliamentary Reform
The House of Commons….where the
accountability gap could be closed
Members of Parliament are often hamstrung by the enforcement of
strict party discipline, which determines how they will vote. The
government considers that most votes in Parliament are a question
of confidence – hence they are termed “confidence votes”
and MPs are required to toe the party line, often by the party Whip.
John Williams explains in this excerpt from Does
Your Vote Count?
John Williams, MP 1993-Present, Chairman Public Accounts Committee
Remember, in the concept of Parliament the parties
do not exist. Parliamentarians are those MPs who support the government
and those who oppose the government. … It talks about Parliamentarians
supporting the government's initiatives, and if the government can
carry the day in the House of Commons, then it has the confidence
to govern. But this has evolved into this tight party discipline
that says if you are a member of the government, you will vote their
way regardless of whether you like it or not.
In his 2003 speech in Ottawa following the premier screening of
Does Your Vote Count?, the Right Honourable John Turner spoke passionately
about the current conventions of party discipline and how, in the
past, members had genuine freedom to defy it. “It was the
independence of the ordinary member of Parliament that gave the
House of Commons its importance and was the best check on the government
of the day,” he said. Party discipline is still necessary
as a measure of coherence in the political arena, but in our current
system, Turner stated, “…the proper balance has been
lost and Party discipline has become too severe.”
Many feel that more free votes in the House of
Commons, would free MPs from the strictures of party discipline
and allow them to use their own good judgment and better reflect
the desires of their constituents. The Right Honourable John Turner
expressed his views during his October 7, 2003 speech:
Insofar as a member’s relationship
with his own Party is concerned, my suggestion is that the Government
stop treating every vote as a vote of confidence. Procedural matters
and matters affecting the private morals or judgement of a member
– questions like capital punishment, nuclear arms, same sex
marriages, if you will – might well be left to a free vote.
Naturally, most votes have to be treated as confidence votes, but
it would bring enormous life back into the House of Commons if the
members occasionally could follow their own opinions regardless
of their Party’s stand.
Other parliamentary reform advocates suggest that changes to the
Senate would allow this body to better fulfil its purpose of representing
regional interests and providing sober second thought to proposed
legislation coming from the House of Commons.
In addition, more resources, and a real role
for parliamentary committees, would enable them to help
craft legislation, and not just rubber-stamp legislation that is
presented to them by government.
Another way of bolstering Parliament’s role in holding government
to account is by reinstating its ability to genuinely and effectively
scrutinize government spending. MP John Williams, Chair of the Public
Accounts Committee, was a driving force behind the “Business
of Supply” report that recommended that Parliament not only
examine government spending Estimates for the coming year, but that
it evaluate the effectiveness of this spending. Williams, along
with Liberal party Whip, Marlene Catterall, and the others who contributed
to the “Business of Supply: Completing the Circle of Control,”
suggested a series of questions to identify the goals and the results
of government programs. It was hoped that the answers would help
identify success and failures, so that mistakes could be corrected
and the successes could be shared. The exercise was also meant to
prompt MPs to innovate in the delivery of government programs. It
all started with four simple questions that have never been asked,
as Williams noted in A
Call to Account:
First, we wanted to know
what the program was designed to do because in many cases there
isn’t even a public policy attached to government programs.
Currently we just spend the money and keep it circulating. Surely
Canadians would hope that we should get some benefit for the money
we’re spending. Second, how well is the program
doing? This isn’t rocket science here, but the government
just does not want to know the answer to how most of our programs
are doing. They just spend the money. Third, are
we delivering the programs efficiently? Fourth,
can we achieve the same or better results for our government dollar
by delivering the program in a different way in a fast-changing
technological world?…The government currently does not ask
these four questions.
Experiencing the Accountability
Gap First-Hand
Researchers for the underground royal commission
who were examining the Canada Infrastructure Works Program (CIWP)
encountered first-hand the challenges in trying to have public officials
(politicians and civil servants) accountable for decisions relating
to this infrastructure program. No matter how hard they tried, no
one was able to provide straight answers on how decisions to allocate
billions of dollars were made, or what the end result of all this
public expenditure really amounted to. These researchers were stonewalled
and discovered that billions of taxpayer dollars were spent on more
than 17,000 projects without proper documentation or accountability.
They discovered that $8.3 billion in public funds were expended without
anyone being able to properly document the advantages of such investments,
particularly in terms of job creation, one of the original justifications
for this spending. Their findings raised serious doubts about the
way government counted jobs under the CIWP program. (See Secrets
in High Places.)
Stimulate classroom debate by posing any of the following questions
to your students. Encourage light research into the issues by sourcing
current events, newspapers, etc.
Questions Raised By the
Findings
- Is there a problem of political accountability in Canada?
- If so, how could we improve accountability?
- Do we get a chance to hold governments accountable every four
or five years when there is an election?
- Do we need to change anything?
Possible
Exercises / Activities for Students
The evolution of political institutions and practices in Canada
has been toward increasing executive power (concentrated in the
office of the prime minister), and decreasing legislative power.
The House of Commons does not have the means to hold governments
to account, especially on spending matters that it once had. This
makes it increasingly difficult to make governments accountable
to Canadians via their elected representatives (MPs).
Suggested Activities
Secondary Level
a) Prepare an Interview: Have your students interview
your local MP. What powers does he/she have to hold government to
account? Must the representative always follow the dictates of his/her
party? Is the job of MP what he/she thought it would be?
b) Review: The Right Honourable John N. Turner
delivered a speech
in Ottawa to a full house of members of Parliament, students, educators
and members of the urc. What are Turner’s key issues with
regards to parliamentary reform and the role of the member of Parliament?
How does he define accountability in government?
c) Debate: Divide the class into groups. Compare
other electoral systems in other countries, particularly those with
proportional representation systems, to Canada’s first-past-the-post
system. Make the case for which system is more democratic.
d) Essay Subject: Examine the system of checks
and balances between the legislative, executive, and legislative
branches in the United States. What similar checks and balances
exist in Canada? What checks and balances are missing? What are
the implications for political accountability?
Post-Secondary Level a)
Essay Subject: Canada’s next prime minister, Paul
Martin, has made reference to a “democratic deficit”
in this country, with respect to power concentrated in the executive
and missing from the legislative (House of Commons). Do you believe
that there exists a “democratic deficit”? Why? Why not?
If so, what could be done to redress this deficit?
b) Essay Subject: In his October 7, 2003 speech
former Prime Minister John N. Turner states that television has
added the “leadership cult” creating a “presidential
system” whereby the prime minister and leader of the Opposition
talk directly to the people outside of Parliament – effectively
creating a “battle between titans.” Discuss this statement
and illustrate how television and specifically “Question Period”
have changed the face of Canadian politics over the past several
decades. Has television had an impact on accountability in government?
c) Class Discussion: Discuss the merits and abuses
of any one or more of the following issues studied by the underground
royal commission:
• Subsidies and government involvement in promoting industrial
development.
• Power and influence of parliamentary committees.
• The transparency of government spending – can citizens
easily obtain information on how decisions are made with regards
to the spending of our tax dollars?
d) Debate: Organize students into two teams to
research and debate the “yes” and “no” sides
to the following resolution: “MPs are vacuous ciphers.”
(Patrick Boyer)
e) Debate: Organize students into two groups
to discuss and debate both the “yes” and “no”
answers to the question - Does your vote count?
Resource
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