In the process, accountability has been entirely compromised. When the lines of jurisdiction become blurred, the lines of accountability become complex and impossible to follow. When a cost-shared program or project goes sideways, who gets the blame? Which level of government will willingly take responsibility for a program or project that goes off the rails? It will eventually require an expensive audit, also at taxpayer expense, to finally resolve the issue!
Although the federal-provincial and three-way cost-sharing programs were designed to promote national standards and burden-sharing, their real effect has been to blur constitutional lines of responsibility and, as costs skyrocketed, end any concept of financial responsibility for the projects. The lines of responsibility have been irrevocably blurred and accountability for these projects compromised, if not destroyed. Taxpayers and citizens deserve a higher level of accountability and oversight from all levels of government for how their tax dollars are spent. The division of power was created to assure appropriate checks and balances within the federal state. Power must be divided, not concentrated, and always subject to review and preferably restraint.
4
Parliament: A Broken Institution
Under the constitutional convention of responsible government, the government (the executive) is accountable and responsible to the Parliament of Canada. Yet the Canadian Parliament, including all of its constituent elements, is failing miserably in its constitutional obligation. My observations are institutional, not partisan nor personal. The problems are systemic and endemic; ironically, the only institution with the authority to remedy this glaring democratic deficit has no incentive to do so.
The current Conservative government treats Parliament as an inconvenience at best and with contempt at worst. The current executive routinely shuts down debate by implementing time allocation (it has imposed strict time limits on debate seventy times since the last election); it has prorogued Parliament to avoid a confidence motion it was sure it was going to lose, shut down a parliamentary committee investigating the transfer of Afghan detainees without obtaining assurances against torture, and to avoid, for over a month, answering awkward questions regarding the PMO involvement in the Senate Expenses Scandal. Finally, in 2011 the government was found in contempt of Parliament for its refusal to provide detailed cost estimates for hosting the G20 Summit and the cost of purchasing new fighter jets to the parliamentary committee studying the matter.
Amazingly, the government was not even embarrassed by being held in contempt of Parliament. In the election that followed Parliament’s loss of confidence in the government, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) argued its detractors were playing partisan games and were conspiring to form a coalition government. As a result, the Conservative government was rewarded with a majority mandate by the electorate!
The current government, somewhat reluctantly, acknowledges Parliament as a legislative body with lawmaking authority. But to the greatest extent possible, it prefers to run all aspects of Parliament rather than be accountable to it. The current government prefers to govern by Order-in-Council and executive edict as opposed to having to answer to an occasionally meddlesome Parliament.
As a result, the executive has so neutered the institutions of Parliament as to render them nearly impotent, practically unable to fulfill their constitutional duty to hold the executive to account. Any Ottawa insider will verify that almost nothing goes on in the Parliamentary Precinct without the Prime Minister’s Office’s knowledge, consent, and, increasingly frequently, direction.
Executive control and interference has converted all of the major components of the Parliament of Canada, changing them from serving as meaningful checks on government power to serving as placators, complicit in the government agenda The institutions of Parliament, which are failing Canadians in holding government to account, are the House of Commons, the committees of the House of Commons, the government caucus, and the Senate of Canada.
Constitutional expert Peter Russell once famously wrote that a Canadian prime minister with a majority mandate is like a U.S. president without a Congress.[1] Sadly, that is true; a prime minister who can control all of the Parliamentary Precinct can govern without being answerable to any of the constitutional checks and balances on prime ministerial authority. A prime minister in such an enviable power position will treat Parliament as a rubber stamp for his agenda, rather than a constitutional check on his government’s power.
1. The House of Commons
Those who advise the Crown must command the support of the democratically elected chamber. The lower house, the House of Commons, is the democratically elected chamber and it is, in theory, the primary body in holding the government to account. In sad reality, the House of Commons serves as a rubber stamp for a majority government’s agenda.
A House of Commons has existed since the thirteenth century when, following the signing of the Magna Carta, King John consented to submit his requests for increased taxes to an elected assembly. This elected legislature was designed specifically to represent the citizen taxpayers and provide a check against the Crown’s insatiable appetite for more taxes. Eight hundred years later, these constitutional requirements still apply — the Crown (the executive) cannot spend money that Parliament has not approved. Money bills must be introduced in the elected House of Commons, not in the appointed Senate. No private MP can introduce a bill or initiative that requires the Crown to commit funds without the express approval of the government or a royal recommendation.
However, the House of Commons, especially one in a majority setting, has long abandoned assigning any value to its role of serving as a check on government spending or of vetting proposed government initiatives or legislation. There is a simple reason why this is the case: the members of the governing caucus think of themselves as part of the government, rather than a check on the government. They refer to the government using pronouns like “we” or as “our government.” They go home on weekends armed with talking points and prewritten op-ed pieces to submit to local newspapers praising the government’s performance and virtue. They show up at government-funding announcements in their ridings (or in nearby ridings if the riding is not served by a member of the governing caucus), often with oversized novelty cheques (sometimes bearing the party logo) bragging and taking credit for the pork that has just been delivered.
These MPs are of no value in holding the government to account; they consider themselves to be part of the government. They do not even pretend to be a check on the government. On a good day, they are cheerleaders for the government; on a bad day, they are government apologists. On all days, they are part of the communications machinery of government, as opposed to critical reviewers of government proposals. And nowhere is this dereliction of duty in providing a check on government more evident than in the daily proceedings of the House of Commons.
The majority of the House of Commons’ day is spent debating government bills. The remainder is spent debating and voting on Opposition bills. One hour each day is reserved for debating private member bills or motions. However, most of the “debate” and all of the “votes” are so closely monitored, and, when necessary, orchestrated, by the Prime Minister’s Office that any separation between the executive and the legislative branches is purely illusionary. Government backbenchers are encouraged to deliver speeches in favour of government legislation and in opposition to Opposition motions (unless of course the government supports the Opposition motion, in which case its backbenchers are expected to do likewise). Almost all members read from prepared text. The PMO prefers this method; freelancing might result in someone going off script. The department sponsoring the government bill, or potentially affected by an Opposition motion, will prepare speaking notes or complete canned speeches. Members of Parliament uncomfortable with the role of actor, reading the playwright’s script, are encouraged to vet their own proposed comments with the designated government point person.
The entire process is a farce and resembles less