Point of View 2-Book Bundle. Douglas L. Bland
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and citizens are increasingly shut out of the decision-making process. If government listens only to its political advisors and its bureaucrats, paying only lip service to the notion that it is responsible to its citizens and its elected representatives, is it any wonder that it has grown in size and expense? Should we be surprised that government, in its modern, nanny-state form, controls not only more of our resources, but also more of our individual decision-making and liberties? Is it surprising that, as the cost of government increases, tax burdens similarly increase and, therefore, a taxpayer’s disposable income, as a percentage, continues to decline? Is anybody shocked that governments at all levels are living beyond their means, or that the federal government alone is over $600 billion in debt?
Reinforcing the accountability of government to elected legislatures and councils (and, thus, citizens) is the only solution to this problem. If taxpayers do not demand greater accountability from governments of all stripes and levels for how those governments spend taxpayer resources, they cannot be surprised when governments and civil servants treat those resources like Monopoly money.
It is up to citizens, and their elected assemblies, to reassert control over the executive’s treatment of public resources, because the executive has no incentive to do so on its own. It is time to recalibrate the relationship and the power structure between the executive and legislative branches of government. It is critical that we rebalance the influence wielded by the unelected executive and the elected Parliament, which at least in theory remains supreme.
The following analysis of how to correct this imbalance commences with an examination of how we got to where we are today. It all started in a tavern on Yonge Street in Toronto in 1837.
1.
The Quest for Responsible Government: From the Magna Carta to Lord Durham
I enjoy speaking to students about my job as a Member of Parliament. Most elementary and junior high school students have little idea what an MP is or does. They do, however, understand what a rule is and are accustomed to rules both at school and at home. When I explain that Parliament makes law and that laws are essentially rules that apply to everyone, the students gain at least some frame of reference.
In contrast, some high-school students are quite politically literate, some even politically active. When I ask them to define “responsible government” however, I am almost always disappointed with the response. Generally, without exception, “responsible government” will be defined as a government that governs responsibly, that is to say, one that makes good decisions.
The obvious problem with the answer is that determining what constitutes good governmental decisions requires a very subjective analysis. A social program, requiring a huge budgetary commitment, would quite likely be met with approval by a socialist. A fiscal conservative, however, might regard the proposal as unnecessary or even wasteful.
There is no objective method to determine what is a “responsible” decision or government initiative. However, in the context of our inherited Westminster system of government, “responsible government” has a very different and specific meaning.
The origins of parliamentary democracy and the quest for responsible government date back eight hundred years. In medieval Europe, a series of bodies developed to act as advisory bodies to the various monarchs. This was partly at the request of the monarchs, who saw value in counsel for affairs of court, and partly in response to the requests of the barons, commoners, and the church, who were all coming of age and believed that they were entitled to a say in governance.
The actual use of the word parliament traces its origins to 1236 and King John of England.[1] King John had, since his coronation, surrounded himself with advisors, trusted men appointed by him to help him make decisions on important matters. This group was called the King’s Council. This tradition has been continued to this day, as the legal community bestows upon worthy members of its profession the designation Queen’s Counsel.
However, the nobles and wealthy men of the time wished to have more say and they put pressure on King John to formalize a sharing of power. Following a period of conflict, John agreed to the principle of common consent, and the rules governing this sharing of power were set down in what is known as the Magna Carta, or Great Charter. As a result, King John had to expand his inner circle to include not only more nobles, i.e., the aristocracy and the landed gentry, but also more commoners. Thereafter, the precedent was established that the king would submit all requests for increased taxation to a newly created body of commoners, i.e., rich merchants and lawyers. Over several centuries the two distinct groups would evolve into the House of Lords and the House of Commons respectively.
This was the genesis of parliamentary governance, crude but appropriate for its time. We inherited this evolving system, at least in principle, on February 10, 1763, when France ceded its North American empire (New France) to Great Britain pursuant to the Treaty of Paris following the Seven Years’ War. The “Royal Proclamation” of the same year established the legal parameters of the new British North America. The British North American colonies were distinct and were known by recognizable names such as Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the islands of Prince Edward and Newfoundland. The mechanism of the “Constitutional Act” (properly known as the Clergy Endowments (Canada) Act) of 1791, divided Quebec into two separate colonies, English Upper Canada and French Lower Canada, with the Ottawa River serving as the border between the two. The terms Upper and Lower refer to the flow of the St. Lawrence River (eastward from the Great Lakes).
In the post–American Revolution period, Great Britain was suspect of too much democracy, which it feared might lead to “mob rule” in its remaining colonies. Accordingly, it deliberately attempted to counter rampant republicanism by strengthening the power and prestige of the governor, the handpicked emissary put in charge of the colony. Colonial decisions would be entrusted to the governor and his unelected executive council (Council of Advisors).
The 1791 Constitutional Act clearly set up the power structure for the colonies of British North America. In charge was the governor, who represented the British Foreign Office. The executive council was appointed by the governor to help him manage and administer the colony. The elected legislative assembly was comprised entirely of male landowners and had no legislative authority; its function could be considered consultative at best.
This attempt at colonial governance created a rather dysfunctional situation. Admittedly, any attempt at running a distant colony would prove challenging. However, having an appointed council oversee an elected assembly was especially awkward. This poor soil somehow nourished the seeds of responsible government; but cultivating those seeds would be difficult process, and would require the extraordinary efforts of reform-minded revolutionaries.
Following the War of 1812, two such reformers emerged: in Lower Canada, the aristocrat Louis-Joseph Papineau; and, in Upper Canada, my personal hero, journalist William Lyon Mackenzie.[2]
The Constitutional Act of 1791 placed the elected assembly under control of the appointed council. Whenever the assembly refused to act as the governor or council desired, the usual “solution” was to dissolve the assembly, call for an election, and hope for a more co-operative assembly. These acts of refusal were the only actions available to the elected assemblies of both Upper and Lower Canada, for they could wield only negative power; they could block the council’s initiatives, but they could not direct them. Because of a tradition that dated back to when King John agreed to submit his budget to Parliament, the governor’s spending plans had to be approved by both the council and the elected assembly. As the assembly could not introduce a budget bill, the assembly’s power was accordingly limited to blocking the executive’s spending plans. The result was frequent gridlock.
This gridlock was made worse by the fact that near-oligarchies had evolved in all of the colonies, a situation that was especially true in Upper and Lower Canada — the Château Clique in Lower Canada, and in Upper Canada, the Family Compact. It was there that the majority of the European immigrants were settling. The established landowners did not want to share power and were suspicious of extending democracy, since they felt that it would prove a threat to their financial interests.
In Lower Canada, the wealthy merchant families,