In his Christmas Day message, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dubbed 2010 “Canada’s year to shine.” In many respects he was correct, pointing to the success of the Olympics, the royal visit and the G8/G20 summit which, despite police brutality during protests in Toronto, laid important groundwork for closer and deeper cooperation between developed and emerging nations. However, he ignored the many ways in which 2010 left much to be desired, notably the failure of Canada’s bid to be elected to a seat on the United Nations Security Council. The most important problem he left out, for obvious reasons, was his own government’s performance in Parliament.
Last year marked the second dismal year in terms of parliamentary productivity since the 2008 election. While Canada was spared a third prorogation in as many years, the government used parliamentary tactics which seemed aimed more at disruption than governance. The government introduced little new legislation and passed even less of it. It used its newly minted near-majority in the Senate to block a private member’s bill on climate change, something no government had done in decades. It continued to block access to crucial information on the treatment of Afghan detainees until forced into a compromise by Speaker Peter Milliken.
Equally lacklustre was the performance of the opposition. Attempting to make up for his perceived aloofness, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff took advantage of every opportunity for low blows against the government. This provided plenty of fodder for the evening news, which addressed his dismal name recognition, but did little to improve his credibility. Likewise, New Democratic Leader Jack Layton did much to keep himself in the national spotlight, most notably leading the opposition to the private member’s bill proposing the abolition of the gun registry. While he undoubtedly shone then, he also exposed deep and worrying divides within his own party.
All of these factors, combined with an increasingly distrustful parliamentary culture, conspired to make 2010 among the least productive years in Canadian parliamentary history. This might be read as a sign that things are going so well in Canada that little parliamentary business is required to keep the country going. In part, this is true: the strong foundations laid by the Chrétien government have kept this country from the worst of the financial crisis which has battered the rest of the world. As a result, Canada’s deficit is large, but manageable.
However, Canada faces serious challenges. The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly clear and the war in Afghanistan continues to present serious day-to-day challenges and raise important broader questions about the nature of Canada’s role in the world. Upcoming health and social transfer negotiations between the federal government and the provinces are likely to be brutal as provincial budgets across the country are increasingly strained. The lack of parliamentary business is in part the result of the nature of these challenges, which do not lend themselves easily to legislation.
But this decline of productivity is also the result of how the Conservatives govern. Harper has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, going as far back as Pierre Trudeau’s first government in the late 1960s and early 1970s, by centralizing decision-making in the prime minister’s office. He has asserted the power to make sweeping decisions without parliamentary approval, including extending Canada’s mission in Afghanistan past its planned end this coming summer and cancelling the mandatory long-form census against the advice of Statistics Canada. These subtle changes add up to a veritable constitutional sea change, which has seen Canada move from parliamentary to prime ministerial government.
If this trend continues unchecked, Canada will maintain the institutions of parliamentary government. However, in practice, its government will become increasingly presidential. This change is not necessarily a bad one, especially if we agree with the policies of the party in power; it might help make government decision-making more effective. Without such strong powers, both Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin would not have been able to take the drastic steps in the mid to late 1990s that saved Canada from debt-driven stagnation. However, these powers undermine the ability of Parliament to check the government’s decisions, especially when it holds a majority.
The decline of parliamentary productivity and the rise of prime ministerial government go hand in hand. These changes have serious consequences, some bad and some good. If we believe that this new constitutional order is one that we want, then so be it, but we should not assume that it is simply because it is what prime minister’s prefer. Through our politicians we can choose for there to be a different way of governing. Compared to Americans, we are relatively unconstrained by outdated and unworkable constitutional tradition. In other words, we can make it Canada’s year to shine by demanding better.
