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the decline in democracy , accountability
Mar. 5th, 2011 01:23 pmAn Eloquent Plea for Democracy.
James Travers for the Toronto Star.
March 4, 2011 (Originally printed in 2009).
Laughter or disbelief would have been my ’80s response to any gloomy prediction that within the next 20 odd years Canada’s iconic police force would twist the outcome of a federal election. I would have rejected out of hand the suggestion that Parliament would become a largely ceremonial body incapable of performing its defining functions of safeguarding public spending and holding ministers to account. I would have treated as ridiculous any forecast that the senior bureaucracy would become politicized, that many of the powers of a monarch would flow from Parliament to the prime minister or that the authority of the Governor General, the de facto head of state, would be openly challenged.
Yet every one has happened and each has chipped away another brick of the democratic foundations underpinning Parliament. Incrementally and by stealth, Canada has become a situational democracy. What matters now is what works. Precedents, procedures and even laws have given way to the political doctrine of expediency.
No single party or prime minister is solely to blame. Since Pierre Trudeau first dismissed backbenchers as nobodies and began drawing power out of Parliament and into his office, all have contributed to the creep toward a more authoritarian, less accountable Canadian polity.
Some of the changes are understandable. Government evolves with its environment, and that environment has become more complex even as the controls have become wobblier, less connected. The terrible twins of globalization and subsidiarity — the sound theory that services are most efficiently delivered by the administrative level closest to the user — now sorely test the ability of national legislatures to respond to challenges at home and abroad. Think of it this way: Trade, the economy and the environment have all gone global while the things that matter most to most of us — health, education and the quality of city life — are the guarded responsibility of provinces and municipalities.
Politics and politicians being what they are, the reflex response is to grasp for all remaining power. Once secured, it can be used to exercise political will more easily by overruling rules and rewriting or simply ignoring laws. Power alone is effective in cross-cutting through the silo walls that isolate departments and frustrate co-ordinated policies. Important to all administrations, unfettered manoeuvring room is that much more important to minority governments desperate to maximize limited options and minimize opposition influence.
Good for prime ministers, that’s not nearly good enough for the rest of us. It fuels an inexorable power drift to the opaque political centre, creating what Donald Savoie, Canada’s eminent chronicler of Westminster parliaments, calls “court government.” It’s his clear and credible view that between elections, prime ministers now operate in the omnipotent manner of kings. Surrounded by subservient cabinet barons, fawning unelected courtiers and answerable to no one, they manage the affairs of state more or less as they please.
Prime ministers are freeing themselves from the chains that once bound them to voters, Parliament, cabinet and party. From bottom to top, from citizen to head of state, every link in those chains is stressed, fractured or broken.
Read More.
Tories Rebrand Government of Canada As Harper Government.
Jonathan Rose, for the Toronto Star.
March 3, 2011
"It is one thing for journalists or even the public to use the more partisan 'Harper government,' but it is another thing for the state to equate the Government of Canada with the leader of the governing party," said Jonathon Rose, a specialist in political communications at Queen’s University.
"The effect of this subtle framing just before an election is to equate government with Harper," said Rose. "It creates a perception of a natural affinity between one party’s leader and the act of governing."
The Harper-centric messaging prompted Rose to recall French King Louis XIV and his 17th century divine right of kings: "L'État, c’est moi," quipped the political scientist. "The state is me."
Read more.
James Travers for the Toronto Star.
March 4, 2011 (Originally printed in 2009).
Laughter or disbelief would have been my ’80s response to any gloomy prediction that within the next 20 odd years Canada’s iconic police force would twist the outcome of a federal election. I would have rejected out of hand the suggestion that Parliament would become a largely ceremonial body incapable of performing its defining functions of safeguarding public spending and holding ministers to account. I would have treated as ridiculous any forecast that the senior bureaucracy would become politicized, that many of the powers of a monarch would flow from Parliament to the prime minister or that the authority of the Governor General, the de facto head of state, would be openly challenged.
Yet every one has happened and each has chipped away another brick of the democratic foundations underpinning Parliament. Incrementally and by stealth, Canada has become a situational democracy. What matters now is what works. Precedents, procedures and even laws have given way to the political doctrine of expediency.
No single party or prime minister is solely to blame. Since Pierre Trudeau first dismissed backbenchers as nobodies and began drawing power out of Parliament and into his office, all have contributed to the creep toward a more authoritarian, less accountable Canadian polity.
Some of the changes are understandable. Government evolves with its environment, and that environment has become more complex even as the controls have become wobblier, less connected. The terrible twins of globalization and subsidiarity — the sound theory that services are most efficiently delivered by the administrative level closest to the user — now sorely test the ability of national legislatures to respond to challenges at home and abroad. Think of it this way: Trade, the economy and the environment have all gone global while the things that matter most to most of us — health, education and the quality of city life — are the guarded responsibility of provinces and municipalities.
Politics and politicians being what they are, the reflex response is to grasp for all remaining power. Once secured, it can be used to exercise political will more easily by overruling rules and rewriting or simply ignoring laws. Power alone is effective in cross-cutting through the silo walls that isolate departments and frustrate co-ordinated policies. Important to all administrations, unfettered manoeuvring room is that much more important to minority governments desperate to maximize limited options and minimize opposition influence.
Good for prime ministers, that’s not nearly good enough for the rest of us. It fuels an inexorable power drift to the opaque political centre, creating what Donald Savoie, Canada’s eminent chronicler of Westminster parliaments, calls “court government.” It’s his clear and credible view that between elections, prime ministers now operate in the omnipotent manner of kings. Surrounded by subservient cabinet barons, fawning unelected courtiers and answerable to no one, they manage the affairs of state more or less as they please.
Prime ministers are freeing themselves from the chains that once bound them to voters, Parliament, cabinet and party. From bottom to top, from citizen to head of state, every link in those chains is stressed, fractured or broken.
Read More.
Tories Rebrand Government of Canada As Harper Government.
Jonathan Rose, for the Toronto Star.
March 3, 2011
"It is one thing for journalists or even the public to use the more partisan 'Harper government,' but it is another thing for the state to equate the Government of Canada with the leader of the governing party," said Jonathon Rose, a specialist in political communications at Queen’s University.
"The effect of this subtle framing just before an election is to equate government with Harper," said Rose. "It creates a perception of a natural affinity between one party’s leader and the act of governing."
The Harper-centric messaging prompted Rose to recall French King Louis XIV and his 17th century divine right of kings: "L'État, c’est moi," quipped the political scientist. "The state is me."
Read more.
