It’s public knowledge that the power of the Prime Minister in Canada is enormous. Key decisions are handed down, it’s a hierarchy mimicking Military Command. An essay called “Our Benign Dictatorship” written by Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan back in 1997 articulated this very well, quite ironically:
Only in politics do we still entrust power to a single faction expected to prevail every time over the opposition by sheer force of numbers. Even more anachronistically, we persist in structuring the governing team like a military regiment under a single commander with almost total power to appoint, discipline and expel .
Decisions and control come from the Prime Minister. Individual members are strategic pawns in order to push the agenda the Dear Leader wants. Even Cabinet Ministers aren’t all that autonomous in many cases. Stephen and Tom put it well:
Our parliamentary government creates a concentrated power structure out of step with other aspects of society
The extreme of this comes to the point that individual members don’t even know what they’re doing; they’re just told to pass the legislation thoughtlessly, it’s their job as pawns. Cabinet Ministers are similarly told to thoughtlessly and automatically defend the agenda that they possibly had no say in.
Members of the Cabinet and individual MPs are utensils to be – appropriately – utilized.
It should come to little surprise that Vic Towes, when dealing with Bill C-30 turned out to be ignorant about what was in it. It seems he never even read it. He flat out denied accusations from opposition members and the media about what was contained in the bill, which turned out, to his dismay, to be actually true and in the legislation. And finally, at one point he was surprised to find out he was actually wrong.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says he is surprised to learn that a section of the government’s online surveillance bill provides for “exceptional circumstances” under which “any police officer” can request customer information from a telecommunications service provider.
This is a blunder of hilarious proportions, but it’s to be expected; it’s not exceptional. The system set up creates these blunders by nature.
When you centralize power to a quasi-dictatorial level, tools are going to bend and snap. When you hand someone a package and tell them to defend it just because you said so, it’s quite possible that they won’t be well equipped to defend and explain things since they might just not know. They’re merely an instrument in getting what the Boss wants done, not instrumental in making the laws; only useful to pass and crony up what the Big Cheese wants. Not individual and autonomous, not actively participating in a process of lawmaking and perfecting; just there to do the bidding of the Commander.
This has happened before in other governments – in other conservative governments, in Canada. Namely, the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario and their record in power from 1995 to 2001. Even more particularly, Mike Harris’ hyper-centralization of power towards the Premier’s Office. As detailed before, by yours truly, it was referred to as the “centre” (aptly) and all the decisions came from there. Quite similar to the power-concentration around the Prime Minister now. (1)
Gaffes occurred for the Mike Harris Tories. Just like with Minister Vic Towes and his surprise at the contents of the very same bill he introduced, defended and voted for. Ministers for the Progressive Conservative Party of Mr. Harris bumbled and dropped the façade for a moment, too.
The Bill that caused the largest and most obvious case of flustering for Ministers in the Mike Harris Cabinet would have to be Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act. This was a massive omnibus bill with many reforms and a giant precursor for greater cuts to come.(2)
Ministers weren’t involved in making this bill, so naturally, when they were selected to defend it errors and humiliation ensued. Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leech in response to accusations about what was in the bill from then-NDP leader Bob Rae was quite telling:
“To the leader of the coalition, I had that right there to read back to you. Completely lost. Mr. Speaker, give me two minutes. Let me take that on notice and get back to you”(3)
Sounds like he’s surprised by the contents of the bill, where have we heard that before?
John Ibbitson details this in his book Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution (Page 145):
Leach’s befuddlement grew out of the process [that created the bill]… individual Ministers were left in the dark on the portions of the bill affecting their ministries. They were stuck publically defending a piece of legislation they had had little to do with and didn’t understand.
The mishaps of individual MPs and Ministers aren’t unpredictable; they’re completely predictable. They’re to be expected. The system creates failure by disabling Parliamentary participatory democracy. It’s institutional incompetence with a façade to protect it.
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