Unless an agreement is reached before Monday, the House of Commons will resume business as usual with all 338 MPs along with their staff, clerks, interpreters, security and cleaners, returning to work in Ottawa. The Liberals are also proposing one additional session be held each week with another lengthy question period, but this one would be
Continue readingTag: Legislative Process
Democracy Under Fire: Virtual Parliament?
The current situation has brought many questions to mind for us all with the majority connected with our governance in one form or another be it provincial heath departments or national financial supports. Yesterday a small group of federal MPs gathered in Ottawa to pass some necessary measures to support
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: A Broken System?
Recent events and reports have made it clear that our system of governance has some major flaws in it as it currently operates, whist efforts to improve the way we elect our representatives have failed it is becoming increasing obvious that those we do elect have very little power to
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Much ado about nothing?
Does anyone believe that most, if not all, large national and international companys seeking to do business with overseas entities such as Saudi Arabia do not provide ‘incentives’ to the principals involved? Does anyone believe that without such ‘incentives’ said companys would not receive the contracts but would be passed
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Backbenchers just decoration?
In this era of hyper-partisanship, can backbenchers have an effective voice, or have they been relegated to the role of a modern Greek chorus, anonymous figures advancing a pre-determined story? This is the question Hershell Ezrin asks in a short article in Ontario News Watch “In defence of hyper partisanship,
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Majority not enough for Ford.
The PCs are moving to change the legislature’s rules of procedure, formally called the standing orders. These rules control such things as when bills can be introduced, when opposition parties get to put forward motions, and how much debate must take place before a bill goes to a final vote. The
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Fordocracy in Action
“Democracy is going every four years to elect a government…without worrying about your mandate being overturned,” said Mr. Ford. No Mr Premier that’s Fordocracy or if you prefer Dougocracy our Canadian democracy is much more than electing a new government every few years, it is a living reflection of the
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: New Report on the State of our Democracy.
The Samara Centre for Democracy interviewed 54 former MPs from the last Parliament about their experience in Ottawa and found many of them questioning the very purpose of being an MP in an era when political power is concentrated in the hands of party leaders. The Samara Centre is a
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: When The Senate Works As It Should…..
After years of the Conservative dominated Senate rubber stamping legislation and blocking amendments in committee we now have a situation where they are doing their job and proposing changes to a clearly flawed bill. Despite the Liberals using their …
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: When The Senate Works As It Should…..
After years of the Conservative dominated Senate rubber stamping legislation and blocking amendments in committee we now have a situation where they are doing their job and proposing changes to a clearly flawed bill. Despite the Liberals using their majority to turn down all of the many amendments propped in the House to the Assisted dieing legislation it is fairly well established that as written it will not pass the constitutional test and the Senate has proposed a change to correct this, the reaction is perhaps predictable.
Both the Conservatives and some others are screaming that this is going to produce a parliamentary deadlock in that the minister responsible continues to defend the bill as written and shows no indication of accepting the senates recommendations. It has yet to be seen in both sides dig their heels in and compromise cannot be found bur the rhetoric that says the Senate is interfering with the process of passing this legislation is pure bloody nonsense! Their job is to study legislation in depth, including the constitutionality of it, and propose corrections to it for the House to consider, that in the past when the majority party numbers in the House and the Senate have coincided and flawed bills have not been properly examined or changed does not mean that such actions are correct or desirable. I am sure that there have also be periods when the majorities did not coincide and bills have been “held up” in the Senate before.
Although the number of “independent” senators in the chamber is not substantive (yet) the general tone of the place seems to be improving and the partisanship reducing, now if we can get the Liberals in the HoC to stop “acting like the previous government” and be more accepting of amendments to proposed legislation be it from their fellow MPs or from the Senate we might have something going right for a change. This has also happened to another bill before the Senate, the RCMP Union legislation!
Let us wait and see how the changes are dealt with when the bills are returned to to the House, it will be another definitive test of whether the election promises and rhetoric were meaningful or just that, promises and rhetoric! Step one, a totally free vote by all partys on this important issue when it gets back to the House.
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: When The Senate Works As It Should…..
After years of the Conservative dominated Senate rubber stamping legislation and blocking amendments in committee we now have a situation where they are doing their job and proposing changes to a clearly flawed bill. Despite the Liberals using their majority to turn down all of the many amendments propped in
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Promises – Parliamentary Accountability
As promised in my post A cabinet that looks like Canada, this week I am going to take a closer look at the Liberal Government’s quite modest promises as regards to parliamentary reform as listed in their platform document. Taking them one at a time they are (in shortened form):-
“Strengthen the role of parliamentary committee chairs, including elections by secret ballot. Ensure a more robust system of oversight and review for legislation.”
This one bothers me a little given that committee chairs already have considerable power over the way such meetings are conducted and can, as we have seen in recent years, use procedural actions to disrupt open discussion should they wish to. They need to be more open and accountable with rules established to ensure such partisan or personal biases cannot substantially effect discussions not more power over the process. I am not at all sure what “ a more robust system of oversight and review for legislation” means, reviewing proposed legislation is after all THE function of committees. Government House Leader Dominic Leblanc says House committees should be independent from government with non-partisan chairs and possibly no parliamentary secretary members. As with all things the devil is in the details, this one is a wait and see item.
“Liberal Caucus members will only be required to vote with the Cabinet on those matters that implement the Liberal electoral platform or traditional confidence matters…..”
Whilst more ‘free’ votes are highly desirable I am not sure that this actually promises that, in the short term at least most, if not all legislation could be said to “implement the Liberal electoral platform”. No MP should be “required to vote” in any particular manner, naturally those who disagree with their own party’s legislation and vote against it may face some kind of ‘disciplinary’ action from the party but telling an MP how to vote is wrong and antidemocratic. The ONLY vote that could result in a minority government falling should be one that specifically says “This house has no confidence in thus ‘whipping’ the vote would be unnecessary…..”
“Create a new, nonpartisan, merit-based, broad, and diverse process to advise the Prime Minister on Senate appointments.”
We do not know at this point what this “process” will be however given the restrictions placed upon the PM by the constitution, and if he truly wants to make the Senate the non partisan chamber of ‘sober second thought’ then taking advice, or even better, candidate recommendations from outside government is the only alternative. I have said before that given that Senators are meant to be representative of the province in which they reside that it seems appropriate that said provinces should be able to propose at least some of those candidates. Once again this is a wait and see what the ‘process’ involves but is far better than proposing reforms that involve opening up the constitution in a long and potentially divisive process..
“Work with all parties in the House of Commons to ensure an inclusive, representative, transparent, and accountable process to advise on appointments to the Supreme Court.”
It is my understanding that such a process was already in place, it is just that the previous PM chose to ignore such processes.
“Introduce a Prime Minister’s Question Period, empower the Speaker to challenge and sanction Members during Question Period.”
The PM is supposed to be one amongst equals, is having a special question period just for him reinforcing the perception that he and he alone is responsible for policy? I agree that the speaker should have more power to enforce members to behave and to answer actual questions put, not go off on some unrelated time passing distraction. Good luck with that.
“Change parliamentary financial processes, ensuring accounting consistency among the Estimates and the Public Accounts, providing costing analysis for each
government bill and restoring the requirement that the government’s borrowing plans
receive Parliament’s pre-approval.”
Duh!
“Ensure that all of the Officers of Parliament – the Chief Electoral Officer, the Access to Information Commissioner, the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer etc, etc, are all properly funded and respected for doing their important work to help Canadians.”
We have seen during the last governments tenure that when you cant get rid of an officer whos reports you don’t like the next best thing is to cut their funding. We hope that they all do get sufficient funding restored to do their job effectively but must ask if there is a way to ensure that future governments cannot silence these officers by such methods.
“Not use prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances, change the House of Commons Standing Orders to end the practice of using omnibus bills to reduce scrutiny
prevent future governments from using this method to silence critical reports.’
Both of these promises are a very good start and we hope that they can indeed “prevent future governments (and their own) from using omnibus bills“ although how you ‘lock in’ such rules to prevent future governments from changing them back and what penalties can be put in place to prevent the rules being ignored is questionable. All the rules around prorogation, forming coalitions upon the defeat of a minority government, and similar constitutional matters need to be clarified, particularly if electoral reform takes place that results in a greater probability of more minority’s being elected.
The above is almost identical to the ‘list’ proposed by Ms May of the Greens as presented in the post Fixing What Harper Broke where she says “Ideally, a parliamentary committee will be mandated to review the abuses of the last ten years and recommend a full suite of measures to ensure it never happens again.“ There is the rub, any incoming government can seemingly come in and change the rules (or ignore them) as most are not enshrined in law, but for a few citizens invoking constitutional challenges it could have been much worse.
As we have seen in recent years the rules around prorogation, minority and coalition governments and even House proceedings are easily abused, and how and when such constitutional maneuverings can take place is far from clear and governed more by ‘tradition’ than any hard and fast rules or guidelines. Such things need to be formally documented to avoid future ‘constitutional crises’. With the House setting its own rules this is not an easy task, we wish the new Liberal government well with these changes and await the recall of the House to see exactly how much the ‘tone’ and substance of the proceeding will change under what we hope and expect to be a more open and respectful leadership.
Democracy Under Fire: Promises – Parliamentary Accountability
As promised in my post A cabinet that looks like Canada, this week I am going to take a closer look at the Liberal Government’s quite modest promises as regards to parliamentary reform as listed in their platform document. Taking them one at a time t…
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Senate Reform Redux
With a small minority of senators under the spotlight for spending irregularities and the Duffy trial adding a further spotlight on how the unprincipled nominated to that body can cheat the system (such as it is) there are the predictable calls for it to be abolished. NDP leader Thomas Mulclair
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Like Lemmings off a Cliff
Canadians who have been taking notice will be aware that C51, the police state law, has past 3rd reading in the house and now goes before the Senate for final reading. It will come as no surprise that the Conservatives vote en-block for the bill for even if some of
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Harper History, Part 5A – Information witheld , Omnibus Budget
Mar 2010 – June 2010 If the period before the second prorogation of Parliament was deemed “dysfunctional” the period from when parliament returned in March and the following 12 months till the 2011 election should be classed as totally without any redeeming features. It includes an ongoing and never-ending series
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Sorry, Your Partisan Slip is Showing
We know that the House public safety committee has been ‘studying’ the government’s anti-terror bill and that despite the long list of influential and knowledgeable people wishing to speak to the dangers of this bill to our freedoms and privacy the list of those permitted to participate was severely restricted.
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Harper History, Part 4 – Con Minority, Prorogued x2
Oct 2008 – Dec 2009, With conservatives reelected with an increased minority we begin to see their true colours with increased self promotion on taxpayers money using 10%ers, the start of those iniquitous Economic Action Plan TV ads and clear disdain for parliamentary procedure. It becomes increasing difficult to obtain
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: The Cons V The Courts!
Andrew Coyne wonders if the Harper Regiem is deliberately challenging the Courts with their various ‘unconstitutional’ pieces of legislation in order to get them to overstep their bounds and make a federal “not withstanding” exception to our charter more acceptable. Not only is the government making no apparent effort to
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: In Government We Trust?
As I review the actions of the Harper Regime since coming to power for my Harper History Series, an undertaking that one must take in very small bites if one is to retain one composure and sanity, I have been thinking a great deal about the choices before us and
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