sign in sign up
<<
Home , Jeffrey Simpson, Ralph Klein, Robert Stanfield, Stockwell Day

CANADIAN POLITICS AND ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENT

Election 2000

The Liberals’ election win was a triumph for the party and the Prime Minister, but it leaves Canadian politics in a bad way. There is no credible alternative government, and won’t be until the Alliance and the Conservatives learn that winning power in means putting together broad coalitions. In the meantime, the party system and first-past-the-post give us elected dictatorship with few checks and Jeffrey Simpson balances. Unfortunately, the prospects for reform are virtually nil. La réélection des libéraux, si elle a marqué le triomphe du parti et du premier ministre, laisse en piètre état la vie politique canadienne. Aucune équipe crédible n’est là pour assumer la relève—et il en sera ainsi tant que les alliancistes et les conservateurs n’auront pas appris que, au Canada, la conquête du pouvoir passe par la création de larges coalitions. Pendant ce temps, le système de partis et le scrutin uninominal à un tour nous valent des dictatures élues, jouissant de presque tous les pouvoirs. Les perspectives de réforme sont, hélas, à peu près nulles.

n strictly partisan terms, the Liberal Party’s re-election rather than barely survived it. We can be quite sure that last November to a third consecutive majority govern- the partisan debate will be in full throat throughout the I ment was a remarkable accomplishment. No federal parliamentary session. party had won three consecutive majorities since the Partisan parliamentary debate, however, should not Liberals won five of them from 1935 to 1953, and no Prime obscure the pertinence of the question—is Canada a one- Minister had led his party to three consecutive majorities party state? Multi-party democracy presumes that at least since Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1935, 1940 and one party is ready and capable of replacing the existing gov- 1945. Whatever one’s views of Prime Minister Jean ernment by winning an election. Clearly, no party was Chrétien, historians will be forced to give him full credit for ready and capable in the last election, despite the preten- these three majority victories. sions of the . Will any party be ready and The Liberal three-peat does, however, raise the ques- capable next time? tion: Is Canada a de facto one-party state? In one sense, No one can predict the political future three, four or the obvious answer is no, because four other parties five years from now. There are too many unknowns for sen- won enough seats in the House of Commons to secure sible prognostications. There may be changes in the Liberal official party status. And a smattering of other parties leadership. We do not know how the economy will be per- also contested the election, from the to forming three or four years from now. We cannot predict the Marxist-Leninists. We are not North Korea, Syria or domestic or international crises that may test the mettle of Eastern Europe, circa 1970. Moreover, it took only a the existing government. matter of days for the partisan arguing to resume after What we can say is that none of the opposition par- the votes were counted. Alliance leader ties—and this observation is particularly relevant to the began telling the Prime Minister who should be Official Opposition, the Canadian Alliance—has absorbed dropped from his cabinet; Mr. Clark lectured the Prime the lessons of Canadian political history. The future is sel- Minister on a variety of subjects, sounding, if only to dom like the past, but the past does offer clues about what himself, as if the Conservatives had won the election it takes to be successful in Canadian politics.

POLICY OPTIONS 15 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2001 Jeffrey Simpson

he most important clue is the nature of non- ments rather than ideological formations. The T Liberal governments in the 20th century. issues of the day differed. Some of the great ques- Only four of them lasted any length of time, and tions of moment, such as Canada-US free-trade they all shared roughly similar characteristics. under , were sharply defined. But Procrustean The Conservatives who defeated the Liberals pragmatism and brokering the interests of differ- these four times put together a coalition, which is ent regional and ethnic groups had more to do politics does not what parties must do in a geographically sprawl- with political success than did the siren songs of work in Canada. ing, regionally sensitive, linguistically divided, ideology. ethnically diverse country. Procrustean politics does not work in Parties that try The non-Liberal, Conservative-led coalitions Canada. Parties that try to shape the country to that won did not endure more than two terms. their message rather than shaping their message to shape the The coalitions eventually broke asunder. They to the country—the whole country not just ele- did not succeed in cohering long enough to ments of it—are likely to lose. This is not merely country to their replace the Liberals as the country’s dominant the message of the past. It resonates today, wit- party. But they did come together for a while, and ness to which are the Liberals’ three majority message rather provided a temporary alternative to Liberal rule, governments and the repeated failure of the thereby creating a competitive two-party system Reform and Alliance parties to defeat them. than shaping and forcing the Liberals to renew themselves. their message These successful non-Liberal coalitions were t will be argued by those of a more ideological comprised of four elements: traditional in I persuasion that what has worked for to the country— ; Conservatives in , Conservative governments in and backed by financial interests; Western Ontario can be transferred with few modifica- the whole populists (and business interests); and, critically, tions to national politics. Obviously, anyone on various hues of French-speaking nation- the political right will be pleased with the victo- country, not just alists. The Conservatives formed a majority gov- ries and subsequent governing approaches of ernment only once without significant strength Premiers and Mike Harris, and per- elements of it— in Quebec—in 1917 under Prime Minister Robert haps very soon Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell Borden. (“Significant” means either a majority of in , whose policies seem are likely seats in Quebec or a healthy minority of them, as inspired by the Klein-Harris successes. to lose. in 1930 when Prime Minister R. B. Bennett won This is a trap into which search- 24 seats to 41 for the Liberals.) ing for national alternatives have frequently fall- If history is even a crude guide for Canadian en—to believe that what works in a provincial political success, it can easily be demonstrated context can be transposed onto the national how far the non-Liberals have been, and remain, landscape. Conservatives chose successful from re-creating any semblance of the only coali- provincial premiers to lead them, hoping their tion in a century that has defeated the Liberals. provincial success would bode well for the The Conservatives show strength mostly in national party. George Drew, and Atlantic Canada. The Alliance has captured the Robert , estimable men all and provin- hearts of Western Canadian populists (and signif- cially successful too, failed as national leaders to icant business interests). Both have some support build a successful alternative to the Liberals. The in Ontario, but not enough to seriously threaten same, it might be said, applies thus far to the Liberals. And neither has anything remotely Stockwell Day, the former Alberta Treasurer sup- like a base of support in Quebec. ported publicly by Premier Klein. In other words, both the Conservatives and Provinces, especially the large ones, are Alliance represent elements—but only ele- diverse societies. Provinces have their cleavages, ments—of the coalition that history suggests is but no province is as diverse as the country writ necessary to threaten the Liberals’ dominance. large. Provincial politics does not require (Quebec Unless and until one of these parties, or a new excepted) leaders with proficiency in two official political formation representing a melding of the languages. They do not impose on leaders or par- two, begins to reassemble all the elements of the ties the need to reflect interests as diverse as those successful non-Liberal coalition, they will fail to of, say, fishing villages on the East Coast, farmers threaten the Liberals. on the prairies, large concentrations of multicul- There was something else about these non- tural Canadians in cities, and so on. They don’t Liberal coalitions—with the exception perhaps of demand of leaders that they play on the interna- R. B. Bennett’s. They were pragmatic arrange- tional stage. And they don’t require leaders or par-

16 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JANVIER-FÉVRIER 2001 Canadian politics and one-party government ties to handle complicated national files or craft policies. Such an approach would have irritated messages that will resonate everywhere in Canada. some (perhaps many) Alliance members, but it If it were easy to make the leap from provin- would also have made the party more inclusive cial success to national triumph, you would and therefore more electable. expect Canadian politics to be full of shining I realize this approach would have been diffi- What the examples of this. In fact, there are few. There cult for another reason: that the Reform Party have been successful provincial politicians who was born in rebellion, not against the Liberals in Alliance should shone in federal politics, but not many of them— the first instance, but against the Conservatives. have done ... and none at all who tried to transfer their Reform grew up with the Conservatives in power received wisdom gained in provincial politics in the late 1980s. Many of its core supporters was to have into a kind of national vision. So it is a comfort- were former Conservatives. There was among ing illusion, but nothing more, to suggest that Reformers the belief of the righteous that they studied the what has worked in the smaller theatres of were custodians of true “conservatism,” and that provincial politics can be the script for national the Conservatives had lost the faith. In Alberta, history and success. The history of Canadian politics suggests to take the most obvious example, Reform deci- otherwise—resoundingly. mated not the Liberals but the Conservatives. policies of the Replacing the Conservatives was therefore the here is therefore nothing inherent in Canada first essential step to political legitimacy, but hav- Conservative T that drives the country to one-party domi- ing accomplished that objective the Reform/ Party and nance. The problem, rather, is the failure of some Alliance refused to concede it had anything to political people to understand the nature of learn from the Conservatives. identified at Canadian politics, the essence of which consists of trying to understand the whole country, not e shall see in the next few years whether least some core just parts of it, and to frame policies, choose lead- W the lessons of Canadian political history ers and craft messages that have a chance of being and three consecutive defeats impose themselves Conservative appreciated in all parts of Canada. It has been the on the Alliance and the Conservatives. In the consistent conceit of the Reform/ Alliance Party, meantime, we are left with another Liberal ideas and values born largely in Western Canada, that the essence majority government and a series of questions of its message, if presented forcefully enough, about the health of Canadian democracy. These that could be with a new leader and a new party label, would questions arise, not because the Liberals won, but brought into finally resonate sufficiently beyond the West to because of how they won and what their victory bring the party to power. Having failed three revealed about Canadian politics beyond the sim- the new party. times, it is now incumbent on the Alliance to step ple failure of an opposition party to shape itself back, reconsider some of its policies and reshape into a pragmatic, winnable alternative. itself into a more moderate, less ideological and Perhaps the likelihood of a Liberal victory therefore more electable political formation. contributed to something that deserves more I say “conceit” because in everything that attention than it received in the immediate after- transpired in the change from the Reform Party to math of the election—the low voter turnout. the Canadian Alliance one essential ingredient was Obviously the health of a democracy depends on missing in the overtures to the Conservatives: a more than just tabulating the number of people genuine attempt to incorporate core values and who voted in an election, but that tabulation is at ideas from the Conservative Party into the least an imperfect guide to the citizenry’s interest Canadian Alliance. The Alliance basically said to in its so-called civic society. Conservatives: “We are stronger than you are, so Only 62.5 per cent of Canadians on the vot- join us.” What the Alliance should have done, had ers’ lists bothered to participate in the election by it been serious about attracting Conservatives or voting. From 1945 to 1988, voter turnout aver- bringing about a merger of the parties, was to have aged 75.4 per cent of all voters on the list. Since studied the history and policies of the then, Canadian federal elections have witnessed Conservative Party and identified at least some a steady decline in turnout. Indeed, if Canadians core Conservative ideas and values that could be used the US method of calculating voter brought into the new party. That would have been turnout—those who voted compared to the total genuine co-operation rather than force majeure. eligible population, rather than those with The policies I have in mind are, for instance, a names on the list—the 2000 turnout would have commitment to regional development, tolerance been only 51 per cent, or about the same as we of abortion, and support for government cultural saw for the recent US elections. Canada therefore

POLICY OPTIONS 17 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2001 Jeffrey Simpson

is now at or near the bottom of voter turnout for ity to act. At home, the services most directly western democracies. That cannot be a healthy touching the daily lives of citizens—health-care, sign for Canadian democracy. education, roads, environmental protection, Problems obviously exist with the new policing—are provincial. The voter turnout for If Canadians method for placing names on the voters’ list. provincial elections has not been declining. Canada used to enumerate voters in every elec- ● We also live in the age of the Charter of used the US tion. People went door-to-door across the country Rights and Freedoms, which has thrust courts, and method of in a massive effort to prepare the voters’ list. In the especially the , into the last two elections, however, Parliament authorized role of settling many of the most contentious calculating voter a permanent voters’ list that was supposed to be issues surrounding individual or collective rights. updated from a variety of data bases, including ● We live, too, in the television age, a turnout—those passport renewals, driver’s licences, death notices, medium principally of entertainment rather than etc. Clearly, this new system has been plagued by information. The average Canadian television set who voted problems, some of which were reported in the is on 21 hours a week, about the same amount of media during the last campaign. Parliament would time a student is in school classes. Television has compared to the do well to conduct a serious study of the new sys- tremendous reach but little depth, and certainly tem during the next session and either revise the in my lifetime television has changed the nature total eligible procedures thoroughly, or scrap it and return to of political campaigns, political advertising and population, the old door-to-door enumeration. strategy, and even the skill sets required for polit- ical success. It is doubtful, however, if television rather than ut the explanations for the low voter turnout has done anything to engender a greater degree B obviously go beyond the mechanics of of civic engagement; indeed, if political sociolo- those with preparing the voters’ list. I don’t have definitive gist Robert Putnam’s work in the United States is explanations. I suspect political scientists and any guide, television may have produced precise- names on the others will be probing the questions surrounding ly the opposite effect. the low voter turnout, and their work may help list—the 2000 shed light on answers. Some of my speculations here may also be a widespread feeling that would include the following: T Parliament has grown irrelevant. The media turnout would ● Politics in recent years under Mr. coverage of Parliament focuses largely on have been only Chrétien has become rather humdrum, which was Question Period, which is pure theatre, so that no bad thing. For almost two decades before he what citizens see via the media likely leads them 51 per cent, or became Prime Minister, the Canadian body politic to conclude that little serious business is done in had featured highly divisive issues that wound up Parliament. about the same pitting region against region and at times large ele- Parliament has always been a debating ments of the Canadian electorate against the fed- chamber, the place for robust debate and argu- as we saw for eral government. These included wage and price ment about the issues of the day, the challenges controls, the Goods and Services Tax, the National of the future and the legacies of the past. It has the recent US Energy Policy, patriation of the constitution, always been a rough-and-tumble place. But it is Meech Lake, Charlottetown, and Canada-US free- largely just that: a talking shop. Its deliberative elections. trade. Deficit reduction dominated the politics of functions long ago atrophied; its legislative func- the mid-to-late 1990s, and although a necessary tion is highly scripted. There is no possibility— and worthy subject for government attention, it and I say this with considerable certainty—that was hardly the stuff of passion. anything will change under Mr. Chrétien, who ● If those who probe Canadian “values” has grown up in and prospered under the institu- can be believed, Canadians have come to expect tional status quo and who, as Prime Minister, somewhat less from government. Canadians are greatly benefits from it. more self-reliant than ever. ’s share of I do not deny that within the private coun- national spending continues to shrink. So if gov- cils of the Liberal caucus individual Liberal back- ernment really does mean somewhat less than benchers may have some influence on govern- before, at least some Canadians may not reckon ment policy writ large or on this or that piece of voting to be worth the effort. legislation. But I would suggest that their influ- ● International trade treaties have shack- ence is limited and largely indirect, and it is cer- led what governments can do, or even contem- tainly largely hidden from public view. True, a plate. Cross-border capital movements and “mar- handful of Liberal MPs sometimes goes public ket forces” sometimes mock governments’ capac- with discontents. But a rule of thumb to apply in

18 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JANVIER-FÉVRIER 2001 Canadian politics and one-party government

The trappings of egalitarianism— one person-one vote; one MP for every constituency; one parliamentary vote for each MP—are mocked by the CP Picture Archive (Jonathan Hayward) ‘Parliament is a form of organized intellectual mendacity’ concentration of power in only a listening to such public expressions of discontent ical scientist Neil Nevitte—is that we are no few places is this: Those who speak publicly are invariably longer a deferential lot. We are more self-reliant, those with the least influence. That is why they more self-demanding, more self-actualizing; and within the run to the media, because the rules of the game— therefore less inclined to follow established lines system, notably the rewards and punishments for backbenchers— of authority. We are also justifiably skeptical of require effective dissent to be privately expressed. the bombardment of advertising messages that the Prime surround us daily, so we are less impressed than he parliamentary system has been called an ever by messages from anywhere, including gov- Minister’s Office T “elected dictatorship.” One of its virtues lies ernment, that attempt to paint black as white. in the ability of a government commanding a Since Parliament is a form of organized intellec- and the cabinet. parliamentary majority to get things done. There tual mendacity in which partial truths or selec- is, however, something increasingly at odds tive interpretations are falsely elevated to wis- between the rules and mores of this particular dom, citizens are skeptical, even outraged, by the elected dictatorship and the way Canadian socie- daily attempts to make whole cloth from ill-fit- ty and its private institutions operate. Successful ting bits and pieces. Citizens know they make companies long ago learned that strict, hierarchi- mistakes in their own lives, as do the institutions cal management chains don’t work very well. for which they work; they recoil from the unwill- Employees are not to be treated as soldiers ingness of those in political life to admit error. responding to orders but as individuals with ideas What we have, therefore, is a hierarchical and skills. Companies have frequently flattened political system in which the trappings of egali- out their hierarchical management structures to tarianism—one person-one vote; one MP for get better “buy-in” by employees and therefore every constituency; one parliamentary vote for better overall results. each MP—are mocked by the concentration of We also have the best-educated population power in only a few places within the system, in Canadian history, and education provides a notably the Prime Minister’s Office and the cabi- sense of personal empowerment, giving people net, with few, if any, checks and balances to this the intellectual tools to reach their own conclu- power. Increasingly, the rest of society is not sion. Everything we know about contemporary structured in this fashion, but parliamentary pol- Canadian society—a point drilled home by polit- itics is, with the result that a gap of credibility, or

POLICY OPTIONS 19 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2001 Jeffrey Simpson

at least of interest, grows between those who anteed minority governments. The recent US work within the political system and those who election highlighted an obvious criticism of the send people there. electoral college system, which produced a pres- We know that the Canadian Senate is hardly ident who won half-a-million fewer votes than No one should a check or balance, an observation so obvious his opponent. and tired as not to require elaboration. We know, believe that too, that strict party discipline in parliamentary f Canadian political parties were up to the even the votes robs MPs of any public deliberative func- I task, especially those in opposition, they tion. We increasingly appreciate that courts, not would spend time in the years ahead thinking most serious legislatures, are the institutions charged with about modifications to the electoral system that sorting out contentious issues. would make it more representative, as well as reflection will changes to the parliamentary system to make it e know, too, that the first-past-the-post more deliberative. Changes on both fronts might move this W electoral system produces parliamentary well induce Canadian citizens to reconnect some- majorities—thereby encouraging the “elected what to a system many of them have relegated to government... dictatorship”—while simultaneously distorting the margin of their consciousness. But the task the overall voting intentions of the election. cannot be left to parties alone: The political sys- They have won Governments arrive in Ottawa with parliamen- tem belongs to us, not to them. again within tary majorities built on only a minority of the No one should believe that even the most total votes cast. The same can be said, by defini- serious reflection will move this government. Not [the existing] tion, of MPs, who are often elected with fewer since the 1950s has Canada seen a government than half the votes cast in their constituencies. that offered so little internal renewal. There are system and will These discrepancies produce anomalies every two broad ways by which renewal can occur in a election for parties whose seat total and share of competitive party democracy: either by replacing see no reason the popular vote are quite dissimilar. Where a the governing party with another or by the gov- party gets its votes can be as consequential for erning party renewing its personnel and policies. to solicit views parliamentary results as how many they receive. Neither happened in the last election. Not only This over- and under-representation linked to the did the Liberals win, but their leader and most of for change. first-past-the-post system often plays itself out their caucus won re-election. The number of new with regional consequences whereby parties find Liberal recruits was startlingly low; the recidivism themselves shut out of whole regions even rate of Liberal MPs astonishingly high. though they scored a respectable minority of the Elections are about choices. Voters do not votes there. Or, conversely, a party can be choose in a vacuum: up or down for just one party. supreme in parliamentary terms—as the Liberals They shop around, and among the options avail- have been in Ontario—despite winning only able last November the largest number of voters about half the popular votes in the region. preferred the Liberals. None of the opposition par- The first-past-the-post system therefore exac- ties, for reasons I tried to explain at the beginning erbates rather than attenuates the regional cleav- of my remarks, looked fit to run the country. But ages inherent in Canada, with no offsetting in returning the Liberals, Canadians chose a party attenuation possible through an elected Senate, that had done almost nothing to renew itself. such as in Australia where the elected Upper Under these circumstances, what ails the political House is chosen on a proportional representation system will strike those who still run it as non-exis- basis. Since one of the enduring tasks of politics tent or inconsequential. They have won again in a diverse country that was created as a bold act within that system and will see no reason to solic- of political ingenuity must be to reconcile com- it views for change. That does not mean the rest of peting regional and linguistic claims, our politi- us must sit like mutes; indeed, it is through oppor- cal system to some extent works against this nec- tunities such as this that we can chew matters over essary objective of national governance. so that when conditions are more propitious for No democratic country has a perfect elec- change we will be ready with matured reflections toral system. No sooner, for example, had our to help improve what is, after all, a system that friends in dropped the first-past- belongs to us, the people of Canada. the-post system for a multiple-member con- stituency form of proportional representation Jeffrey Simpson is ’s national than voices were heard questioning the wisdom affairs columnist. This is the text of a speech prepared of the change, since the new system almost guar- for delivery at Simon Fraser University, Jan. 19, 2001.

20 OPTIONS POLITIQUES JANVIER-FÉVRIER 2001