a compliant parliamentarian will read a prepared text on a topic he or she is mostly unfamiliar with; that talk will be followed by a member from another party doing exactly the same thing, although staking out a different position. On several occasions, as a member of the Conservative caucus, I was handed a canned speech mere minutes before I was asked to present it, as the planned speaker had somehow been delayed. Literacy skills have replaced debating skills in what passes as a debate in the House of Commons.
It is almost unheard of for a member to address points raised by the previous speaker, which real debate would require. This is the obvious limitation of any “debate” advanced by prepared text, written by staffers, days before the “debate” has even commenced.
Eventually, the debate will collapse when there are no more speakers rising to participate or, more than likely, after the government has expedited the process by introducing a time allocation motion limiting further debate to a specified number of hours or days. Both the time allocation motion and then the vote on the merits of the bill or motion will be whipped. The party whips will produce voting instructions and actual instruction sheets will be distributed by parliamentary pages and placed on the desks of the elected MPs.
This is what parliamentary democracy has devolved into: elected MPs being issued voting instructions. So disengaged are many MPs that I have actually witnessed members confused as to what the current vote was and what the whipped party position was when multiple deferred votes are being taken. Too many times I have heard a disengaged member inquire of his or her neighbour: “Which vote are we on? We’re voting ‘yea,’ right?”
I am ashamed to disclose that your elected MP is frequently so disengaged that he is not only reliant on his party whip for his voting instructions, but quite possibly will also need to be coached by mates only slightly more engaged in the process.
Elizabeth May, then the sole Member of Parliament representing the Green Party, tells the story of MPs of various party affiliations inquiring of her as to how she decides how she is going to vote on any particular bill or motion. She replies that she reads the bill, studies it, consults with her constituents, sometimes asks questions of the sponsor, and then comes to her position. Incredulous, MPs from other parties exclaim about how labour intensive that must be and how much easier it is to simply follow the voting instructions provided by the party whips! Undoubtedly that is true. However, I believe most constituents would be shocked to discover that their elected representatives are voting automatons, often too disengaged to even follow what item they are voting on.
I do not mean to be too critical of the whipped party voting machine. Given the complete lack of efficacy of the individual parliamentarian in having any input into, let alone impact on, a process completely dominated by government and party operatives, they cannot be overly blamed for losing interest and becoming disengaged.
Of course, there is nothing particularly new about whipped votes per se. Whipped votes on matters of confidence are as common, and have existed for as long as there have been parties in Parliament. However, as with all matters regarding the erosion of parliamentary democracy and responsible government, it is the increased use of whipped votes that should concern defenders of democracy.
The Reform Party, and its successor, the Canadian Alliance, had a party policy of free votes. The original constitution of the Conservative Party of Canada promoted free votes, except in matters of confidence, budget votes, and votes on the expenditure estimates. After the 2008 CPC convention in Winnipeg, the words “and core government initiatives” were somehow added to the list describing the exceptions to the free vote presumption, although no one that I have talked to can recall that matter ever being debated or voted on. Regardless, that addition has allowed the government whip to declare essentially all matters as core government priorities, and, as a result, every vote on every government bill or motion is now a whipped vote.
This now even applies to procedural motions such as time allocations. This change surprised me when I was a member of the CPC caucus, because I am unfamiliar with any party policy priority, much less any key one, that states the Conservative Party of Canada will place limits on debate on non-urgent matters and use its parliamentary majority to suppress the democratic process.
As difficult to accept as these changes are, it is the expansion of the whipped vote to include private member’s business that even many loyal partisans find particularly odious.[2] For centuries, it was the prerogative of a Member of Parliament to forward a legislative bill or motion and have it adjudicated by his or her parliamentary peers without the meddling of the party leadership.
This is traditional and logical. By definition, a matter cannot be a core or key government or party priority if the government has chosen not to table a bill or motion on that particular subject. Accordingly, it ought to be open to private members to put forward a policy idea where the government has chosen not to.
There are many examples to demonstrate that the party leadership will not allow private MPs that privilege. On June 5, 2013, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics were whipped into eviscerating C-461, a private member’s bill (which I sponsored) that would have allowed for specific salary disclosure for senior levels of the federal public service. The bill had widespread support in the CPC caucus until the government objected to allowing the public access to how much it is paying its senior people and disclosing how many civil servants were earning generous (six figure) performance bonuses.
When the government is able to whip its members to vote against a private member’s bill, predominately supported by those members, the government’s control over Parliament is complete. In the process, Parliament has surrendered its ability and role in holding government to account.
The focal point of the House of Commons’ day is between 2:15 and 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m. on Fridays). That is the holy grail of holding government to account: Question Period. QP is the forty-five minute period in the day when the House of Commons asks the executive to explain and defend its actions.
Although many commentators correctly observe that answers are provided only when the government wants to provide them, and that there are no rules against refusing to answer a question, making up your own question and then answering it, or uttering incoherent nonsense, eventually, with enough media attention, the government will pay a political price if it routinely attempts to evade important questions or to obfuscate when asked to defend its actions. For forty-five minutes, the Opposition is actually afforded a purposeful opportunity to live up to the expectations of holding government to account.
But holding government to account is Parliament’s prerogative; it is not the exclusive role of the Opposition. Accordingly, backbench members of the governing party are afforded three questions per day. Recalling that the current government prefers its backbenchers to be an extension of its Communication Branch, rather than to ask actual questions that might have the potential to embarrass the government, it is little wonder that these questions are scripted, planted, and designed exclusively for the purpose of allowing the government to get some message out.
“Mr. Speaker, the government just yesterday completed a historical trade deal with Country X. Can the hard-working Minister of International Trade please advise the House as to what this deal will mean for Canadians in terms of jobs and economic growth?”
It is not so much a question as an infomercial.
Even more egregious, planted questions will frequently be used to attack a member of the Opposition. “Mr. Speaker: yesterday the Leader of Party Y mused about legalizing small amounts of marijuana (or criticized ‘our’ government’s minimum mandatory sentences); can the Minister of Justice please tell this House why Party Y’s soft-on-crime policies are bad for law-abiding Canadians?”
Such a question should be disallowed. Commenting on somebody else’s statement or policy has nothing do with government business or policy; therefore, this type of “question” has no place in the forty-five important minutes allotted to the House to hold the government to account.
The use of government-planted