Moving Beyond The Partisan

A couple of years ago, I expressed my disgust with partisan politics and proposed a model that is intended to break the connection between party discipline, insularity, and policy platforms. 

One of the first things Danielle Smith has proposed in the wake of the UCP being shut out in Edmonton is literally creating a partisan committee of failed Edmonton UCP candidates from Edmonton to “advise” the government about matters pertaining to Edmonton. 

I want to point something out here about how wrong this is within a parliamentary system. Edmonton has duly elected representatives in the legislature. Those are the people that Smith should be consulting with about matters regarding Edmonton, or the impact of government legislation or policy on Edmonton. However, because they belong to “The Other Party”, she seems to have decided that rather than consult with them, she’ll form up a committee from within the UCP. 

The Problem

Not only is this grossly disrespectful of the voters of Edmonton, it effectively imposes on them a group of partisan “representatives” that they did not elect in the first place. At its core, this is fundamentally undermining the purpose of representative democracy in the first place. Edmonton elected those people as their MLAs, it is incumbent upon the governing party to find ways to work with them. 

However, in today’s world, the party comes first, the riding and the people second. This is backwards. 

We see the same thing federally as well. When a Liberal government is elected, very often they have scant or even no representation from the Prairie provinces. The government then struggles to consult adequately to understand how their policies might impact that region (which, of course the conservatives play up because … well, party first!). 

One of the guiding principles of any parliamentary system is the idea of collegiality. That is to say, your fellow MLAs/MPs (whatever the title) are in fact your peers, and you should be able to engage with them as needed, in the most appropriate way. This notion of collegiality is also a moderator of partisan behaviour because it puts representation ahead of partisanship. 

In essence, the thinking should be “I need your input on this matter because you represent this other region or perspective, and the fact you belong to another party shouldn’t matter”.  Instead, what has happened over the last 30+ years is that the notion of party as primary has created a wall that inhibits that collegial relationship, and instead enforces a “don’t talk to the other guy because they’re from the other camp” mentality. 

Party As An Artifact

The political party of today is largely an artifact of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution. In theory, they provide a means to present to the people a coherent political platform that is grounded in some stream of political theory as to how best run a nation. 

That was then, this is now. The political musings of philosophers in the 19th century only provide the barest fig leaf of theory that informs today’s political parties. Today’s “Liberals” are not particularly reflective of what was deemed “liberalism”, the “Conservatives” have minimal connections to the thinkers they often refer to as well. The NDP (Canada’s equivalent of “Social Democrats” elsewhere) are a puzzling mishmash of ideas and tropes with only the barest of connections to the concepts of social democracy.  

In so many ways, today’s political parties exist as an artifact of a time long past. 

What Parties Have Become

Instead, political parties have become sorting hats for those who seek political power. Party executives sit behind closed doors, but exert enormous influence over elected MLAs, and the decisions about who gets a seat at the cabinet table; Party discipline is used to ensure that Cabinet gets its legislation passed; Party discipline dictates which MLAs get to speak out on issues, with some being designated “disruptors”, others being told (more or less) to keep their mouths shut. Above all else, party discipline gets used to prevent elected representatives from interacting with each other, and thereby moderating their party’s worst instincts. 

The UCP embodies this so clearly. Formed in 2016/17, it was always a vehicle for one person to ride to power - Jason Kenney. An examination of the Party Constitution and other governing documents shows how much power over the party is placed in the hands of the leader and the party executive. This is no accident, but it is also a fatal weakness. In fall of 2022, Take Back Alberta (TBA) exploited that weakness to effectively stage a coup and take control of the UCP board. 

If you don’t think that’s significant, consider the fact that TBA and Danielle Smith decided to “shelve” the most controversial aspects of their platforms until _AFTER_ the provincial election. That should have sent shockwaves of discomfort through the electorate - a party literally saying “we won’t talk about the big parts of our platform until after you elect us” should have been a death sentence to their campaign. It wasn’t for a number of reasons, but what it did demonstrate is that it is now possible for a party to lie entirely about what it represents and believes in order to get elected, and once in power, well, then you find out what they really believe. 

Impact On Parliamentary Democracy

The impact of these changes on parliamentary democracy are significant and should not be ignored. First, it undermines the notion of your MP / MLA as your representative in the government. Instead, they are representing the party to you, and are beholden to the structure of party discipline in terms of how they vote in the legislature. This is backwards. 

Second, the rise of partisanship-first politics has meant that suddenly the member from the adjacent riding who belongs to another party is seen as a rival rather than as a colleague. This automatically causes MLAs to discount the commentary from that other member, and ultimately results in discussions being limited, and debates in the legislature itself have become a matter of “scoring points”. This mentality really took hold when Stephen Harper gave his MPs a “How To Disrupt Parliament” manual.  That manual was literally no less than a deliberate effort to undermine the effectiveness of parliamentary structures that all rely on the presence of a fundamentally collegial relationship between MPs. 

Today, debates on matters of substance are replaced with designated MPs trying to “score hits”, and Question Period has become a farce. This isn’t a hockey game, people. It’s not about “outfoxing the other guy”, it’s about governing the country for all of us.

The Role Of Collegiality

The concept of collegiality in parliament is important because it serves to act as a moderator of the actions of those in power. By undermining it to the degree that we have seen over the last 30 years, political parties have become ever more extreme and strident in their pursuit of some kind of ideological perfection to the detriment of many who may otherwise agree with some portion of those ideas. 

Having to reach out to colleagues you don’t agree with ideologically is a moderator. It means that parties and party leadership actually hear what the “other side” is thinking and the reasoning behind it. When was the last time you think that parties were able to do that? For me, it was sometime in the 1980s, possibly earlier than that. 

Today? It’s hard to imagine a member of the conservative caucuses reaching out to a peer in another party and engaging in sincere, reciprocal conversation. I just don’t think it happens now - the constant drone of attacks, even on matters that are relatively trivial tells me that we have become far too focused on power for its own sake. 

Conclusions

The next 4 years in Alberta are going to be horrific. David Parker and TBA are not a “collegial” organization, and neither is the UCP.  Although the UCP has a slim majority, it’s enough that they can get away with a lot, and I do not expect them to moderate their tendencies towards authoritarianism, if not outright fascism. 

Democracy in Canada is at a crossroads, and if we do not take dramatic steps to change course, it will fall apart in my lifetime. I don’t know what would replace it, but I do know that the path we are on leads to some very dark places. 

Thought's On Chong's Reform Bill

Michael Chong's Bill C-559 is a relatively short piece of work, but it has taken me a bit of time to go through it and start to understand the implications of the changes being proposed, mostly because it contains a series of small changes to much larger acts - in particular the Canada Elections Act, but also the Parliament of Canada Act.

As I read through the proposed changes (which required a lot of flipping back and forth to the current Acts to fully understand), I started to come to the conclusion that in some respects this bill is a resurrection of a piece of the original Reform party wish list.

At its core, it creates an environment which removes from the party executives direct control over the nomination of candidates.  In doing so, it removes from party leaders one of the bigger levers used to maintain control over their respective caucuses - namely the threat of the leader refusing to sign their nomination papers for the next election.

Consider the following changes:

Current Canada Elections Act S.67(4)(c):

• (c) if applicable, an instrument in writing, signed by the leader of the political party or by a person referred to in subsection 383(2), that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party in accordance with section 68.

Proposed Amendment in Bill C-559:

(c) if applicable, an instrument in writing, signed by the nomination officer of the political party’s electoral district association for the electoral district that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party.

You do have to read this a couple of times before it becomes clear what Chong's legislation does.  It completely removes the party executive from the nominations decision making process.  It creates a position at the riding association level called a 'Nomination Officer' who essentially has the final say over who the party nominee is going to be.

Superficially, this is not entirely a bad thing.  It hands a level of control to the riding association level in each party that has been constrained historically by the need for the party executive to "sign off" on candidates.

Is it a good thing?  That's a little more subtle and difficult to ascertain.  The Reform Party was big on "direct democracy" back in the day.  Then they started to discover that having things concentrated at the riding level meant that they got a fair number of candidates that were unelectable.  The PCs in Alberta ran smack into this a few years ago when one Craig Chandler engineered a takeover of a local riding association by his supporters and got himself nominated.  Even Ed Stelmach could see that was a good way to lose a seat, and killed Chandler's nomination.

This does create a problem to consider for party apparatus people to consider.  Can you deal with the inevitable selection of candidates at the riding level that are for one reason or another "bad news"?  If one looks at the candidates as part of the party's "marketing image", this could be seen as a significant problem.

The second part of Chong's bill is more interesting - it basically creates a mechanism through which MPs could trigger a leadership review process within a party.

(k) the extract of the party by-laws that provides that 

(i) a leadership review may be initiated by the submission of a written notice to the caucus chair signed by at least 15% of the members of the party’s caucus, 

(ii) a leadership review is to be conducted by secret ballot, with the result to be determined by a majority vote of the caucus members present at a meeting of the caucus, and 

(iii) if a majority of caucus members present at the meeting referred to in subparagraph (ii) vote to replace the leader of the party, a second vote of the caucus shall be conducted immediately by secret ballot to appoint a person to serve as the interim leader of the party until a new leader has been duly elected by the party.

MPs (or MLAs, come to that) are the people who have to work with the party executive on a day to day basis outside of elections.  The idea of MPs being able to trigger a leadership review based on the  actual work of the leadership team is not entirely bad.

However, I do think that Chong's legislation has some very fundamental problems here.

First, its threshold value is far too low.  15% of a party caucus could probably be found at any time - even when things are going well for the party.  This will create an environment where the focus is constantly on "finding enough supporters" to advance one's favoured leadership candidate, rather than handing MPs a set of tools which can be brought to bear when serious issues are found with party leadership.

The second problem I see is that there is no time fuse on when the leadership review has to take place.  The lack of a time fuse on the matter is problematic, as the leadership can then delay things as long as they choose.

The last problem, and perhaps the one that is most fatal to this proposal is that it effectively hands control over the party leadership to the MPs.  While triggering a leadership review seems like an effective tool for MPs to have access to, I do not think they should have the right to depose a leader without the consent of the party membership at large.

While I can appreciate Chong's frustration with the leadership of the CPC these days, and the overbearing control that the party discipline mechanisms are exerting on MPs, I am less than convinced that this legislation will actually have the effect that he is seeking.