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Discipline versus Democracy: Party Discipline in Canadian Politics

by David Kilgour, M.P.
John Kirsner
and Kenneth McConnell

(published in Crosscurrents: Contemporary Political Issues, second edition, Edited by Mark Charlton and Paul Barker)

Representative democracy in Canada is so dominated by political parties that some experts believe the party discipline exerted on most votes in our House of Commons and provincial legislatures is the tightest in the democratic world. Defenders of our model argue that many Canadians prefer it this way because each party's candidates can be assumed at election time to share the party's position on every issue. Others contend our executive democracy, patterned on a system prevailing in Great Britain about three centuries ago, requires iron party discipline if our fused legislative and executive branches of government are to function effectively. Another reason, probably the most important, is that our practice makes life easier for leaders of both government and opposition parties.

Unlike parliamentary systems in places such as Great Britain and Germany, virtually every vote in Canadian legislatures is considered potentially one of non-confidence in the government. Even a frivolous opposition motion to adjourn for the day, if lost, can be deemed by a cabinet to have been one of non-confidence. The whips of government parties have for decades used the possibility of an early election to push their members into voting the party line. The opposition attitude is so similar that we had a few years ago the spectacle of both opposition parties in our House of Commons arguing that a free vote on an abortion resolution would "rip out the heart" of our parliamentary system of government. The constituents of both provincial and federal legislators would be the real winners if party discipline is loosened. Private members from both government and opposition benches could then take positions on government bills and other matters based on assisting their constituents instead of their respective party hierarchies.

Party Discipline in Canada

W.S. Gilbert put the present Canadian political reality succinctly; "I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all". Canadian members of Parliament are essentially passive observers in the formulation and administration of most national policy. Indeed, Sean Moore, editor of the Ottawa lobbyist magazine, The Lobby Digest, told a committee of MPs in early 1993 that they are rarely lobbied by the almost 3,000 reported lobbyists in the capital because "elected officials play a very minor role in governing".

MPs from all three parties vote in solid blocs on almost every issue. Government members do so from a fear that a lost vote on a measure will be deemed by their prime minister as a loss of confidence. This stems from the early to mid-nineteenth century British concept that a government falls if it loses the support of a majority in the Commons on any vote.

Besides the threat of parliamentary dissolution, private members are also subject to rewards and punishments from party leadership, depending on how they vote. A 'loyal' MP who votes the party line will be a candidate for promotion (if in the government party, perhaps to Cabinet), or other benefits from the party, such as interesting trips or appointment to an interesting House committee. A 'disloyal' MP who votes against the party leadership may be prevented from ascending the political ladder and could ultimately be thrown out of the party caucus. In light of this, "caucus solidarity and my constituents be damned" might be the real oath of office for most honourable members in all political parties.

Reg Stackhouse, a former Tory MP for Scarborough West, in a submission to the Task Force on Reform of the House of Commons in 1985, commented on the discipline imposed on private members of the government party:

"Not only is it demanded that [the member] vote with the government on crucial matters such as the Speech from the Throne or the budget, but also that he vote, speak or remain silent according to the dictate of the government. Even though a government may be at no risk of falling, it requires this all but unconditional commitment, and renders the member a seeming robot, at least imaginatively replaceable by a voting machine."

This is the major defect in Canadian Parliamentary democracy: most MPs are essentially brute votes who submit it to any demand from their respective party whips. In Canada's current political culture, a prime minister or premier could in practice on all confidence votes cast proxy votes on behalf of all government members. The same practice prevails in the opposition parties because they think themselves obliged to vote in uniform party blocs virtually always. If not, some of our media, apparently unaware that parliamentary democracy has evolved elsewhere, including in the matters of the parliamentary system in the U.K., report that the opposition leaders cannot control their caucuses. This status quo has persisted for so long primarily because party leaders and policy mandarins obviously prefer it. Measures going into the House of Commons where one party has a majority usually emerge essentially unscathed. Everything follows a highly predictable script: obedient government members praise it; opposition parties rail against it; and plenty of bad measures become law essentially unamended.

The present regional differences and priorities require much better public expression in Parliament at least if one central institution of our national government is to reflect adequately all parts of the country. Regional voices are frequently suffocated by rigid party discipline and the entrenched habit of all three national caucuses to maintain a close eye on what opinion leaders, particularly columnists, in Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal regard as the national interest on any issue. Therefore, reforming the role of MPs is not only essential for parliamentary legitimacy in post-modern Canada, but is vital to "nationalizing Ottawa".

Eliminating Excesses

A report by the late Eugene Forsey and Graham Eglington (The Question of Confidence in Responsible Government) lists a large number of measures defeated in the Westminster Parliament. On most, the cabinet of the day simply carried on, presumably either dropping the failed proposal or seeking majority support for a different measure.

For tax bills, the list of such defeats begins in 1834. During 1975, for example, a financial bill of the Harold Wilson cabinet dealing with their value-added tax rate was defeated, but the ministry carried on in office, treating it not as a confidence vote.

The Forsey-Eglington report also emphasizes that in earlier years, government MPs in Canada were permitted to vote against cabinet measures. For example, between 1867 and 1872, their study lists fully 18 pages of cases in which Conservative MPs voted against measures of John A. Macdonald's government. The sky did not fall; Macdonald's government was able to function effectively; government MPs could keep both their self-respect and their membership in the government caucus.

The study also provides interesting data about voting in our House of Commons during other periods:

  • in 1896, fully 16 Conservative MPs voted with Laurier's Liberals to adjourn a Conservative measure intended to restore Catholic schools in Manitoba,
  • in 1981, 16 Conservative MPs, including three who later became ministers, voted against the final resolution patriating our Constitution.

The all-party McGrath report on parliamentary reform came to the conclusion that the role of the individual member must be enhanced. As James McGrath himself said in 1985, "I wanted to put into place a system where being a member of Parliament would be seen to be an end to itself and not a means to an end". On the question of non-confidence, McGrath recommended:

  • a government should be careful before it designates a vote as one of confidence. It should confine such declarations to measures central to its administration,
  • while a defeat on supply is a serious matter, elimination or reduction of an estimate can be accepted,
  • in a parliament with a government in command of a majority, the matter of confidence has really been settled by the electorate,
  • government should therefore have the wisdom to permit members to decide many matters in their own personal judgements.

Reg Stackhouse agrees that party discipline must have limits: "Tight party lines need be drawn only when the government's confidence is at stake, i.e., when the government decides the fate of a bill is absolutely essential to its objectives".

One way to reduce party discipline in the interest of greater fairness for every province would be to write into our constitution, as the West Germans did in their Basic Law, that MPs and senators shall "not [be] bound by orders and instructions and shall be subject only to their conscience". Party discipline diluted this principle in West Germany, but when it was combined with another feature of their constitution - that no chancellor can be defeated in their equivalent of our House of Commons unless a majority of members simultaneously agree on a new person to become chancellor - there appears now to be a more independent role for members of the Bundestag than for Canadian members of Parliament. For example, in the case of the defeat of the minority Clark government in 1979 on its budget, the West German rule would have kept Clark in office unless the Liberals, New Democrats and Social Credit MPs had agreed simultaneously on a new prime minister who could hold the confidence of a majority of MPs. A similar rule, if adopted by the House of Commons, would inevitably weaken our party discipline significantly because MPs from all parties could vote on the merits of issues, knowing that defeat would bring down only the measure and not the government.

Another approach would be for each new federal or provincial cabinet to specify at the start of their mandate which matters at the heart of their program will be confidence issues. The Mulroney government, for example, might have spelled out in late 1988 that the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement would be a confidence issue. In those situations, party discipline would be justifiable. Otherwise, its backbenchers would be free to vote for their constituents' interests at all times. This restored independence for legislators would lead to better representation for all regions of Canada and much more occupational credibility for Canadian legislators.

A study of the Thirty-Second Assembly of Ontario (1981-1985) indicated that its members voted in uniform party blocs about 95 per cent of the time. The same pattern has applied in at least the past four Parliaments in Ottawa. The Canadian pattern indicates that all of the various party leaders could cast a proxy vote on behalf of all their followers without even bothering to have them physically present. It also overlooks that a majority or even a minority government can function effectively without our present stratospheric levels of party solidarity.

The American Way

In the United States Congress, where admittedly there is a strict separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches of government, legislation does get passed with far less party loyalty. The constitutional separation of powers and the weakness of party discipline in congressional voting behaviour greatly facilitate effective regional representation in Washington. Unlike the situation in Canada where a government falls if it loses the support of a majority in the House of Commons on a confidence vote, U.S. presidents and congress are elected for fixed terms. Neither resigns if a particular measure is voted down in either the Senate or the House of Representatives.

The practices in our two countries are so different, that The Congressional Quarterly defines party unity votes there as those in which at least 51 per cent of members of one party vote against 51 per cent of the other party. Under this definition, itself astonishing to Canadian legislators, the Quarterly notes that for the years 1975-1982 party unity votes occurred in only 44.2 per cent of the 4,417 recorded Senate votes and in only 39.8 per cent of those in the House of Representatives. This sample, moreover, includes the years 1976-1980, the last period before 1992-96 when Democrats controlled the White House and both branches of Congress.

Another feature of the congressional system that fosters effective regional input in national policy making is territorial bloc-voting - something quite unknown in Canada's House of Commons. Representatives from the two political parties of the Mountain states, Sun Belt states, New England states and others vote en bloc or work together in committees to advance common interests.

A good example of how effective regional representatives can influence the geographic location of federal government procurement, which affects the geographic distribution of the manufacturing sector, is the Southern congressional influence. It played a major role in the post-war concentration of federal military and space expenditures in the South and in the general economic revival and growth of the Sun Belt. And during 1981-82, the height of the "boll-weevil era", the long-time legislative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans was successful more than 85 per cent of the time, due to mutual areas of agreement and interest.

The point of this comparison is only to emphasize that, unlike the American Congress, Canadian bloc voting makes bi- or tri-partisan agreement on anything in our legislatures exceedingly rare. In our current political culture, if a government or opposition MPs loyalty to his/her province clashes with the instruction of the party whip, putting constituents' or regional considerations first in his way of voting implies considerable risk to one's prospects for party advancement. Backbench MPs in Canada are thus far less able to represent regional interest effectively than are their counterparts in Washington where the congressional system provides the freedom for effective regional representation when an issue has clear regional implications. This, of course, is not to suggest that Canada should duplicate the American Congressional style of government. Rather, it is to point out that the best solution to ongoing problems of representative democracy in Canada might be to adopt attractive features from various systems, including the American one.

Putting Constituents First

Canada is a federal state and federalism means that on some issues the will of the popular majority will be frustrated. If the biggest battalions of voters are to prevail over smaller ones under any circumstances, we should drop the charade that we have a federal system of government that respects minorities in times of stress. The notion that the largest group of Canadians, i.e., southern Ontarians and metropolitan Quebeckers, must be accommodated always has resulted in discontent everywhere and accompanying feelings of regional irrelevancy.

In an increasingly interdependent world, many Canadians in our outer eight provinces and territories at least want new or altered institutions that will represent the interest of both "Inner Canadians" (those who live in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor) and "Outer Canadians" effectively. Unless we move away from the notion that "the national interest" is merely a code-phrase for the most populous region dominating all corners of the country, frictions between Inner and Outer Canada are likely to worsen.

If party discipline in Canada were relaxed, representation for all areas of Canada would be improved. It would be easier for, say, Western MPs to defy their three party establishments, if need be, in support of Western issues. Coalitions composed of members of all parties could exist for the purpose of working together on issues of common regional or other concern. The present adversarial attitudes and structures of Parliament or legislatures in which opposition parties oppose virtually anything a government proposes might well change in the direction of parties working together for the common good.

Members of Parliament today represent an average of about 87,000 voters. At present, few government and opposition MPs have any real opportunity to put their constituents first in votes in the House of Commons. Real power is concentrated in the hands of the three party leaderships. Canadian democracy itself would benefit if we put our present mind-numbing party discipline where it belongs - in the history books.

 
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