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In Search of Good Governance

Notes for remarks by David Kilgour, P.C., M.P., Edmonton Southeast
to the 1999 Laurentian Seminar on Parliament and the Challenge of Good Governance
Sedbergh School, Montebello, Québec, July 20-30, 1997

It is an honour to participate in this conference with such distinguished M.P.s, etc. from 14 countries on virtually every continent.

Robert Miller, the organizer of this seminar, commented in a 1985 essay on the fate of legislatures in many developing countries:

"In many developing countries they [ the legislatures] have become marginal institutions. In the competition for power they have fared poorly against the charisma of leaders, the expertise of bureaucrats and the guns of the military. It is part of the ritual of coups to shut them down. In those cases where legislatures have not been dismissed by military governments, they have often been turned into adjuncts of executive-centered states.

"And yet they persist. No matter how marginalized, legislatures continue to function. No matter how often dismissed they reappear and, stranger still, are summoned to reappear by those who have dismissed them. Legislatures have certain vague attributes that cause one to say: ‘If they didn’t exist, they would have to be invented.’ What is the source of their staying power?"

Parliamentary Development

As you know, the Parliamentary Centre, now headed by Miller, is identifying strategies for parliamentary development which is seen all over the world as a vital part of the governance agenda. "Parliaments are particularly important in helping to ensure open, accountable government, as well as effective oversight of the executive. Moreover, they can serve as one of the vital bridges linking civil society and the state, thus helping to ensure that democratic institutions are solidly grounded in democratic cultures," he wrote in the Centre’s Proposal to the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank.

Losing Faith in Parliament

Recent years have witnessed a worldwide fall in respect for parliaments, parliamentarians and the political process itself. An October 1994 Gallup poll indicated that 64% of the British public believed that Members of Parliament were in Parliament for private gain. A number of publicized cases in the United Kingdom have given rise to concerns about the decline in public standards: for example, in 1994, two M.P.s were identified as being open to accepting an outside payment for asking a parliamentary question; in another case, allegations were that a junior minister’s stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris had been paid for him; a number of ex-ministers and senior public servants were seen by the public as having moved too quickly after retiring to appointments connected to their previous official duties.

In addition to the growing concerns and increasing public cynicism about standards in political life, questions about the relevance and representativeness of parliamentarians and parliament continue to come up. Then British Prime Minister, John Major, responding to growing public concern announced in October 1994 the establishment of a committee (The Nolan Committee) to examine the existing situation regarding concerns about the standards of conduct of public office holders and to recommend any changes required to ensure the "highest standards of propriety in public life."

The report by Nicholas Hopkinson, based on the Wilton Park Special Conference, February 1995, Parliament and People: Making Democratic Institutions More Representative, Responsible and Relevant, examines the issues raised by the Nolan Committee whose conclusions are seen to be also of relevance outside the U.K. The Nolan Committee recommended seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. In order to improve public standards, these principles should be incorporated by all public bodies into codes of conduct with internal systems for maintaining standards supported by independent scrutiny.

Among its many conclusions, the report stresses those referring to the role of Parliament: opening up Parliament and the political process is viewed as essential to winning back the confidence of the public. More public participation in committees is a major way to improve the openness of government; "sentiment in favour of referenda, particularly citizen-initiated referenda, is growing" points out the report, "although many still believe that they undermine parliamentary democracy." For Parliaments to be relevant, Parliaments must also be representative of those they serve.

The report stresses that issues of accountability, responsiveness, new public management and reinventing government are issues for every country to determine: "only the solutions vary between different political systems; each country evolves its own democratic methods of governance based on its own culture, social traditions and levels of development."

Principles of Good Governance

Searching for Good Governance, the 1994 final report of the Government and Competitiveness Project makes a significant contribution to the current debate, not only in Canada, on efficiency in the public sector. The authors of the report, Bryne Purchase and Ronald Hirschhorn, say that its central purpose was the consideration of techniques for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government programming and government organizations: "The basic premise is that large gains in the efficiency and effectiveness of government are achievable simply by changing the incentive structures and other mechanisms to ensure accountability that confront key decisionmakers - whether politicians, providers of public services, or clients of those services," says the report.

On the premise that governance matters to competitiveness in the public sector as in the private sector, the report identifies eight basic principles for the design of good governance that should form the basis for making necessary institutional changes. These principles are as follows: focus on outputs, make decisions transparent, provide incentives, establish constraints, promote competition, link costs and benefits, encourage commitment and loyalty, maintain trust through fairness.

Democratizing Canada’s Democracy

In Canada, the public view of our national politicians has most unfortunately continued to deteriorate in recent years. In 1979, for example, only 15% of Canadians said they felt "very little" respect for the House of Commons; by 1993 this had reached 33%. Polls also track the lack of trust in political parties shared by many Canadians. In 1979, 22% of Canadians did not trust political parties; this was 30% in 1985; 49%, in 1993. One reason for the rise of public cynicism is presumably the perceived unresponsiveness of our national institutions in the view of most Canadians. For example, my own door-to-door meetings with numerous constituents indicate that many have little confidence in the capacity of federal legislators to represent constituents on a host of issues.

Reforming the role of M.P.s is vital to "nationalizing Ottawa" because of the widespread public impression, that M.P.s are brute voting machines for their respective party whips. Experts say Canadian legislators (federal and provincial) face the tightest party discipline in the democratic world. Since I was elected in 1979, the members of the various parties have voted as uniform blocs in virtually every single House of Commons vote.

Private members will probably only become significant in policy-making when our voting practices change. The 36th Parliament with its unprecedented composition of five parties can succeed in improving the occupational credibility of all M.P.s.

Unlike parliamentary systems in places such as Great Britain, virtually every vote in Canadian legislatures is potentially one of non-confidence in the government. The constituents of both provincial and federal legislators would be the real winners if party discipline were loosened. Private members from both government and opposition benches could then take positions on government bills and other matters based on assisting constituents instead of respective party hierarchies.

If party discipline in Canada were relaxed, representation for all areas of Canada would be improved. 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 in which opposition parties usually oppose virtually anything a government proposes might well change in the direction of parties working together for the common good.

Our all-party McGrath report on parliamentary reform in 1985 came to the conclusion that the role of the individual member must be enhanced. As James McGrath himself said, "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". 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, or our House Rules, that M.P.s and Senators shall "not (be) bound by orders and instructions and shall be subject only to their conscience". Another approach would be for each new federal or provincial government to specify at the start of their mandate which matters at the heart of their program will be deemed confidence issues. In those situations, party discipline would be fully justifiable.

The Chrétien government's commitment to reforming Parliament resulted in a marginally enhanced role for private M.P.s in their duties as public policy makers. Reforms in the last Parliament made it more responsive to Canadians and the work of individual M.P.s more relevant. Governments, we are told, will be more accountable to the House of Commons and, through it, to Canadians. The initiatives to revise parliamentary rules announced in the House of Commons in the last Parliament should give M.P.s greater power to amend government bills and initiate legislation, and strengthen the role of M.P.s in developing the spending priorities of government. The three main parties have also agreed to ask the Commons procedures committee to study further reforms, including free votes, electronic voting and the idea of giving constituents the right to recall their M.P.s.

Many new M.P.s in the 36th Parliament will probably seek further changes in the way private members’ bills are dealt with and debated in the House. Though reforms introduced to date in private members’ business gave M.P.s an increased role in the legislative process, more is seen to be needed to allow more M.P. participation in what is now the exclusive territory of the cabinet and government. An article by Iain Wilson, "Making a Difference: Private Members’ Bills and Public Policy" cites the dismal Canadian success rate of private bills in becoming the law: of the almost 3,000 private members’ bills introduced between 1968 and 1987, only twelve were enacted. Elsewhere in the world, the record is comparable. In New Zealand says Wilson, no private members’ bill has been passed in the last 40 years (as of the late 1980s). In Australia, 51 private members’ bills have passed in the last 76 years. In contrast, Wilson points out, "of 100 or so private members’ bills that have been introduced in the British Parliament every year since 1980, an average 13 a year have been passed."

Such proposals as improved prospects for private members’ bills should be the beginning of a process many Canadians seek so that the present widespread public opinion for one key national institution might become a thing of the past. Only, however, when the words of the 18th-century political philosopher Edmund Burke define the standards of our elected representatives will we be able to say we have helped diminish the cynicism towards our public figures: "It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to constituents; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own."

 

 
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