The conventional wisdom in newsrooms and among the bien-pensant across the country is that Parliament is dysfunctional and our political class embarrassing. But presented this week with an instance of sophisticated politicking, the commentariat have, almost without exception, cried bloody murder. What is wrong with these people?
The complaints about our dysfunctional Parliament are right, and the cause is obvious. In a parliamentary system, executive power is exercised, for all practical purposes, by the majority leader of the (essentially unicameral) legislative branch. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, if the majority leader’s ability to control the legislative agenda were constrained. But–in part because of his ability to bestow executive favors (like Senate appointments or targeted government spending), and in part because of party rules that allow a leader to give and take away riding nominations–a majority party leader has essentially unconstrained control of the legislative agenda. And, as a result, his executive power is essentially unchecked.
The fix is simpler in theory than in practice. In theory, breaking a leader’s control over his caucus would mean recognizing a division between cabinet (or shadow-cabinet) and caucus. The cabinet–and here I include junior ministers and secretaries of state–are always whipped, because they are executive officers, and as such they are bound to support executive policy. (The same, I think, should apply to the shadow-cabinet, inasmuch as it represents an executive-in-waiting.) But caucus members who are not members of the cabinet have no such duty; they can be expected to support the initiatives and positions of their colleagues in cabinet (or shadow-cabinet), for that is what a party in Parliament is–a collection of like-minded parliamentarians. But they have no formal obligation to support the cabinet (or shadow-cabinet).
The practical challenge is to change expectations regarding the behavior of the caucus. Decades ago Pierre Trudeau derisively dismissed his backbench MPs as nobodies, and for some insane reason that attitude has been accepted as gospel truth. That has to change. And change means adjusting the attitudes and expectations of two institutions.
First, the parties themselves have to change. As long as a party leader controls nominations–whether through a party executive or directly–backbench MPs will always act as if whipped. An MP who might be perfectly willing to speak his mind–and the minds of his constituents–at the price of a cabinet appointment will clam up fast when the consequence is to be stripped of a nomination, and therefore (at best!) elected as an independent at the next election. But it’s not as simple as amending a party constitution to remove this nomination-interfering power; the problem is a consequence of the leader-centric nature of political parties. The solution? Rather than making MPs beholden to their leader, why not make the leader beholden to MPs? Scrap direct elections, scrap conventions, and do what the Grits have just done to great success: allow MPs to select the leader. All of a sudden the power equation is flipped. MPs no longer rely on the leader for their jobs; now the leader must treat his MPs like MPs again.
But the parties don’t operate in isolation; they operate to the incessant bleating of the national news media. And we’ve seen this week what the received wisdom in the media is: a party leader who allows any of the dozens of MPs in his party to express, publicly or privately, any sentiment at odds in any respect with any of his publicly or privately stated positions is a weak, ineffectual, and doomed leader.
This is nonsense. But as long as it is the prevailing attitude in the press, the parties–and particularly their leaders–will be unwilling to strike a new path. On the other hand, if–like Lawrence Martin in the Globe, and entirely unlike the Globe editorialists–the commentariat see the empowerment of individual MPs as a good thing, leaders will be more likely to take steps to empower their MPs, and thereby restore sophistication and maturity to Commons.
Is it pie in the sky? Maybe. But how about this: until it happens, any commentator who criticizes a party leader for allowing his (non-cabinet) MPs to act like MPs should be barred from complaining about the state of politics in Ottawa–unless he or she frankly concedes that dysfunction is his or her preference.
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