The Liberal Focus on Harper's Contempt for Democracy

“There he goes again with this word ‘bickering.’ This is a debate, Mr. Harper. This is a democracy...You keep talking about Parliament as if it’s this little debating society that’s a pesky interference in your rule of the country. It’s not.”

Michael Ignatieff, Leaders' debate, April 12, 2011.

Ignatieff kept returning to this theme of democracy in the debate. Even when asked about Canadian foreign policy, he returned to hammer the idea that Canada cannot advance its values abroad when democracy was being undermined at home. What was he on about, anyway? It is hard to pitch the importance of democracy the way you can tax cuts and raising the employment rates. But it is so much more important. Ignatieff is on to something crucial here, and it is vital that Canadians not miss it.

The issue is political accountability and the realization of deliberative democracy. Which simply means that government in a democracy is supposed to be accountable to the people, and decisions are supposed to made through a process in which the people are able to meaningfully participate. One of the great strengths of democracy rests on the twin ideas that decisions will be better, and will enjoy wider and more enduring support from the public, precisely because they are made through a process of debate and deliberation in which the people play a meaningful role. 

Now, outside of Swiss style democracy, there are few states in which the people can participate in the most direct fashion in decision-making. But in the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, the people participate in the decision-making through their representatives in parliament. Members of the public can communicate with their MP, and as constituents their views are not insignificant. And debate and discussion within the house of parliament, through institutions such as committees and question period in the House, all contribute to a process of deliberative decision-making, ijavascript:void(0)n which the executive, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, have to explain the rationales for the decisions it is making, and to obtain support for laws its wants to pass.

It is often said that in contrast to the American model of a more clearly divided executive and legislature, the parliamentary system, at least when there is a majority government, creates nothing more than a facade of deliberation and accountability. With party whips driving the vote of members of the majority party, individual MPs are not really voting in line with the constituents' wishes. But the fact remains that in a properly functioning parliament, the institutions within parliament that produce public debate and inquiry into government actions and intentions, do serve to shine a light on government decision-making, and forces different perspectives to be considered in the process. 

Which brings us to the Conservative government, and Iggy's claims that Harper is undermining democracy. There is good reason to complain. We will return to this them in future posts to discuss some of the details, but the evidence is in plain view. Stonewalling inquiries into our detainee program in Afghanistan, and then proroguing parliament to cut short a committee's efforts to uncover possible government malfeasance in our treatment of detainees; the Oda affair, in which a Cabinet Minister interfered with a bureaucratic process regarding decisions to fund a particular group, and then lied about the matter to the House of Commons; the allegations that Cabinet has both failed to provide information on the funding for proposed legislation (on prisons), and provided inaccurate information on the funding of major military purchases (on the F-35 fighter jets).

We could go on. And we will in future posts. the evidence points to a Conservative government that is more secretive, less transparent, and more hostile to both being held accountable to the public and allowing any informed deliberation on its proposed laws and policies. And that is when they lead through a minority government. Imagine when they really don't have to consult with anyone to get legislation passed. So Iggy is on to something important here. Democracy and governance are fundamentally important in this election. Far more important than this or that tax proposal, or even the perennial issue of jobs, jobs, jobs. This is the foundation of our political system that we are talking about.  - CM.