Irresponsible Government

There are few things as uninteresting as the story of the rise of responsible government in Canada in the 1800s and the subsequent confederation of the provinces into the Dominion of Canada. It was independence by subcommittee. It was what happens when your founding fathers are technocrats. But as dry and colourless the story is, the foundation that was put in place created one of the finest democracies in history. For almost a century and a half, Canada's government has been a testament to how the Westminster system, modified for local conditions, can mediate between the various forces and interests that shape and emerge from civil society.

At the root of that system was the notion of responsibility - institutional responsibility, ministerial responsibility and individual responsibility. Whether it is the vicissitudes of politics, the tactical realities of a minority government or the personal bent of the party leaders that notion of responsibility seems to be eroding.


We have, over the past couple of years, seen very crisp examples of this at the institutional level. Whether it is the prorogation of Parliament in 2008 to avoid losing power to the other parties, or the shrugging off of being found in contempt of the House or the repeated efforts to control and curtail the functioning of Parliament, the past two Conservative governments have demonstrated a particular bent for undermining the institutions of our government. But this is by no means a partisan idiosyncrasy. Consider how rabidly the party leaders jumped on a reported draft of the Auditor-General's report on G8 spending. They understood that confidential draft reports are an essential part of the A-G's process and do not reflect final findings. But they were happy to throw aside any concern for the integrity of the institution if is served a short-term tactical advantage.

The erosion of ministerial responsibility has never been more clear and more troubling than in recent years. Whether it is the Prime Minister's shifting of the blame on the Bruce Carsen file, Bev Oda's bizarre and detached denials around the insertion of a "not" into a document or Jason Kenney's clumsy stick-handling around the blatant use of his ministerial office for electioneering and fundraising there is a systematic refusal for the ministers of the crown in this government to accept responsibility for their actions and the actions of their staff.

And we see this behaviour at a more personal level throughout the political matrix. How many times have we seen Conservative Party staffers fall on their swords preserving their bosses from having to explain their actions or to b accountable? I can think of at least four times: Harper's plagiarism of a speech during the last election cost Owen Lippert his job; the Jason Kenney affair described above resulted in the ouster of Alykhan Velshi; Sebastien Togneri quit after being blamed for interfering with an FOI request in the Ministry of Natural Resources; and Zeljko Zidaric took the bullet for the ethnic dress email in Etobicoke Centre. Tory staffers have become the equivalent of the red-shirted security personnel in the old star trek - ready to be snuffed out to advance the plot. Consider also Harper's refusal to engage directly with the media or the electorate in this election.

But the erosion of personal responsibility is not unique to the Tories. Look at Michael Ignatieff's efforts to dance around the coalition issue for most of the campaign despite it being obviously his next move should the election return a conservative minority. Look also at the manner in which Ignatieff took power over the Liberal party, undercutting the party's democratic processes. Or his reluctance to require that MPs expenses be reported transparently. And this is a man who does not live in, and has no real ties to, his own riding. Etobicoke-Lakeshore is a blue-collar, inner suburban riding with a host of issues and challenges that are far removed from it's MP's priorities, light years away from his official residence in Ottawa, and maybe even further removed from his Toronto residence in the trendy Yorkville neighbourhood downtown.

Nor is Jack Layton immune from this criticism. Out of one side of his mouth his decries the state of discourse in the House of Commons and the lack of public faith in the instituion, while out of the other side he calls the Senate a haven for crooks, choosing an attack that can only undermine the institution. The rise of his personal popularity at the expense of his party's -as I discussed here last week - also presents challenges in this regard.

Perhaps this is not a structural change emanating from our politics itself but rather reflects the erosion of personal responsibility throughout our society.  As I wrote earlier in the week, a similar failure of responsibility can be seen in the media and their inordinate focus on the irrelevant stories in the election or on each other. And the voters themselves are culpable. I haven't done any polling but I am confident that the percentage of the electorate that complains about their government is higher than the percentage that votes.

I am not lamenting the decline of Canadian civilization in the abstract. These things happen in waves and cycles. I predict that we will see the pendulum swing back towards the notion of responsibility, creating, ironically, a set of strategic and tactical advantages for the politician that embraces them. But until then we continue to see the bedrock of responsibility in our system crumbling and collapsing. -BC