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MP Report

MP Report for Okanagan-Coquihalla: discussing the Reform Act

12/9/2013

4 Comments

 
There have been very few bills that have generated as much discussion, debate and
feedback as Bill C-559. This is quite remarkable given that this Private Member`s Bill was only tabled into the House late last week and has yet to be deemed votable or to reach second reading. You may ask, "What exactly is Bill C-559? ". It is called the Reform Act of 2013 and was introduced recently by my colleague MP Michael Chong. 
 
Depending upon who you ask, the reactions to this Bill have ranged from being viewed as the salvation of our Parliamentary democracy to declarations that the Bill is an all out assault on
the democratic principles which have helped shape our great country. Media pundits, academics, retired politicians, interest groups and most importantly, citizens have all taken the time to comment on this Bill with a passion and a level of interest rarely observed, at least from my limited time as a Member of Parliament. I view this level of engagement as very encouraging and to date the
majority of the input I have heard locally is supportive of this Bill.

There is also something which extends beyond this Bill that I believe is worthy of
note. In the days prior to Bill C-559 being introduced into the House of Commons, an advocacy organization began a lobbying campaign with local MP`s, calling on them to support this democratic reform Private Member`s Bill. I mention this due to the fact that the actual provisions of the Bill at that
point were unknown with many openly supporting the bill based on what they believed to be the contents and objective– in this case an “increase” in democracy. The challenge for legislators is that the actual content of what is proposed in a bill is of equal if not more importance that the
intent. Does Bill C-559 increase democracy?

One of the proposals of this Bill is to end a requirement that a locally elected candidate who intends to run for a political party is formally endorsed by the leader of the party in question. What is interesting on this point is that it was actually a Liberal Government in the 1970’s who introduced this requirement in large part to ensure that special interest groups could not unduly influence the candidate selection process at the local level. In many respects, the requirement for formal endorsement by a party leader has acted as a disincentive in attempting to influence a candidate selection process as the results can be nullified by a party leader if desired. Bill C-559 proposes to eliminate this safeguard.


Another proposal in the Reform Act allows for 15% of a party caucus to initiate a leadership review process and ultimately the majority of caucus MP’s attending a leadership review meeting could in
effect remove a democratically elected Prime Minister and in-turn could install a new Prime Minister solely based on a majority caucus decision with no democratic participation from Canadians. A similar clause is also proposed in the democratic reform bill with respect to how an MP can be removed from or re-instated to caucus. If 15% of the caucus membership requests a review and a
majority of caucus members in attendance at the review in question vote for the removal or re-instatement of another MP (within caucus) that majority vote would stand regardless of the intentions of the Prime Minister. The intent of these proposals is to increase the power of individual MP’s and to decrease the ability of the Prime Minister to unilaterally make decision with respect to
caucus composition. In other words the Prime Minister would be more susceptible to the demands of individual Members of Parliament or smaller groups of MP`s as opposed to the consensus of caucus or `team` approach that has emerged over the past few decades. 

One other point of interest is that should Bill C-559 be adopted, the implementation date would be 7 days after the next election. This would mean that some provisions around candidate selection would not actually be implemented until possibly the year 2019. Will these proposed changes increase democracy? To date I have read the bill and dozens of opinion editorials both for and against the
Reform Act that offer different but valid points. I would still like to hear from more citizens on this bill once the actual contents are better known. I believe almost everyone supports increased democracy in our electoral process. However the details of how that is best achieved (otherwise known as reading the fine print) should not be overlooked. For the record I support increasing democracy, transparency and accountability in our political process and welcome
your comments and views on this important subject. I can be reached at dan.albas@parl.gc.ca or by phone at 1 (800) 665-8711 and I do
look forward to hearing from you.


4 Comments
Michael Schutz
12/9/2013 11:14:15 am

Hi Dan,

I truly appreciate your reports and willingness to connect with your constituents so openly. I appreciate your wrestling with this bill, and have to take issue/ask for clarification with this:

"...ultimately the majority of caucus MP’s attending a leadership review meeting could in effect remove a democratically elected Prime Minister and in-turn could install a new Prime Minister solely based on a majority caucus decision with no democratic participation from Canadians."

Except that we don't elect a Prime Minister. We vote a party into power, not an individual. The leader of the party becomes the Prime Minister. So isn't this proposal actually restoring more of our Canadian way of doing elections?

I've noticed far more focus on party leaders in the last couple of elections, in things I like TV ads and campaign signs. To me that's chasing after US-style politics and not our way as Canadians. The focus should be of the party and the local MP representing his/her constituents.

The argument that this could theoretically have us change Prime Ministers without democratic participation from us is a non-starter, in my view. That's exactly what our system was built to do, is it not? If a leader loses the confidence of the party, he/she should step aside.

If we want to argue that this is a bad way to do politics and that we should elect a Prime Minister directly, fair enough. But to imply this proposal removes democratic participation from Canadians is a bit misleading, no?

I'dd appreciate some clarification. If I'm off in my understanding, I'm certainly willing to stand corrected too.

Reply
Dan Albas link
12/9/2013 12:30:12 pm

Thanks very much for the comment Michael. Please send me your contact info to my dan.albas@parl.gc.ca email address and we can discuss further.

Thanks again!

Dan

Reply
Michael Schutz
12/9/2013 03:18:56 pm

Thanks, Dan. I'll do that.

Reply
Dave Stigant
1/30/2014 03:03:46 am

Congratulations on having the openness of this site. I as one constituent am interested in your thoughts in addition to party positions.

Undue influence of special interest groups in the selection of local candidates is an interesting issue. Hard to know what constitutes "undue influence". If "undue" is dissent over the leader's position on one or more matters, then the leader influence in this case may be "undue" not the constituency interest group. The danger posed by one renegade constituency may in fact be less important than the veto power of the leader. As you have noted, the devil is in the details so much thought is needed on who should decide who carries the party banner in a constituency.

In terms of the legislation enabling a leadership review, I too think that 15% is too low a threshhold. However the detail of the percentage should not mask the need for a mechanism beyond convention election. None of these processes should be too easy, to discourage abuse of what is a very substantive decision. But the 'check and balance' of a process to force review in a timely fashion, and by those chosen by the electors, is powerful and would increase the "demos" which comes from a Greek root of voice of the citizens.

At the same time, such processes should be sufficiently challenging and substantive such that leaders and governments are not constantly in a spin distracting them from the business of governance. A fine balance, that today is imbalanced" by giving leaders too much tenure.

As earlier noted, it is important to remember that in our system we do not elect prime ministers or cabinet ministers. We the voters elect MP's who may, in the case of cabinet, be chosen by the leader to take on additional leadership roles. The issue behind the Bill, as I understand it, would be to place a similar sort of approval process/ removal process on leaders of a caucus.

In terms of the PM being more answerable to the caucus, I think that would be desirable. Currently the PM has most of the instruments of censure, the MP's few. One of the issues all parties need to address is the loss of public participation in the political process. One perception that undermines that confidence and participation is the appearance the government and/or party decisions are made and enforced through imposed discipline rather than consensus. In the end such leader-centric influence endangers our current parties which are very much coalitions.

Reply



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    Dan Albas is the Member of Parliament  for the riding of Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola.
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    Communicating with his constituents is one of his top priorities. Dan writes a new MP Report each week.

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