On procedure and politics

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined

Mr. Speaker

Peter Milliken announced recently that he won’t seek re-election. Mr. Milliken has been an MP for 22 years, but more importantly, he has been the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons for the past nine years. During that time, Milliken has figured in some rather momentous events in Canadian politics.  He is the longest [...]

The hatreds will always be there

There was an interesting op-ed piece in the Guardian this weekend on the plight of former prime ministers. While focusing on former British PMs, the same certainly applies to former Canadian PMs. In the US, where the office of President – if not always the individual holding the office – is revered, former presidents are [...]

The media and hung parliaments

This post is not in keeping with what I generally would write about in this blog. A bit of background here for anyone not familiar with Canadian politics. The past three elections in Canada, 2004, 2006 and 2008, have resulted in hung parliaments. In 2004, we ended up after the election with a minority Liberal [...]

On recall legislation

While a feature of the democratic process in some US states, recall legislation is practically unheard of in Commonwealth countries. In fact, the Canadian province of British Columbia is the only Commonwealth jurisdiction to have recall legislation. The Recall and Initiative Act came into force in 1995, providing a mechanism to recall sitting Members and [...]

Reclaiming Parliament

An essential feature of parliamentary government is that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet are responsible to, or must answer to, the House of Commons for their actions. The House of Commons controls the executive by passing or rejecting its Bills and by forcing Ministers of the Crown to answer for their actions, for example [...]

On Petitions

All authorities agree that the right of petitioning parliament for redress of grievances is acknowledged as a fundamental principle of the constitution. It has been uninterruptedly exercised from very early times and has had a profound effect in determining the main forms of parliamentary procedure. – Speaker Gaspard Fauteux (Debates, June 18, 1947, pp. 4278-9) [...]

The UK deficit and the Canadian model

As a Canadian following the UK election campaign, it was very frustrating that Canada was never mentioned. As it became more and more certain that the vote would result in a hung parliament, the UK media repeatedly looked to other European countries as examples of how to deal with such a result, ignoring the fact [...]

When policy ideas are actually matters of debate

In recent years, in North America at least, whenever a politician changes their mind on a certain policy position, the press immediately jumps on this, calling the change a “flip flop”, which helps create the impression that the politician in question is indecisive and uncertain of where they really stand on a given issue, and [...]

Investigative inquiries and sensitive information: two approaches

The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War was launched in July 2009 by the UK Government to consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath, to consider the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way [...]

The Coalition and Canada’s deficit cutting model

When the coalition’s programme was unveiled in May, one item under the Communities and Local Government section caught my eye: We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance. Given the critical deficit situation facing the UK, [...]

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