Posts in Category ‘Government’

On the West Lothian Question

Last month, Commission on the Consequences of Devolution for the House of Commons (the McKay Commission) released its report, which you can read here. The Commission had been appointed in January 2012 and was asked to consider:

how the House of Commons might deal with legislation which affects only part of the United Kingdom, following the devolution of certain legislative powers to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly of Wales.

In other words, the Commission was looking into the matter of the “West Lothian Question.” The Parliament.uk website explains the West Lothian Question this way:

Named after Tam Dalyell, MP for West Lothian, who raised the question of the participation of MPs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament after devolution. In a debate on devolution to Scotland and Wales on 14 November 1977, Mr Dalyell said: For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For Canadian readers, imagine a scenario where education policy isn’t a provincial responsibility in Canada, but under federal jurisdiction. It is the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada which decide all policy affecting every aspect of education across the country – from curriculum to tuition fees. Then, after years of negotiation, one province, say Quebec, is given full control over education matters in that province, while the other provinces still see Ottawa deciding education policy for them. Quebec MPs still get to vote on pieces of education legislation affecting the rest of the country, but that have no impact within the province of Quebec itself, but MPs from the rest of Canada, and the Government of Canada, have no say in any aspect of education policy within Quebec. What if the government one day decides to significantly increase tuition fees across the country – triples them, while in Quebec, the provincial government actually does away with tuition fees. The tuition fee policy is very controversial, and even a number of government backbenchers rebel against the policy (it’s a fantasy scenario – play along). The tuition fee increase passes, but only by a handful of votes. People soon realize that if the Quebec MPs hadn’t voted, the tuition fee increase would have been defeated and many start to question if MPs from Quebec should have a right to vote on policies that don’t affect their province at all, especially very controversial ones such as a massive tuition fee hike.

This is a highly generalized example of the West Lothian Question in the UK. There is a growing perception among MPs and voters that MPs from England proper should have a more decisive role in making laws for England in policy fields that have been devolved to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies. As the McKay Commission explains in its report,

The West Lothian Question is a consequence of the introduction of “asymmetrical devolution arrangements that extend to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but not to England. The issues it raises are a constant presence in post-devolution UK politics as MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales routinely vote on legislation that wholly or mainly affects England alone. But the political resonance of the West Lothian Question is at its greatest when it is possible for the majority opinion among MPs from Englan don a piece of England-specific legislation to be overruled by a majority of all UK MPs, including those from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The Commission does point out that instances when a majority of MPs from England is overruled by the UK-wide majority are in actual fact extremely rare. They identify three such scenarios – two happened only rarely, and one never has. Since WWI, the party or coalition forming the UK Government has almost always had a majority in England, as well as in the UK as a whole. Only during two short-lived parliaments was this not the case. Another example would be situations where a government with a majority of MPs both from England and across the UK as a whole suffers a parliamentary rebellion among its England MPs (this does happen in the UK, unlike Canada). In such an event, a controversial piece of legislation may pass because of support from MPs outside of England. The Commission identified two examples of this which occurred under Labour – votes on the introduction of foundation hospitals in 2003 and the introduction of university top-up fees in England only in 2004. In these two cases, a good number of Labour MPs from England rebelled and voted against their government, but Labour MPs from Scotland and Wales ensured that the government maintained its majority. The last scenario in which the will of the majority in England could be overruled would be if a party had a clear majority in England, but not in the UK as a whole and forms a minority government. In that event, the opposition could frustrate the UK Government’s legislative intentions for England by mobilising the votes of MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, this scenario has never occurred. (McKay Commission Report, pp. 12-13)

Because the above scenarios happen only very rarely, or not at all, the Commission approached the West Lothian Question in a broader sense: “that of non-English MPs voting on English laws, whatever the majority relationship in the House of Commons.” And because this is a wider set of concerns about the “balance and stability of teh UK’s territorial constitution”, it can be described as an “English Question”.

Essentially, because of devolution, more and more legislation before the UK Parliament applies to England only (or England and Wales). This reality will only increase over time. The continued devolution of powers to the other national assemblies – for example, a referendum held in March 2011 in Wales established full legislative powers for the Welsh National Assembly in 20 policy fields, and debates on further devolution are ongoing, while Scotland will have a referendum on independence in 2014. The problem, as identified by the McKay Commission, is that the House of Commons has not adapted to this reality:

The House of Commons does not differentiate its mode of operation for English as compared with UK-wide matters. It lacks a capacity to focus directly on England just at the point when more of its work deals with English matters. In the absence of change in the way the House of Commons works, the consequence – clearly unintended, but nonetheless important- may be to impede the voicing of any distinctively English concerns, or perceived concerns, that exist on wholly or mainly English matters.

Recommendations

The Commission made the following recommendations:

  • Adopt the following constitutional principle for England (and for England-and-Wales): Decisions taken in the Commons which have a separate and distinct effect for England (or England-and-Wales) should normally be taken only with the consent of a majority of MPs sitting for constituencies in England (or England-and-Wales).
  • That principle should be clearly set out in a resolution of the House of Commons, and House procedure should be changed to encourage MPs to follow this approach.
  • A range of procedural changes is suggested, all of which would allow the English voice to be heard. Some of them involve committees on bills, with majorities reflecting the party balance in England (or England-and-Wales).  Others take the form of motions on the floor of the House.  They are not a single package but a menu from which choices can be made to suit the circumstances of a particular bill.
  • A select committee on Devolution should be appointed, which would (among other things) assist the House to hold UK ministers to account for their responsibilities in connection with devolution and their relations with the devolved administrations.
  • No MPs would be prevented from voting on any bill, and the right of the House as a whole to make final decisions would be preserved. However, there would also be scope for additional roles for MPs from England (or England-and-Wales).

These are explained in more detail in the report itself, which you can consult via the link posted above.

It should be noted that there has been some criticism of the fact that while the West Lothian Question is very much a parliamentary issue affecting parliamentary procedure, the McKay Commission was set up by the government, by-passing parliament’s own select committees. See for example this post from the Constitution Unit:

Sadly, its newly-published report confirms this executive-centred approach to parliamentary reform.  The key section entitled ‘next steps’ (paras 248-9) contains phrases like “We envisage that the Government would first make an assessment of our proposals and put before the House..” and “When the House has expressed its views, we suggest that the Government should move for a select committee to advise the House on the details..”

…

Presumably Parliament is expected, as usual, to sit back quietly and wait for its executive masters to work out how it should operate.  The idea that one of the Commons’ select committees dealing with House matters (given the current Political & Constitutional Reform Committee’s inquiry into the ‘Wright Committee reforms’, we currently have 2 of them, ie it and Procedure Committee) should do a brisk inquiry into the subject of WLQ and the McKay Report, independently of Government’s own deliberations, is presumably far too revolutionary for the current House.  Ditto for some sort of initiative of this sort by the Speaker.

Or perhaps they will surprise us all?

The House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee did touch on the English Question in its recent report entitled “Do we need a constitutional convention for the UK?” In the section headed “The elephant in the room: England“, the committee discusses the English Question at some length, and concludes with the following recommendation:

76. We recommend that the “English Question” be addressed without delay. Of all the tectonic plates within the Union, it is England which most needs to be lubricated and adjusted to the new reality of an effective Union, within a key framework of national competences. The Government should now, with all urgency, create a forum, or pre-convention, for the people of England to discuss if, and how, they wish to follow in the footsteps of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and access substantial devolved powers, clearly defined in statute, for their local communities. The Government should consider whether such a forum might be conducted before a UK-wide constitutional convention and involve representatives from all parts of England.

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Appointed political hacks

Recent controversies surrounding a handful of Canadian Senators have sparked an intense debate (at least among the chattering political classes) with many calling not simply for Senate reform, but for the Upper Chamber to be abolished. Those in favour of abolition view the Senate as a graveyard for appointed political hacks. I have written a good number of posts defending the Senate. I am not at all in favour of abolishing it, however, I do recognize that the appointment process is flawed. I will once again address some of the issues raised by critics of the Senate.

“Appointed political hacks”

One of the most common criticisms levelled at current day Senators is that they are simply “appointed political hacks”. The specific problems which have surfaced in recent days are due in large part to the appointment process.  Senators are appointed by the Governor General, on the advice of the Prime Minister. In reality, the Prime Minister chooses who he or she wants, and the Governor General simply formalises that choice. How does the PM choose a candidate for the Senate? No one really knows. They may well solicit recommendations from others, but whether or not there is any sort of vetting undertaken to ensure that at the very least, the prospective Senator meets the very minimum requirements outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, is impossible to say. One of those requirements is that the Senator live in the province they are representing, and one of the Senators currently in the media spotlight is in trouble over the very fact that it appears he does not, in fact, live in the province he is supposed to be representing – yet he is claiming the housing allowance. This would have been a very easy thing to verify before appointing said Senator. Apparently, no one bothered.

Appointment in and of itself is not the problem. Many high-level positions in this country are filled via an appointment process, for example, judges. The problem with Senate appointments is, as stated above, that there is no, or very little, vetting of prospective candidates, the process is under the full control of the Prime Minister, and there is little specific criteria set out that a prospective Senator needs to meet. Consequently, critics are right on this point – those who get appointed are largely political hacks – party fundraisers, failed candidates who lost their seat in the last election, etc.

Section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1867, sets out the following qualifications for a Senator:

(1) He shall be of the full age of Thirty Years;

(2) He shall be either a natural-born Subject of the Queen, or a Subject of the Queen naturalized by an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of One of the Provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, before the Union, or of the Parliament of Canada after the Union;

(3) He shall be legally or equitably seised as of Freehold for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Free and Common Socage, or seised or possessed for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Franc-alleu or in Roture, within the Province for which he is appointed, of the Value of Four thousand Dollars, over and above all Rents, Dues, Debts, Charges, Mortgages, and Incumbrances due or payable out of or charged on or affecting the same;

(4) His Real and Personal Property shall be together worth Four thousand Dollars over and above his Debts and Liabilities;

(5) He shall be resident in the Province for which he is appointed;

(6) In the Case of Quebec he shall have his Real Property Qualification in the Electoral Division for which he is appointed, or shall be resident in that Division.

Reflective of the time, these requirements focused on property ownership and financial solvency. A Senator had to be at least 30 years old, a British citizen (since there was no Canadian citizenship at the time), own land worth at least $4000, not in debt, and be a resident of the province from which he (for there were no women Senators in 1867) was appointed.

As we can see today, even these minimal criteria haven’t been properly met by some recent appointees, which further supports the argument that very little vetting actually takes place.

The solution to the above isn’t abolishing the Senate, but reforming the appointment process. I have previously written about this, and while many ideas have been put forward, my preferred option remains that proposed by the late W.T. Stanbury and B.Thomas Hall in their paper “Reforming Canada’s Senate: a pragmatic approach“. Hall and Stanbury propose constraining the power of the PM by establishing an independent commission with legislated criteria for selecting appointees. This independent Senate Appointments Commission (SAC) would recommend candidates to the PM, who would then advise the Governor General to make the appointments.

The authors also propose criteria for nomination: “emphasize outstanding attainment in a profession or occupation, and/or a substantial record of interest in and contribution to public affairs” with the objective being to:

appoint men and women of real accomplishment seriously interested in effective public policy – rather than partisan advantage, although former partisans wouldn’t be excluded. We want Senators to reflect the diversity of Canada, and be able to provide a regional perspective where that can improve the quality of federal laws.

Hall and Stanbury posit in their paper that the creation of a SAC would not require any constitutional changes – it could be done by the federal government alone. I am not a constitutional expert, and so I will take them at their word on that. I’m certain some provinces would object, they usually do, but the authors state clearly that:

Our proposals are also not open to constitutional challenge by the provinces.

We believe democracy requires that a partisan body be subjected to periodical elections for it to be held accountable to citizens. We do not believe that a non-partisan body, whose members have been appointed for their knowledge, experience and devotion to the interest of all Canadians, need to be held accountable through elections. Instead, their work must be open and transparent and subjected to the criticism of the public and the public’s elected representatives.

“Elected political hacks?”

While some critics of the Senate aren’t calling for its abolition, they do want it to become more legitimate, e.g. they want elected Senators. As I’ve previously written in an earlier post on the Senate, I sometimes struggle to understand people’s fixation with democratising everything. I don’t think that elected necessarily equals better. We often lament the fact that we can’t attract really outstanding individuals to run for public office. There are a myriad of reasons why people might not be interested in subjecting themselves to the ups and downs of running for office, and I can certainly sympathise with them on that front. However, that doesn’t mean that these same people wouldn’t be interested in serving the country in a different way, and would welcome a Senate appointment. Still, it remains that many will not be satisfied with anything less than elected Senators. While electing Members of the Upper House might legitimize their existence for some, there is a real possibility that Senators would then go from being appointed political hacks to elected political hacks.

I say this because of the current status of the Canadian House of Commons. Concurrent with the debate on the Senate, there is a growing call for reform of the Canadian House of Commons, which many political observers (if not all of them by this point) consider to be highly dysfunctional. Various media and other sources have launched discussions on how to reform the House, and have identified some of the key problems. One of the biggest is that of the excessive control the party leader exerts over his or her MPs. By some accounts, the level of party discipline in Canada is the strictest in the world. Canadian MPs almost never vote against their party – even on items which shouldn’t be whipped votes (meaning there shouldn’t be a party line to vote against), such as Private Members’ bills and motions, as I explained in this post. Rebellion on larger issues, such as the budget? Forget it. While UK MPs regularly defy their party whips, this simply does not happen in Canada.

Part of the reason for this is that the party leader signs each candidate’s nomination form. Fall out of the leader’s good graces and that will be the end of your career as an MP. Of course, they could try running as independents, but independents very rarely get elected – and have virtually no power once in Parliament should they manage to get elected. If the party leader has that much control over MPs, surely the same process would be put in place for elected Senators. Meaning once elected, Senators would be as beholden to the party leader as MPs are. We’d end up with two Chambers of completely whipped automatons. I really fail to see how that would be an improvement over the current situation.

“Who needs it anyway?”

Which brings us back to the abolitionists’ position – just get rid of the Senate. It doesn’t do anything. Well, anyone who says that simply doesn’t pay any actual attention to the work that the Senate does. Because of the current level of dysfunction in the House of Commons, often the only real scrutiny any bill gets is in the Upper House. The Commons finds itself handstrung by time allocation measures or overwhelmed by massive omnibus bills – which are often also time allocated. The Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates concluded that the House is failing in its duty to properly oversee how the Government spends money.

Many on the pro-abolition side point to the provinces, which are all unicameral, and happily state that they function just fine without an upper chamber. Again, I can only assume that they don’t pay very close attention to what really goes on in most provincial legislatures. If they did, they probably wouldn’t make that assertion. Some smaller legislatures probably do function fine with only one chamber, but being in a position to very closely observe one of the larger provincial chambers, I can say that the problems common to the House of Commons are in some ways even more prevalent at the provincial level. An Upper Chamber might actually be a welcome addition for some provinces.

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On Constitutional Monarchy

Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries, are constitutional monarchies. Constitutional monarchy is a form of monarchical government established under a constitutional system that acknowledges an elected or hereditary monarch as head of state. Modern constitutional monarchies usually implement the concept of trias politica or “separation of powers”, where the monarch either is the head of the executive branch or simply has a ceremonial role. Where a monarch holds absolute power, it is known as an absolute monarchy. The process of government and law within an absolute monarchy can be very different from that in a constitutional monarchy.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a Commonwealth Realm that formally recognizes Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada. Though the United Kingdom and Canada share the same Monarch, the Queen of the United Kingdom is a legally separate role from the Queen of Canada.

Today, constitutional monarchy is almost always combined with representative democracy, and represents theories of sovereignty which places sovereignty in the hands of the people, and those that see a role for traditions in the theory of government. Though the king or queen may be regarded as the head of state, the Prime Minister, whose power derives directly or indirectly from elections, is head of government.

Although current constitutional monarchies are mostly representative democracies, this has not always historically been the case. There have been monarchies which have coexisted with constitutions which were fascist (or quasi-fascist), as was the case in Italy, Japan and Spain, or with military dictatorships, as was the case in Thailand.

Some constitutional monarchies are hereditary but others, such as that of Malaysia are elective monarchies.

The Sixteen Realms of the Commonwealth of Nations

The most significant family of constitutional monarchies in the world today are the sixteen Realms of the Commonwealth of Nations, all independent parliamentary democracies under Elizabeth II. Unlike the United Kingdom, almost all of the other countries in this family have written constitutions with complex processes for constitutional change. Through political crises, peaceful constitutional drafting and international debate, the Westminster conventions concerning the constitutional monarch have gained much clearer definition in the other fifteen Realms than in the United Kingdom. In many of these constitutions the monarch or her representative have been regarded as an integral part of the Executive and Legislative processes, and their positions are explicitly protected, at least in part, by the written constitution.

Unlike some of their continental European counterparts, the Westminster monarch and her representatives retain significant “reserve” or “prerogative” powers, to be wielded only in times of extreme emergency (e.g. Australia 1975, Granada 1983, Solomon Islands 1994), usually to uphold parliamentary government. On these occasions a lack of understanding by the public of the relevant constitutional conventions can cause controversy: for example, the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam Government in Australia.

Canada as a Constitutional Monarchy

Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a Commonwealth Realm that formally recognizes Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada. Though the United Kingdom and Canada share the same Monarch, the Queen of the United Kingdom is a legally separate role from the Queen of Canada.

The role of the sovereign, which on paper seems to be all-encompassing, is contrasted with the reality that the Queen is bound by convention to very rarely exercise her powers, and is thus largely a ceremonial figurehead. Instead the great majority of the Monarch’s power, prerogatives, and duties are performed on a day-to-day basis by the Governor General at the federal level, or by the Lieutenant-Governors at the provincial level. While her formal political role has diminished, and the Governor General has taken on more of the Head-of-State functions, the Monarch is still the constitutional head of Canada. In that capacity, all government business, all laws, all elections, etc., are done or proclaimed in the Sovereign’s name.

The current Queen, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned as Canada’s sovereign since her ascension on February 6, 1952, and she has been a far more visible Monarch than any in the past, visiting Canada 21 times as Queen (and once as a Princess), more than any other Commonwealth Realm except the UK itself.

In Canada, the Queen’s official title in English is: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. In French, the Queen’s title is: Élizabeth Deux, par la grâce de Dieu Reine du Royaume-Uni, du Canada et de ses autres royaumes et territoires, Chef du Commonwealth, Défenseur de la Foi. In common practice, Queen Elizabeth II is referred to simply as “The Queen” or “The Queen of Canada” when in Canada, or when abroad and acting on the advice of her Canadian ministers.

Some Notable Features of the Canadian Constitutional Monarchy

Although Queen Elizabeth II is also monarch of the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries, each nation, including Canada, is sovereign and independent of the others. The identity of the sovereign is determined by the conditions set out in the Act of Settlement. As a result of the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the dominions acquired the right to be considered equal to Britain rather than subordinate; an agreement that had the result of, in theory, a shared Crown that operates independently in each realm rather than a unitary British Crown under which all the dominions were subordinate. The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution, although it has often been called British since this time (in both legal and common language) for historical reasons and for convenience. The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, 1927 was the first indication of this shift in law, further elaborated in the Statute of Westminster, 1931. Under the Statute of Westminster, 1931, Canada has a common monarchy with Britain and the other Commonwealth Realms and cannot change the rules of succession without the unanimous consent of the other realms, unless Canada explicitly leaves the shared monarchy relationship by means of a constitutional amendment.

Succession to the throne has been by male-preference primogeniture and governed by the provisions of the Act of Settlement and the English Bill of Rights. These documents are now part of Canadian constitutional law. In 2011, the Commonwealth Realms agreed to amend the rules governing the line of succession to the Throne. The changes will enshrine gender equality and freedom to marry an individual of another faith in the laws governing the Royal line of succession.These changes are expected to be adopted in 2013.

Although the Queen’s Canadian title includes “Defender of the Faith/Défenseur de la Foi,” neither the Queen, the Governor General, nor any Lieutenant-Governor has any religious role in Canada. There have been no established churches in Canada since before confederation in 1867. This is one of the key differences from the Queen’s role in the United Kingdom where she is Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

On all matters of state to do with Canada, the monarch is advised solely by the Canadian federal and provincial first ministers. Effective with the Constitution Act, 1982 no British government can advise the monarch on any matters pertinent to Canada.

All powers of state are constitutionally reposed in the Queen, who is represented at the federal level by the Governor General of Canada and at the provincial level by Lieutenant-Governor. The Governor General is appointed by the Queen upon the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada. The ten lieutenant-governors are appointed by the Governor General, in the name of the Queen, upon the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada though the Queen is informed of the Prime Minister’s decision before the Governor General gives assent. The Commissioners of Canada’s territories of Nunavut, Yukon, and Northwest Territories are appointed by Governor in Council at the recommendation of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. But as the territories are not sovereign entities, the commissioners are not representatives of the sovereign. They receive instruction from the said federal Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs.

Royal Assent and proclamation are required for all acts of Parliament and of the provincial legislatures. Territorial legislatures are subject to the oversight of the Government of Canada. Provinces and their legislatures, as sovereign entities, are not.

The legal personality of the monarch in Canada is referred to as “Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada,” and likewise for the provinces and territories (i.e., “in Right of Ontario,” etc.). For example, if a lawsuit is filed against the federal government, the respondent is formally described as Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada. Of course, the Queen herself takes no more role in such an affair than in any other business of government. Indeed, in cases in which, for example, a province sues the federal government, it would formally be Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Prince Edward Island v. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada.

As in the UK, the Queen’s role is almost entirely symbolic and cultural, and the powers that are constitutionally hers are exercised wholly upon the advice of the elected government. In exceptional circumstances, however, the Queen or Governor General may act against such advice based upon her reserve powers as when Governor General Byng refused a demand by Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King for a dissolution of Parliament and call for new elections, because King’s request was blatantly unconstitutional, and it is the first order of the Crown to defend the constitution (see King-Byng Affair). For the most part, however, the monarch functions as a rubber stamp and a symbol of the legal authority under which all governments operate. It has been correctly said since the death of Queen Anne (1714), the last monarch to head the British cabinet (when almost all of Canada was still French colonial territory), that the monarch “reigns” but does not “rule”. In Canada, this has been true since the Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the reign of Canada’s last absolute monarch, King Louis XV of France.

Queen Elizabeth II, as is common for all her other non-UK realms, is generally regarded as “Queen of Canada” only when she is actually present in Canada or when she otherwise performs ceremonies relevant to Canada, such as conferring Canadian honours in the UK or participating in the Canadian World War II memorial ceremonies in France. Except for a few duties which must be performed by the Queen (e.g., signing the appointment papers of governors general and lieutenant-governors, which no governor general can do), or which require assent by the Queen as well as the Governor General (as when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney expanded the number of Senate seats to assure passage of the Goods and Services Tax), all of the Queen’s federal duties are performed by the Governor General and all of her provincial duties are performed by the pertinent Lieutenant-Governor.

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Coalition government is not a marriage

On 7 January 2012, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg held a joint press conference, which you can watch here, to promote the Coalition government’s Mid-Term Review. That review lists what the government says it has achieved in meeting its coalition agreement and outlines further reforms to come. Both Cameron and Clegg stressed that the coalition would last the full five-year term.

One of the stranger questions asked during the press conference was if the coalition was like a marriage. Indeed, when Cameron and Clegg held their first press conference together back in 2010 to launch the coalition, some of the press coverage read as if it should have been on the Society pages rather than in the Politics section (see for example, this piece, or this one). Cameron answered that question thusly:

“To me it’s not a marriage, it’s a Ronseal deal, it does what it says on the tin – we said we would come together, we said we would form a government, we said we would tackle these problems, we said we would get on with it in a mature and sensible way, and that is exactly what we’ve done.”

This prompted the BBC’s political editor to write a column entitled: Coalition: Official – it’s not a marriage. The column starts:

It’s not a marriage. It never was. They were never in love so they are not renewing their vows.

That, in summary, is the reaction inside Downing Street to how the media, including me, have spoken about today’s joint news conference to be held at Downing Street by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Robinson goes on to explain:

The reason this debate about terminology is revealing is that both sides of this coalition have concluded that all this talk of marriage is toxic as it invites hacks like me to conclude that the Tory and Lib Dem partners are still “in love” – something which infuriates many of their natural supporters – or preparing to “divorce” in the run-up to the next election.

The Cameron/Clegg talk of their strengthened “shared purpose” was, of course, always going to make it hard to resist the temptation to ask whether both men are protesting too much. I doubt that many hacks today will resist.

It’s not surprising that the UK media haven’t known exactly how to cover the coalition – it is a rarity in First-Past-the-Post jurisdictions such as the UK. Indeed, the UK media, almost from day one, has regularly speculated not on if the coalition would collapse – that seemed to be a given, but when this would occur. At times it seemed that every single policy was “the one that will tear the coalition apart”, bring about the aforementioned “divorce”.  What the press have failed to understand is that, in the words of the Constitution Unit’s Robert Hazell, is that the UK has a coalition government, but not a coalition Parliament.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have not merged their two parties, therefore it is not surprising – or at least, should not be surprising – that the backbenches of each party often disagree. Such disagreement in the House does not mean that the coalition itself is coming apart at the seams. Indeed, even the parliamentary splits aren’t always divisions between the Lib Dems and the Tories, but divisions within the Conservative Party itself, as this other analysis from the Constitution Unit explains. A coalition is not merger of two parties; it is an attempt by two parties to find common ground in order to govern jointly.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was questioned by the House of Lords Constitution Committee on 9 January 2012 and addressed many of the issues surrounding the workings of the coalition, in particular how it impacts the doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility. It’s an interesting discussion and I recommend watching it.

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The situation of Parliament during a prolonged period of political crisis

I have previously written about the convention of caretaker government here, and here. That convention holds that during an election campaign, the ministry continues to hold office until a new ministry is sworn in. There are, however, limitations on what a minister can do during both the election campaign and the period of government formation following a general election.

For Canadians (as well as people in the UK, Australia and other countries), there normally isn’t much of a delay in forming a new government following a general election. Usually, it is known on election night which party will form the government. This isn’t always the case, however. In 2010, in the UK, it took five days of intense negotiations between the three main parties before a new government emerged, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. During that time, the Labour party under Gordon Brown, which had been the incumbent party, acted as the caretaker government.

In countries which use some form of proportional representation rather than First-Past-the-Post, because of the need to form coalition governments, it isn’t unusual for several weeks to go by before a new government emerges. Generally, however, this caretaker period is still of a fairly short duration. However, following the 2010 parliamentary elections in Belgium, the caretaker period lasted over 500 days.

I came across a very interesting paper by Mr. H. Hondequin, the Secretary General of the Belgian Senate, prepared for a conference of the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments, wherein he discusses the situation of the Belgian parliament during a prolonged period of political crisis. You can download his paper (it’s a docx) here, but I will summarise the main points below.

Belgium, like Canada and the UK and other countries, is a parliamentary democracy. That means that there are no elections separate from the parliamentary elections to elect a president who then appoints the government. As is the case in Canada and the UK and other countries, the prime minister emerges from the parties which end up forming the government.

As Mr. Hondequin explains, there are normally twelve parties represented in the parliament, and it generally requires six parties to agree to work together to obtain a simple majority. If a governing coalition wants to amend the constitution, this requires the cooperation of an even larger number of parties since constitutional change requires a two-thirds majority to pass. As Hondequin explains:

All these elements – the large number of parties, the search for an agreement on the institutional development of the country, and therefore, in practice, the search for a qualified majority – combined with the difficult economic situation and therefore with the importance of the socio-economic choices that had to be made, explain why the formation of the government after the 2010 elections was a real Echternach procession, or for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with that event, a journey of two steps forward followed by one or even several steps back.  However, where the Echternach procession manages to cover its route in one day, the “Belgian” procession took a year and a half.  The government in power since 2007, resigned on 22nd April 2010 and that resignation was accepted 26th April 2010.  Parliament was dissolved on 7th May 2010 .  The elections were held on 13th June 2010.  The new government was finally sworn in on 6th December 2011, and obtained the confidence of Parliament on 7th December 2011, or 540 days after the elections and almost 600 days after the resignation of the previous government.

This does not mean that there was no government during that time. Parliament convened in accordance with the Constitution on 6 July 2010. The departing government continued on as a caretaker government. Hondequin explains that in Belgium, the concept of a caretaker administration was developed by the courts. A caretaker government is limited to covering “urgent matters where decisions cannot reasonably be postponed, acts of day-to-day management and acts which form the continuation or completion of procedures which had been started in a legitimate manner before the regime of caretaking administration took effect.” As well, minus a few very specific exceptions, the caretaker government does not take any legislative initiatives, and nor does Parliament.

A government in Belgium, as in Canada and other parliamentary democracies, stays in power because it has the confidence of the House and is subject to oversight by parliament. However, in the case of a caretaker administration, while parliament’s power to exercise oversight remains, the confidence convention does not. As Hondequin explains: “Withdrawing confidence from a government that has already resigned has no meaning or effect. You cannot kill a dead person!”

It has long been argued in Belgium that a caretaker government does not have sufficient legitimacy to introduce bills, to take position on private members’ bills, to propose amendments to these bills, or even to enact or promulgate  bills that would nevertheless have been adopted by parliament.  It was inferred that one of the branches of the legislature was unable to act and that the legislative process therefore should stop altogether.

It is true that until recently, there was no real in-depth legal reflection about this issue.  However, as the negotiations on the formation of a new government lasted longer and longer, the reflection deepened, first in academic circles, then with some reluctance, in the political world.

The newly elected members of parliament, if they had followed long-established tradition, would have been forced to face a long period of inactivity. However, as the political crisis dragged on, and this in a climate of economic crisis requiring problems to be addressed, they gave the matter serious consideration.  Both in the House of Representatives and the Senate, they consulted their legal services.

These services, basing their opinion on old and recent legal doctrine, pointed out that the figure of a caretaker government limits the scope of government action as executive power, when it cannot be politically sanctioned by parliament and that it therefore protects the prerogatives of parliament in the exercise of political oversight over the executive.

On the contrary, in the exercise of the legislative function, Parliament holds the key role.  It is parliament that votes the laws. Parliament always has the last word, whether the law emanates from a parliamentary or a government initiative.  In legislative matters, the fact that the government is a caretaker administration in no way affects the powers and means of action of the parliament, or the balance of the system of division of powers.

It is ultimately this view that prevailed.  Both during the caretaker regime of 2007 and the very long one in 2010, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a number of laws on the most diverse subjects, resulting from both governmental or parliamentary initiatives.

Hondequin goes on to say that the laws adopted during this period were “technical” – in other words, laws which did not involve fundamental choices or major political debate, and that they were usually adopted without much debate and with more or less the unanimous support of both houses. Also, whenever the caretaker government wanted to bring forward a bill, it took great pains to justify to parliament why the bill was necessary and to consult with parliament beforehand.

He adds that another change which occurred due to the prolonged period of caretaker government was the implementation of various forms of questioning the government via oral and written questions, debates and hearings. In the past, parliament did not question the caretaker government, but as the crisis went on and on, parliament felt it was necessary to change this practice.

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The Politics of Coalition: the video

In support of their book, The Politics of Coalition: How the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government Works, which was published in June 2012, Dr. Robert Hazell and Dr. Ben Yong of UCL’s Constitution Unit delivered a talk in October highlighting some of their main findings. That talk was recorded, and is now available for general viewing online.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in coalition government and minority parliaments to watch the video (and buy the book). Drs. Hazell and Yong were given wide access to everyone who mattered – including Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, as well as ministers, MPs, Lords, civil servants and others. While they focus primarily on the coalition’s first 15 months in office, the authors also look down the road, raising important lessons political parties in the UK would do well to consider since hung parliaments are likely to be increasingly regular occurrences.

From a Canadian perspective, despite the more recent difficulties the coalition parties have encountered, it’s still very refreshing to know that elsewhere in the world, political parties are both capable of and willing to work together and that the very idea of coalition government isn’t considered something evil or unconstitutional. Canadian political parties, both federal and provincial, would do well to take note.

Where to buy The Politics of Coalition: in the UK, from Amazon.co.uk, in Canada, from Amazon.ca, in the US, from Amazon.com.

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E-petitions with 10,000 signatures will now get a response

In a written ministerial statement, Leader of the House, the Rt. Hon. Andrew Lansley announced that any e-petition which received 10,000 or more signatures would receive a response from the Government:

Once an e-petition has passed 10 000 signatures, departments will provide a  response  that will appear on the website and  be e-mailed to all signatories who opted-in to receive updates on that petition.  Responses will include a statement of the Government’s policy on the issue, and details of any relevant Parliamentary processes that are ongoing.

All e-petitions currently open for signature on the site, which  have more than 10 000 signatures, will receive a response from departments; we expect most of these to be published before the House returns from the Conference recess. Responses to e-petitions that subsequently pass the 10 000 signature threshold will  be published on a rolling basis on the relevant page of http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk

Until now, there has been no formal obligation on government departments to respond directly to e-petitions (or paper petitions for that matter). Petitions which garnered 100,000 or more signatures were referred to the Backbench Business Committee for consideration for debate, but they represented a fraction of the e-petitions on the site.

In the House of Commons, during questions on House Business, the chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Natascha Engel, asked Mr. Lansley if he would work with the Committee to ensure that eventually, every single petition receives some sort of feedback. Lansley replied:

I intend to work with the hon. Lady and Members across the House, including my colleagues in the Government, to ensure that those who give their time and energy to bringing issues before the House feel that they are responded to properly and timeously.

To summarize then, any petition (digital or otherwise) which receives 100,000 signatures or more will be automatically referred to the Backbench Business Committee and eligible for consideration for debate, either in the House of Commons or in Westminster Hall. This does not mean that said petition is guaranteed a debate. The Committee itself cannot schedule such a debate unless the petition is brought forward by an MP as a topic for a Backbench Business debate. Even if this happens, the proposal must meet the criteria for debate, and there is still no guarantee that such a debate will occur. Similarly, an MP can propose having a debate on any petition – regardless of the number of signatures the petition may have received, if he or she believes the subject of the petition is an issue which merits a debate.

As well, any petition which receives 10,000 or more signatures is now guaranteed to receive a response from the relevant government department.

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E-petitions prove to be popular in their first year

A year after the launch of its e-petition site, the UK Government has released some interesting data which gives some idea of the popularity of e-petitions.

Over the past twelve months, 36,000 petitions have been launched, attracting 6.4 million signatures. This of course doesn’t meant that 6.4 million different people have signed them – some people have probably signed multiple petitions. According to the Government, that averages out to 12 people signing a petition every minute. The e-petitions website averages 46,500 visits a day, for a total of over 17 million visits over the course of its first year.

While those numbers are impressive, they are also a bit misleading. It seems that the popularity (or at least, the novelty) of e-petitions is wearing off. The site was at its most popular immediately after it launched, with the highest number of people visiting the site occurring last August. Indeed, a petition on the London riots reached the fabled 100,000 signature threshold within days. Since then, visitation to the site has varied, and visits reached a low in May of this year. Ten petitions surpassed the 100,000 signature mark, and six of these managed that in the site’s first 100 days.

Earlier this year, the Hansard Society released a briefing paper, What’s Next for E-Petitions, which identified four key problems with the Government’s e-petitions:

  1. Ownership and responsibility: The system is controlled by government but the onus to respond is largely placed on the House of Commons.
  2. There is no agreement about the purpose of e-petitions: Are they ‘an easy way to influence government policy’, a ‘fire alarm’ about issues of national concern, a ‘finger in the wind’ to determine the depth of public feeling on a range of issues? Or should they be used to empower the public through greater engagement in the political and parliamentary process, providing for deliberation on the issues of concern?
  3. Public and media expectations of the system are consequently confused: People expect an automatic debate once the signature threshold is passed and react negatively when this does not happen.
  4. There is minimal public engagement with Parliament or government: Beyond the possibility of a debate for those e-petitions that pass the 100,000 signature threshold, little or nothing currently happens with them. And if an e-petition does not achieve the signature threshold but still attracts considerable support (e.g. 99,999 signatures) there is no guarantee of any kind of response at all.

I agree with most of the concerns the Hansard Society has identified. One of the main problems with the e-petitions system as it currently exists is that these are petitions to Government, whereas traditionally, one petitions Parliament. Because they are petitions to a Government department, there is no easy way to link them to an MP, who would normally be the person to bring the matter before Parliament. Yet, as the Hansard Society points out, the onus is on the House of Commons to respond to the petitions.

Points two and three are also spot on. I have in fact previously blogged many times about the degree of confusion which exists over how the e-petitions scheme works and the expectations that a debate is guaranteed to happen if a petition surpasses the 100,000 signature threshold. This is in large part due to very sloppy reporting in the media when the scheme was launched, and unfortunately, has not improved.

I quibble a bit with regards to point 4. First of all, just as attaining 100,000 signatures will not necessarily guarantee that an e-petition will be debated, it is entirely possible for a petition which has received fewer than 100,000 signatures to be debated if an MP presents such a request to the Backbench Business Committee. The BBBCom has made this very clear on their website. As for the issue of responses, it is true that there is no guarantee of a response, but some petitions do indeed receive responses, even though they have fallen short of the mystical 100,000 signature mark. The main problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any coherent or consistent policy across government departments which would oblige them to respond to all petitions – regardless of the number of signatures received.

I do fully agree with the key recommendations put forward by the Hansard Society, however:

  • Ownership of and responsibility for the e-petitions system should rest with the House of Commons and not the executive.
  • The House of Commons should create a Petitions Committee, supported by staff in a Petitions Office, to engage with petitioners, moderate the process and provide a single route for consideration of both paper and online petitions.
  • Members of the Petitions Committee should be elected and have the power to refer petitions to a relevant Select Committee, to commission their own inquiries into specific petitions, to question ministers on the issues and to invite petitioners and others to give evidence at public hearings.

I believe that adopting those recommendations would improve the process significantly.

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A closer look at federal revenues and expenditures by province

Given the keyword search activity on this blog, it is clear that many people are trying to determine how much a given province pays into the federal equalization program and if certain provinces pay more in federal tax than they receive in equalization.

As I explained in my earlier post exploring certain myths and misconceptions about the equalization program, it is close to impossible to determine what percentage of equalization was funded by tax and other revenue from a given province. The reasons for that are primarily twofold.

First of all, as I explained in that other post, the most important thing to remember is that equalization is not funded by the provinces. It is a federal program, paid for out of the Government of Canada’s general revenues. The Government of Canada collects revenues from many sources including, but not limited to: personal income tax, corporate income tax, non-resident income tax, other taxes and duties (e.g. GST), and contributions to social insurance plans, investment income, to name but some.

Second, it is important to understand that the Government of Canada collects these taxes and other sources of revenue in the provinces, not from the provinces. This is a very subtle, but crucial difference. To the Government of Canada, it doesn’t matter where someone lives in Canada – we all pay the same rate of GST, the rate of personal federal income tax we pay depends on our taxable income, not on what province we live in, etc. Someone earning $46,000 a year will pay the same rate of federal income tax whether they live in PEI or Alberta. Someone who buys a new TV costing $899 will pay the same amount of GST whether they live in Winnipeg or St. John’s. The point here is that it isn’t the provinces sending this money to Ottawa, but individuals and businesses.

It is possible to know roughly how much money Ottawa collects from these various sources of revenue by province thanks to the Provincial Economic Accounts (PEA) data produced by Statistics Canada. PEA data are considered to be a comprehensive summary of all federal revenues (taxes and social insurance contributions) and expenditures (direct spending, transfer payments and interest payments on the federal debt) in each province. The one problem with the PEA data reports is that they are produced irregularly, therefore the data is never current. The most recent data available is for 2009. However, what this data does reveal is that the Government of Canada collects more revenues in each equalization-receiving province than that province receives in the form of equalization. Therefore, if one is going to insist that it is the provinces that pay for equalization, then each equalization-receiving province is simply getting some of its own money collected by the federal government refunded to them in the form of equalization.

The sources of revenue used in the PEA data include: direct personal income taxes, corporate and government business taxes, taxes from non-residents, contributions to social insurance plans, taxes on production and imports, other transfers from persons, investment income, and transfers from provincial governments.

Here is the breakdown showing how much total revenue the federal government collected in each province in 2009, as well as the amount of equalization received in fiscal 2008-09 by those provinces which qualified for equalization.

Federal Government Revenues Collected and Equalization Received
by Province 2009 – in $millions

Province

Federal Revenues Collected
$mn

 Total Equalization 2008-09
$mn
NL 3,811 0
PEI 739 322
NS 5,034 1,495
NB  3,693 1,584
QC  39,677 8,028
ON  85,239 0
MB  6,453 2,063
SK  7,074 0
AB  35,990 0
BC  27,221 0

As much as many like to complain about the amount of money Quebec (in particular) receives in the form of equalization payments, what we see here is that in 2009, the federal government collected close to $40-billion in revenues in the province of Quebec, and Quebec received $8-billion in equalization. In other words, Quebecers paid $31.6 billion more to the federal government than they received in the form of equalization.

Of course, as many will be quick to point out, equalization is only a small part of the overall transfers from Ottawa to the provinces. If one looks at all federal government expenditures in each province compared to revenue collected, we get much different results. The expenditures included here are: net expenditure on goods and services, transfers to persons (e.g. tax credits, employment insurance, etc.), transfers to business (tax credits, etc.), transfers to provincial governments (which would include equalization, as well as the other federal transfers all the provinces receive), transfers to local governments, interest on public debt.

Federal Government Revenues and Expenditures by Province 2009

Province Federal Revenues Collected $mn Federal Expenditures $mn Difference $mn
NL 3,811 6,393 -2,582
PEI 739 1,942 -1,203
NS 5,034 12,200 -7,166
NB 3,693 8,662 -4,969
QC 39,677 53,318 -13,641
ON 85239 86,300 -1,061
MB 6,453 12,911 -6,458
SK 7,074 8,374 -1,300
AB 35,990 19,997 15,993
BC 27,221 27,232 -11

This table clearly shows that, in 2009 at least, Alberta was the only province in which the revenues collected by the federal government were greater than its expenditures. In all the other provinces, including the other non equalization-receiving provinces (which in 2009 were Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Saskatchewan and BC), the federal government spent more than it collected in revenues in those provinces. What is important to understand when we talk about expenditures is that we are including everything from equalization to the money Ottawa spends on National Defence in the provinces which have military bases, to infrastructure projects, to funding for festivals and other events. These expenditures are not simply handouts and tax credits. Another important point to remember when you look at the above figures – you also need to consider what this represents for each province on a per capita basis. People tend to focus on the overall amount a province receives, but many of these transfers from Ottawa to the provinces are determined on a per capita basis. Equalization is a good example of this – while Quebec gets the most equalization overall, if you look at how that breaks down on a per capita basis, PEI actually ends up with more money from equalization than does Quebec.

The big plus for Alberta, of course, is its oil industry.  The federal government does not explicitly report on non-renewable revenues, partly because it does not receive direct revenues from natural resources but only through general tax revenues, therefore, it is more difficult to identify the percentage of its revenues which are directly attributable to the oil industry. However, it is safe to say that without the oil patch, Alberta would probably be in the same position as all of the other provinces – receiving more money from Ottawa than Ottawa collects in the province.

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