Posts in Category ‘Politics’

BC 2013 Political Party Platform Comparisons

Many people are now looking for a site comparing the platforms of the political parties contesting the upcoming British Columbia election to be held on 14 May 2013.

This blog cannot engage in a discussion of the policies of political parties, either at the provincial or federal level. However, as it has done in the past, in the case of both federal and other provincial and territorial elections, it can refer you to other sites that can do that. The list will be updated as needed.

BC political party platform comparisons:

Other useful election-related links:

Elections BC

Related Posts:

On by-elections

A very interesting difference exists between Canada and the United Kingdom when it comes to the matter of calling by-elections.

A by-election occurs when a seat in the House becomes vacant furing the course of a parliament because the MP has resigned, passed away, or the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office. When this happens, an election is called in that constituency only, to fill the seat. It is possible to hold more than one by-elections on the same day if there are several vacancies to fill.

By-election procedure to fill a vacancy in the Canadian House of Commons

Under the Parliament of Canada Act, when a seat in the House is vacant, the Speaker of the House of Commons informs the Chief Electoral Officer by means of a Speaker’s warrant. If the Speaker is absent, or if it is the Speaker’s seat that is vacant, two members of the House of Commons may address the warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer.

After receiving the warrant, section 57 of the Canada Elections Act authorizes the Governor in Council to fix the date on which the Chief Electoral Officer is to issue the writ. The date of issuance must fall between the 11th and 180th days after the Chief Electoral Officer receives the warrant from the Speaker (or the two members of the House). The Governor in Council also fixes the date for election day, which cannot be earlier than 36 days after the Chief Electoral Officer issues the writ. (source: Elections Canada)

The “Governor in Council” referred to above is the Governor General, acting on the advice of the federal cabinet. In other words, it is actually the Cabinet (and in reality, the Prime Minister) which decides the date for the issuance of the writ. The earliest date possible for a by-election is 11 days after the Chief Electoral Officer receives the warrant from the Speaker. The latest date possible is 180 days – in other words, six months – after the warrant is received. The actual number of days the seat might remain vacant can exceed that, however, since the official countdown begins only after the Chief Electoral Officer receives the Speaker’s warrant announcing the vacancy, and not when the seat is actually vacated by the MP. As well, the date for the by-election cannot be earlier than 36 days after the CEO issues the writ. The Parliament of Canada Act (section 28) states that when a vacancy occurs:

“the Speaker of the House shall, without delay, (…) address a warrant of the Speaker to the Chief Electoral Officer for the issue of a writ for the election of a member to fill the vacancy.”

And going by the chart below, the Speaker’s warrants are issued very soon after the seat becomes vacant. The delay can occur at the next stage in the process – waiting for the Governor in Council – the Prime Minister – to choose an actual date for the by-election to be held. Sometimes, the PM won’t delay to announce the date. In other cases, they may put off the decision as long as they possibly can.

By-election procedure to fill a vacancy in the UK House of Commons

Traditionally the Chief Whip of the political party whose MP held the vacant seat will begin the procedure for a by-election. This is known as ‘moving the Writ’ and takes the form of a motion in the House of Commons. This isn’t always how things proceed, however. For example, in the case of the 2010 by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth, a seat which Labour had won in the 2010 election, it was the Liberal Democrats who moved the writ. The Labour candidate had been stripped of his seat by the courts which declared his victory void because he had knowingly made false statements attacking his Liberal Democrat opponent’s personal character during the 2010 general election.

A new Writ is moved within three months of the vacancy occurring. There have been a few instances of seats remaining vacant longer than six months before a by-election was called. Seats have also been left vacant towards the end of a Parliament to be filled at the general election. If there are several vacant seats then a number of by-elections can take place on the same day. (source: UK Parliament website)

Because the timing of a by-election is decided by the party which held the seat when the vacancy occurs, by-elections in the UK tend to occur quite quickly since the party is anxious to see if it can hold the seat.

The following charts look at by-elections called in the current parliaments in both Canada and the UK.

By-elections Canada, current parliament (since May 2011)

 

Constituency Date of Vacancy Date of Notice of Vacancy Date of Writ of By-election Date of By-election # of days seat vacant
Labrador 14 Mar 2013 19 Mar 2013 7 Apr 2013 13 May 2013 60
Victoria 31 Aug 2012 6 Sep 2012 21 Oct 2012 26 Nov 2012 87
Durham 31 Jul 2012 1 Aug 2012 21 Oct 2012 26 Nov 2012 118
Calgary-Centre 30 May 2012 12 Jun 2012 21 Oct 2012 26 Nov 2012 180
Toronto-Danforth 22 Aug 2011 30 Aug 2011 6 Feb 2012 19 Mar 2012 210
Average # of days seat vacant 131

UK By-elections, current parliament (since May 2010)

 

Constituency Date of Vacancy Date of Writ Date of By-election # of days seat vacant
South Shields 12 Apr 2013 15 Apr 2013 2 May 2013 20
Mid-Ulster 2 Jan 2013 11 Feb 2013 7 Mar 2013 64
Eastleigh 5 Feb 2013 7 Feb 2013 28 Feb 2013 23
Croydon-North 29 Sep 2012 8 Nov 2012 29 Nov 2012 61
Middlesborough 13 Oct 2012 8 Nov 2012 29 Nov 2012 47
Rotherham 5 Nov 2012 8 Nov 2012 29 Nov 2012 24
Cardiff South and Penarth 22 Oct 2012 23 Oct 2012 15 Nov 2012 24
Corby 29 Aug 2012 23 Oct 2012 15 Nov 2012 78
Manchester Central 22 Oct 2012 23 Oct 2012 15 Nov 2012 23
Bradford West 2 Mar 2012 6 Mar 2012 29 Mar 2012 27
Feltham and Heston 10 Nov 2011 25 Nov 2011 15 Dec 2011 35
Inverclyde 9 May 2011 8 Jun 2011 30 Jun 2011 52
Belfast West 26 Jan 2011 17 May 2011 9 Jun 2011 134
Leicester South 1 Apr 2011 6 Apr 2011 5 May 2011 34
Barnsley Central 8 Feb 2011 9 Feb 2011 3 Mar 2011 23
Oldham East and Saddleworth 5 Nov 2010 16 Dec 2011 13 Jan 2011 69
Average # of days seat vacant 46

If you’d like to see how the moving of a Writ plays out, you can watch the procedure for the by-election in Eastleigh from 7 February 2013. It doesn’t take very long – about a minute (it ends at the 9:35 mark).

Related Posts:

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.

Related Posts:

The preferential ballot favours the party with the most first preference votes

I have written several posts looking at the growing popularity of the preferential ballot/the alternative vote (AV) here in Canada – see this recent one, for example. I even attempted a redo of the 2011 Canadian federal election using the preferential ballot rather than our current FPTP. As I explained in that post, and in others, the big problem in attempting to forecast how the election would have played out using AV was the absence of data concerning voters’ preferences. Some polling firms would (and still do) regularly ask people which party was their second choice, but no one ever looked at voters’ potential 3rd, 4th, etc. choices.

However, a new poll by Abacus Data has done just that. According to Eric Grenier, in this article in the Globe and Mail, the poll asked respondents to rank seven parties from 1 to 7 (in other words, it used full preferential rather than optional preferential). I cannot find this data on the Abacus website. Mr. Grenier examined the numbers and posits that using a preferential ballot “would limit the ability of the Conservatives to win elections”:

With a preferential ballot, however, the Conservatives would come out further ahead. They would lead in 147 ridings on the first ballot (after distributing the marginal support for the smaller parties), compared to only 108 for the New Democrats, 76 for the Liberals, four for the Bloc Québécois, and three for the Greens (primarily due to an anomalous result in the poll in Atlantic Canada).

The Conservatives would have majority support in 60 ridings and win those automatically, while the NDP would win 23 seats on the first ballot and the Liberals 11. But that Tory advantage would disappear once the instant run-off was conducted.

The Conservatives would lose their first ballot lead in 30 ridings, and be reduced to only 117. The New Democrats would move ahead in 18 more seats and take 126, while the Liberals would win 17 more ridings and increase their total to 93. The Greens would hold on to two of the three seats in which they led, while the Bloc Québécois would lose all four.

I am not entirely certain how he comes to that conclusion. The last paragraph quoted above is particularly confusing to me.

Despite Mr. Grenier’s assertions at the outset of the article that the preferential ballot “is used in many jurisdictions around the world”, the only really comparable example available to us is Australia. Full preferential (where voters have to rank every single candidate on their ballot for the vote to count) is used at the federal level to elect the House of Representatives, and in some states, while a couple of states use optional preferential, where voters can choose to rank as many or as few candidates as they want. Indeed, many opt to rank only one candidate and optional preferential becomes a de facto FPTP ballot. This is what happened when AV was used in some provinces here in Canada in the past.

What Mr. Grenier seems to overlook is that the preferential ballot, in particular optional preferential, always favours the party which receives the most first preference votes – at least going by Australia’s long history with this form of voting. Grenier rightly notes that the Conservatives “would have majority support in 60 ridings and win those automatically”. However, things are a bit more complicated after that. Going by Australia’s experience, Conservative candidates would not, as Grenier posits, “lose their first ballot lead in 30 ridings” based on second preferences. It all depends on how close those Conservative candidates are to the 50%+1 needed to win the seat under AV. The closer they are to that mark, the fewer votes transfers they require. Consequently, a Conservative candidate with 45% of the vote on the first ballot count, would most likely still win the seat because they need far fewer votes to boost them over the 50% mark. Even if they were further from the 50% target, say at 40%, but the 2nd place candidate was well behind, say at 30%, the Conservative would still most likely win. Only in instances where two candidates were quite literally neck and neck on the first ballot count would the outcome be up in the air.

Readers interested in preferential voting should regularly read Antony Green’s Election Blog. Green is an Australian elections expert who blogs about both federal and state elections in that country, which, I reiterate, is really the only jurisdction at all comparable to Canada which uses the preferential ballot. As Green explains in this post:

At the 2010 Federal election, 64 of the 150 seats were won by a candidate with a majority on first preferences, and a further 75 won by the highest polling candidate at the start of the count after the further distribution of preferences. Optional preferential voting would have had little impact on these 139 contests.

However, in the 11 contests where the candidate leading on first preferences did not win, optional preferential voting could have changed the result.

(…)

The lesson here is that optional preferential voting always advantages the party with the highest first preference vote.

In other words, in the 2010 federal election in Australia, a majority of seats (139 out of 150) were won by the candidate who was ahead after the first count. Sixty-four were won by a majority on the first ballot, and 75 were won on subsequent ballots – by the candidate who’d been in first place on the first count. That is using full preferential. Only in 11 instances did the candidate who’d been leading on the first ballot fail to actually win the seat. Had optional preferential been used instead, in only 3 cases would the candidate in the lead after the first ballot have failed to win.

It is good that a polling firm here in Canada has finally started to explore voters’ preferences beyond their 1st and 2nd choices, but I don’t think Mr. Grenier fully understands how AV tends to play out – at least based on what happens in Australia.

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Canada’s Royal Succession Bill

In 2011, at a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government held in Perth, Australia, the 16 countries which have Queen Elizabeth as their head of state agreed to modernize the rules of royal succession. The proposed changes would put an end to three current practices:

  • male children inheriting the throne ahead of their older, female siblings.
  • a ban on a monarch or direct heir to the throne marrying a Roman Catholic.
  • the requirement for all descendants of George II to obtain the monarch’s permission to marry or else have their marriage declared void.

The Canadian government recently introduced Bill C-53, An Act to assent to alterations in the law touching the Succession to the Throne. A motion was moved, and agreed to unanimously, to give the bill second and third reading the same day, and it is now before the Senate.

For many, however, the Canadian bill is problematic and potentially even unconstitutional. Essentially, it merely assents to the Bill currently before the UK Parliament. You can track the progress of the UK bill as well as read it in its current form here. By merely assenting to the UK bill, Canada is merely agreeing with whatever changes are ultimately adopted by the UK Parliament.

Many constitutional experts are arguing that this approach is not sufficient, and that Canada would actually be required to amend its Constitution in order to adopt these changes. The constitutional amendment would also require the support of all of the provinces.

I am by no means a constitutional expert, and so I will  link to articles written by people far better qualified to explain this complex issue.

1. For an excellent overall background piece, please read Janyce McGregor’s Canada’s royal baby bill risks constitutional complications. McGregor explains how this issue came about, and provides an overview of the main constitutional arguments in a very accessible way.

2. For a more detailed discussion of the constitutional questions raised by Bill C-53, please read Prof. Philippe Lagassé’s The Queen of Canada is dead; long live the British Queen:

If the United Kingdom cannot legislate the rules of succession for the Canadian Crown, it follows that Canada must have the power to determine the rules of succession for its Sovereign and head of state. At present, the Canadian rules of succession are those that were inherited from the United Kingdom. And an argument might be made that they must mirror those of Great Britain absent a constitutional amendment, owing to the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867. But mirroring the British rules does not mean Canada can simply assent to British bills to bring its succession into line with the United Kingdom’s. If Canada is a sovereign state and has an independent Crown, the Canadian legislatures—Parliament and the provincial legislatures—must pass substantive legislation to ensure that Canada’s rules of succession reflect those of Great Britain, not merely assent to a British law. Here again, the Governor General’s granting of Crown consent to the Canadian bill indicates the government is at least partially aware the British and Canadian Crowns cannot be affected by the same British law.

3. Australian constitutional expert Anne Twomey is also baffled by the Canadian government’s approach, as she explains in The royal succession and the de-patriation of the Canadian Constitution:

Hence, all that the Canadian Bill appears to do is to agree to a change in the law of succession in relation to the British Crown that does not in any way affect, or purport to affect, the succession to the Crown of Canada. The consequence would be that if the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was a girl and a later child was a boy, the girl would become Queen of the United Kingdom and the boy would become King of Canada (assuming that neither jurisdiction had become a republic by that time).

(…)

Likewise, s 2 of the Canada Act 1982 provides:

No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the Constitution Act, 1982 comes into force shall extend to Canada as part of its law.

It would therefore seem to be abundantly clear that a Canadian law that simply ‘assents’ to a British law that changes succession to the British throne, does not and cannot affect succession to the throne of Canada.

Similarly, the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust argues:

Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed in Canada as the Sovereign and “Supreme Liege Lady in and over Canada to whom we acknowledge all faith and constant obedience” before she was proclaimed Sovereign in the United Kingdom. Of course Elizabeth II had become the Queen of both countries the instant that her father had died, by virtue of the laws of Succession. Her sovereignty was announced to her peoples, not granted, by the respective Accession Proclamations, but Canadians were able to recognize who their Sovereign was without reference to any proclamation of recognition in the United Kingdom because the laws of Succession in the two countries produced the same Sovereign. If there were no laws of Succession in Canada the Canadian Accession Proclamation in 1952 could not have been issued first. For the record, it was the already proclaimed Queen of Canada who was then proclaimed as Queen of the United Kingdom.

Of course, not everyone agrees with these arguments. For example, Prof. Mark Walters of Queen’s University dismisses these concerns:

The question has produced controversy — but it shouldn’t.  The short answer is simple: under the law of the Constitution of Canada, the king or queen of Canada is whoever happens to be the king or queen of the United Kingdom. Although the government of Canada introduced a bill into the Canadian Parliament this month that, when enacted, will express “assent” to the changes to the rules of royal succession to be made by the British Parliament, this assent will be given as a matter of constitutional practice or convention only; it is not required by, and it will have no effect within, Canadian constitutional law. Again, the rule of Canadian constitutional law is simply that the Crown in Canada is worn by whoever wears the Crown in the United Kingdom. While British rules on who wears the Crown in Britain are complex and open to change from time to time, the Canadian rule on who wears the Crown in Canada is simple and, for the time being, fixed.

Further Reading:

Related Posts:

The real problem is MP irrelevancy

Recently, Canada’s federal Official Opposition proposed measures for improving decorum in the House of Commons. These measures would require changes to the Standing Orders in order to increase the Speaker’s authority to discipline unruly MPs:

who use harassment, threats, personal attacks, or extreme misrepresentation of facts or position in the House, particularly regarding Statements by Members and Oral Questions, including:

i.  Revoking questions during Oral Questions from parties whose Members have been disruptive
ii. Issuing a warning to Members for a first offense
iii. Suspending Members from the service of the House for one sitting day for a second offense; five days for a third offense; and twenty days for a fourth offense
iv. Suspending Members’ sessional allowance for the duration of their suspension from the service of the House

Reaction has been varied. Sun Media’s David Akin pointed out that new rules aren’t required – if MPs want to stop this sort of behaviour, they can simply stop it. He also suggests that if the rules governing broadcasting of House proceedings were relaxed to allow reaction shots, that too might lead MPs to think twice about behaving boorishly:

The rules require that whenever the Speaker stands, the cameras may only show him. When he is not standing, the cameras may only show the MP who is speaking.

If TV networks – Sun News Network, CPAC, CTV, CBC, etc. – were able to control the cameras, we would certainly zoom in on sleeping MPs, on MPs giving others the finger, and so on.

Knowing that their hijinks would be beamed into the nation’s living rooms would surely be the best corrective.

I am not convinced that reaction shots would change much. The cameras in UK House of Commons do not stay focused on the Member who has the floor, and this does not stop other MPs from gesturing, making faces at, or heckling their counterparts on the opposite side. Akin is closer to the mark when he ends his column with:

But more unworkable and impossible-to-enforce rules?

Newsflash: They won’t work.

The problem isn’t really not enough rules, but that over the years (decades) the rules have been changed in ways that increasingly weaken the opposition and empower the government side – essentially rendering backbenchers – and the legislature – largely irrelevant. And I refer not only to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, but also Canada’s Elections Act, as Aaron Wherry of Macleans explains in this post. The real problem in the Canadian House of Commons is that backbenchers are not free to ask questions of interest to them, they are given scripted questions by their party Whips. Ditto for most of the highly partisan Members’ Statements – I am certain most MPs would prefer to use their Member’s Statement as intended – to speak of something of interest to them and their constituents. Instead, they are given prepared, highly partisan statements by their party leadership.

What would be needed, more than new penalties the Speaker could impose on disruptive Members, would be rule changes to strengthen the Opposition, and to ease the control party leaders have over their MPs. A lot, maybe most, of the heckling and boorishness occurs because MPs other than those on the front bench are frustrated.

While the clip from the UK’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the above link might not show it, overall, the UK House of Commons is far more respectful and decorous than its Canadian counterpart. And the  main reason for that, I believe, is because backbenchers in the UK have far more freedom than do their Canadian counterparts. Part of that is due to sheer numbers – there are 650 MPs in the UK House of Commons – the Conservative party alone has almost as many MPs as does the entire Canadian House of Commons – and so it is simply impossible for the whips to exert the same level of control over backbenchers that Canadian party whips do. As well, MPs have more control over their party leader. For example, in the UK Conservative Party, a vote of confidence in the party leader can be triggered by 15% of the party’s MPs. This means that if 46 sitting Conservative MPs write letters indicating they are unhappy with Prime Minister David Cameron as their party leader, a confidence vote is held. If Cameron were to lose that vote, he would have to resign as party leader. He would not be permitted to run again for the post of party leader either. The Liberal Democrats require that a majority of sitting MPs pass a motion of no confidence in the leader to trigger a leadership contest, but the defeated leader is allowed to stand again. Labour has no such non-confidence provisions.

The UK House of Commons has also embarked on a series of reforms in recent years which have served to strengthen the House vis à vis the executive. I have blogged extensively about many of these (see, for example, my “Fixing Ottawa” series, first post here). Governing parties in the UK do not expect that bills that they put forward will go through un-amended – or that they will even pass, which is not the case here in Canada. Because the opposition parties in the UK know that they will most likely be able to amend any government bill, there is less need to resort to tactics to try to stymie Government business in the House.

I know some will argue that if a party “wins” an election, then it has a mandate to govern and to get its legislation through the House. This argument would have more weight if our electoral system actually reflected how people voted. I don’t know how anyone can argue that a party elected to majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote (and often dismal voter turnout) has a real “mandate” to push through any piece of legislation virtually unopposed. And no piece of legislation is ever perfect – amendments should be welcomed, not defeated at every turn.

The problems in the Canadian House of Commons are mostly due to the excessive control parties have over their Members, and to years of changes to the Standing Orders which have only served to strengthen the Executive at the expense of the legislature. Fining an MP for being disruptive during Question Period won’t change anything. The problems go much deeper than that.

Related Posts:

Electoral reform – not hot with Canadians but still worth pursuing

Canada’s federal Liberal Party is currently in the midst of a leadership race. During a debate held on 19 January 2012, the issue of electoral reform was raised a few times. The party has adopted an official position endorsing preferential voting (or the Alternative Vote), and most of the candidates stated that they backed that option.

On Twitter, respected Canadian pollster Nik Nanos tweeted:

#LPCldr electoral reform – not likely hot with Canadians – Cdns want to hear about jobs and healthcare.

This comment reinforced two points for me.

The first is my strong opposition to trying to implement electoral reform via a referendum. Mr. Nanos is entirely correct – the majority of Canadians don’t care about electoral reform. Even among political geeks, electoral reform tends to be a bit of a fringe issue. This is one (certainly not the only) reason why a referendum on electoral reform is such a bad idea if you seriously want said reform to pass. Most people will not follow the debate, and so won’t really know what they’re being asked to vote on. And even those who will be more aware will be asked to choose between a system they know well, even if they’re not entirely happy with it, and one they’ve most likely never experienced. I like to use this analogy:

Electoral Reformer: What’s your favourite soft drink?
Average voter: 7-Up.
Electoral Reformer: 7-Up, yes, that’s pretty good, but you know what? I’ve got this drink that is way better than 7-Up. Do you want to have that instead?
Average Voter: Can I try it first before deciding?
Electoral Reformer: No, you just have to trust me. It’s way better than 7-Up. And if you vote for this new one, we’ll get rid of 7-Up forever. Trust me – it’s better.

How do you expect someone to vote when asked to choose between something they know and something totally new and foreign to them? Of course most people will stick with what they know. Three provinces in Canada have held referendums on electoral reform (one province has held two) and the reform was defeated each time. The Canadian media seems to be largely opposed to electoral reform, and the press was dominated by columns and opinion pieces warning of the chaos that would ensue if we dropped FPTP.

The second thing is, while electoral reform is not a priority issue for most Canadians, that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be pursued. Just because something doesn’t crack the average voter’s Top 10 List of Important Things doesn’t mean it’s not important or necessary. Improving our democracy shouldn’t be contingent on whether or not it’s a popular issue. It should be pursued because it is necessary and the right thing to do.

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Preferential voting isn’t the solution some think it might be

There have been a growing number of columns and articles in various Canadian media over the past few months bemoaning the state of our parliamentary democracy and proposing various changes which might improve the situation. More often than not, electoral reform is mentioned – either in the column itself, or by a reader commenting on the piece.

There does seem to be a growing recognition or acceptance that the First-Past-the-Post voting system doesn’t quite work the way people would like. I won’t say it doesn’t work the way it should because it works exactly as it should. It simply isn’t the ideal system for multi-party democracies.

Inevitably, in these discussions, someone proposes some form of proportional representation, usually Mixed-Member-Proportional, where most MPs would be elected the usual way, but then each party’s numbers would be topped up with list MPs to more closely reflect the party’s actual percentage of the vote. And also inevitably, many other people chime in denouncing any form of PR because it leads to coalition government which is of course completely unstable – just look at (insert name of favourite basketcase country here).

The voting system change that seems to garner (or be garnering) the most support is the very one the UK rejected in the 2011 referendum – the Alternative Vote (AV), or preferential voting. As I’ve explained in the very, very many posts I wrote during the lead-up to that referendum, under AV, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. To be elected, a candidate has to get over 50% of the votes cast. If no candidate tops 50% after the first count, then the candidate with the lowest vote total is dropped from the ballot and the votes for that candidate are redistributed based on the second preferences indicated by voters. This process continues until someone ends up with over 50%. See this post I wrote back in 2011 to explain to British readers how the vote would work.

AV isn’t used in a lot of places. Australia is the best example available of a western democracy which uses it. At the federal level, they use “full prefential voting” to elect the House of Representatives (a completely different system is used to elect Senators – see this handy guide to voting systems used in Australia). That simply means that voters have to rank every single candidate on the ballot. I believe they can leave one candidate unranked, and that will be counted as their last choice, but if they leave more than one candidate unranked, the ballot is rejected. At the State level, some states also use full preferential to elect their Legislative Assemblies, while others use “optional preferential”. Under this variant, voters can rank as many or as few candidates as they want – this was the model proposed in the UK. Under optional preferential, voters can treat their ballot as a FPTP ballot if they so desire – voting for one candidate and one candidate only.

The Alternative Vote appeals to many because it is fairly simple (not quite as simple as FPTP, but certainly far less complex than other voting systems out there), and it would address the issue of MPs being elected with minority support. As I’ve also repeatedly blogged, the majority of MPs in Canada win their seat with less than 50% of the vote cast in their riding – sometimes a lot less. AV would put an end to that, in theory, at least.

It is really important to understand that this is the only advantage or benefit AV has over FPTP. In many ways, it can lead to even more distorted results than FPTP currently does, e.g. a single party winning even more seats than it might have under FPTP. It is not at all proportional, so it won’t put an end to majority governments formed by a party with much less than majority support, meaning many voters will continue to feel as if their votes don’t count.

Each form of AV also presents other problems. Full preferential, where a voter would have to rank every single candidate on the ballot paper, would force many – probably most voters -  into making what can only be described as artificial choices. Some voters simply don’t have a second choice – they vote for one party and one party only, and would have no desire to even attempt to rank any other candidates. Other voters might have an easier time ranking the two or three major parties on the ballot, but here’s the big problem. Most ballot papers in Canada have several candidates listed, often as many as 10 or so. Apart from the candidates representing the three or four major parties in the country, there are also a large number of candidates representing fringe parties most people have never heard of, as well as candidates running as independents. Leaving aside the one-party-only people, for everyone else, it would be a very trying experience, if not even a complete joke, to try to rank the fringe and independent candidates. And never mind trying to rank candidates you’ve never heard of, what about having to rank candidates you dislike equally? Think about this for a minute, about how many candidates were actually listed on your ballot the last time you voted. Now imagine having to rank every single one of those individuals in order of preference in order for your ballot to count.

So go with optional preferential – problem solved. Indeed. But let’s remember that the only advantage AV has over FPTP is that it is supposed to ensure that the MP elected is elected with over 50% support in that riding. While most think that means “50% of the votes cast”, if you’re using optional preferential, what you end up with is someone elected with 50% of the votes still in play, which may be a very different number from the total number of votes cast. Under optional preferential, voters can choose to cast their vote for one candidate only, and indeed, many do just that. This is a phenomena known as “plumping”. Optional preferential has been used in Canada in the past, in three different provinces, and I have a post looking at what happened in those provinces during the time they used optional preferential. As you can see, the plumping rate was quite high – sometimes over 60%. That means only a minority of people were actually ranking more than one candidate. I am willing to guess that at best, most voters who do bother to rank will rank only two or three candidates. If the majority of ballots can’t be transferred after the first count, the one advantage AV has over FPTP pretty much disappears.

As well, optional preferential can end up costing parties seats because of voters treating their ballot as a FPTP ballot. See this post by Australian elections expert Antony Green on the recent election in Queensland. There is also evidence that optional preferential disadvantages smaller parties (and independents) – just as FPTP does. As Green points out in this post, wherein he re-does the 2010 Australian federal election using optional preferential rather than full preferential, “optional preferential voting always advantages the party with the highest first preference vote.”

It may interest some proponents of AV to know that the State of Queensland is currently conducting an inquiry into its electoral law, and an important focus of that is whether optional preferential should be retained (discussion paper PDF here). From page 37 of that discussion paper (emphasis added):

A key issue with OPV is that it has the potential to become a de facto ‘first past the post’ system. Preferences can be quickly exhausted where a large number of voters choose to vote ‘1’ only. This is particularly problematic where a large number of candidates are contesting a seat. In such a circumstance, it would be possible for a candidate to be elected with only a small proportion of the vote, which could leave the majority of the population unrepresented.

As part of its analysis of a survey of ballot papers from the 2009 state election, the ECQ found that approximately 63.03% of ballot papers were marked ‘1’ only. At the 2006 election, 62.15% of surveyed ballot papers fell into this category. Up until the 2001 election, the number of ballot papers marked ‘1’ only had been significantly lower (20.7% in the 1995 election).

Meanwhile, others in Australia are calling for a move towards proper proportional representation.

While I agree with most that AV/preferential voting might be the easiest electoral reform to implement here in Canada because it isn’t that different from FPTP, there are some very important issues associated with it that need to be carefully considered. It won’t be the panacea many seem to think it might be.

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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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Election Watch 2013

There will be some noteworthy elections coming up in 2013.

AUSTRALIA

Unlike most parliaments in the UK and Canada, which normally last 4 to 5 years, the Australian House of Representatives sits for a three-year term.The next election will be held on 14 September 2013. The 2010 election resulted in a hung parliament, with both Labor the the Coalition tied with 72 seats each. Labor ended up forming a minority government, with the support of Green and Independent MPs.

Recent polls (12 December 2012) have Labor trailing the Liberal-National Coalition in terms of overall popular support, 36% to 54%, and in terms of first preference votes among committed voters, the Coalition leads there as well, 46% to 32% for Labor. However, when asked who would make the better PM, Liberal Party leader Toby Abbott trails incumbent PM Julia Gillard 34% to 43%.

For all things pertaining to elections in Australia, both at the federal and state level, I strongly recommend following Antony Green’s blog. For a general overview, you might find this article interesting.

CANADA

There won’t be another federal election until October 2015, but there are a few provinces which may be heading to the polls this year (one definitely will be).

British Columbia

British Columbia will be electing a new parliament in May of this year. The incumbent Liberals are not doing well at the polls, and Premier Christy Clarke’s decision not to hold a fall sitting probably won’t help matters.

Ontario and Quebec

Ontario’s last election was in October 2011 while Quebec’s was in September 2012 but both resulted in hung parliaments. Ontario ended up with a minority Liberal government, but Premier Dalton McGuinty unexpectedly prorogued the Legislature in October and simultaneously announced his resignation as party leader. The Liberals chose a new leader on 26 January 2013. The House will return on 19 February 2013. While the new leader has stated she is determined to make the minority parliament work, one can never rule out an election.

Quebec ended up with a minority Parti québécois government. The government’s budget passed by one vote in late November. Polls show a close three-way race between the PQ, Liberals and Coaliation Avenir Quebec. Minority parliaments rarely last much more than a year, so the situation in Quebec bears watching.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia’s last election was in 2009. It is one of the few provinces which does not have fixed election dates, but since the government is coming into its fourth year in office, an election is likely in 2013. An election must occur by June 2014.

Nunavut

The last election in Nunavut occurred in October 2008, and so the current parliament is entering its 5th year. Nunavut does not have fixed election dates, so an election will be held some time this year, no later than October 2013.

UNITED KINGDOM

UK local elections

The 2013 United Kingdom local elections are due to take place on Thursday 2 May 2013. Elections will be held in 35 English councils, including all 27 non-metropolitan county councils, the 5 unitary authorities covering ceremonial counties, and 3 other unitary authorities, and to a single Welsh unitary authority. What will be interesting to watch for is how the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) performs. The party has surged in recent polls, often polling ahead of the Liberal Democrats, and recently finished 2nd in two by-elections for parliamentary seats. In the 2011 local elections, UKIP took control of Ramsey town council, and maintained its seven councillors across England, and one in Northern Ireland.

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