Democracy in Canada: a house in disrepair
Canadian public administration guru Donald Savoie’s self-described magnum opus Democracy in Canada is an absolute must read for any student of government, policy, or politics in Canada. After a federal election that put a magnifying glass on our national cleavages, the book’s overarching message – that Canada’s political institutions lack the capacity to effectively articulate regional perspectives – is one that should resonate now more than ever. The message is also one that should inspire all Canadians to reflect on the state of our democracy.
Though as Canadians we rightly herald ourselves as global leaders on the democratic front, it’s always beneficial to take time to reflect on the state of one’s own home and take stock of the areas on which we might improve ourselves. Ignoring small cracks, leaks, and chipped paint, overtime will lead to a crumbling foundation, dysfunctional plumbing, and an exterior that no longer shines in a welcoming fashion. Canada’s democracy cannot afford to be anything but pristine and Savoie brilliantly and extensively maps out all the places where Canada’s democratic home can use some light cleaning, small repairs, and outright renovations.
For Savoie, we are experiencing democratic deficit in nearly all of the institutions on which Canada was built – federalism, political parties, the House of Commons, the Senate, Cabinet, the media, the courts, and the public service. Canada’s domestic democratic deficit is amplified further by a changing global context. Savoie argues that today we are operating in a post-truth, post-democratic world, with a shrinking global economy, and a citizenry that has withdrawn from engaging in the traditional political process. Despite a shifting locus of political power at home and abroad, our formal institutions remain firmly in place.
To assess our democratic deficit, Savoie first takes us backwards, examining the origins of Canada’s democracy, noting that from the start our institutions have been inadequate. Canada’s democracy was not homegrown – it’s a “turn-key model” imported from Britain, and its in this model that we find the first crack in the foundation on which Canada’s democracy was built. Britain’s democratic systems and federal structure worked well in a geographically small country with little regional variation. According to Savoie, unlike Britain, in Canada our identity is forged in geography and “British-inspired political institutions have little capacity to deal with territorial divisions or people’s attachment to their territory or space.”
The inability of our political institutions to reflect geography is highlighted well by the outcomes of the 2019 federal election. The Liberals will head a minority government but won no seats in Saskatchewan or Alberta and only a small handful in British Columbia and Manitoba, leaving the Western provinces starved for representation within the governing party. Our electoral system rewards parties who invest their political capital in the vote-heavy provinces of Ontario (specifically the Greater Toronto Area) and Quebec, while having to pay little attention to Eastern or Western Canada. Savoie notes that in Ontario, as result of the electoral weight it yields, “regionalism is largely invisible, passing itself off as Canadian nationalism.”
Accentuating the challenges of regional imbalance and the Ontario-centric approach to nation building, in the last parliament regional ministers were done away with and the agencies responsible for regional economic development were all moved under the portfolio of one minister from Ontario. Economic policy leaned heavily on cookie cutter “national solutions” that were reflective of realities in Ontario and Quebec, but that had little flexibility to account for regional differentiation. Savoie uses the example of the $186 billion national infrastructure program that was launched in 2016. He questions whether with a declining and aging population, if the Maritime provinces needed federal investments in new infrastructure at all, and if not, why there was not flexibility in the program to account for differentiated needs like upgrading existing infrastructure. For Savoie, “All things Canadian are regional, except the working of our national political institutions.”
Canada’s federal structure and the regional cleavages that it exacerbates have been baked in from the start – a feature rather than a bug, if you will. Overtime, it becomes harder and harder to reverse the status quo – Savoie uses political theory, specifically path dependence and historical institutionalism to explain this rigidity in our democratic institutions. However, not all the deficits in Canada’s democracy are as set in stone – especially as many of these deficits have emerged in modern times, there exists more latitude and flexibility when it comes to adopting solutions.
For citizens looking to participate in democracy at the grassroots level, parties have always offered politically minded individuals a place to share their perspectives, put forward policy ideas, and participate in nomination contests. However, the parties of today according to Savoie are “empty vessels” that exist for no more than building the brand of their leader and getting votes – they are “non-actors” in civil society. Pollster David Herle sums it up: “Parties don’t run on what their members think and can’t if they want to be successful. They run on what will get them the most votes. It’s a strategic marketing exercise, rather than a genuine contest of ideas.” The 2019 federal election is perhaps a case in point – important conversations around foreign policy and economic development were left off the agenda by parties, in favour of vacuous pitches around “affordability,” because parties made the calculus that this focus could achieve them the most votes.
Savoie notes that today, parties are incredibly leader-centric both in how much influence leaders have on the direction of the party, and in how the party uses their marketing and political capital. For example, party leaders have what some deem to be undue influence over the slate of candidates that is run during an election, and some argue further that party war chests are unduly leveraged to the benefit of the party leader, at the expense of the party as a whole.
Canadians were made keenly aware of party leaders’ influence on the nomination of candidates in ridings like Orleans in Ottawa and University-Rosedale in Toronto. In each of these ridings, individuals were blocked from putting their name on the ballot, ostensibly in order to protect the party and party leader’s preferred candidates. In 2014 the barring of Christine Innes from running for the Liberal nomination led Zach Paikin to resign his own quest for nomination in protest, and in both 2014 and 2019 the nomination process in Orleans was met with protest when the party was accused of meddling in order to achieve their preferred outcome.
Parties also commit significant marketing and branding resources to their leaders in order to ensure they are always cast in a positive light, moving the focus from the party writ large, to the leader – what a number of commentators have lamented as reinforcing within parties, “a cult of personality.” For example, parties invest in the recruiting of surrogates who spotlight the party leaders’ successes in media. Savoie laments on surrogates that “facts and evidence-based arguments do not feature much in their work.” One has to ask, are Canadians well served by these talking heads with such contrived and narrow agendas – does their serving of party leaders serve democracy?
Parties are supposed to be an accessible conduit by which citizens can connect to politics and the political process. No more according to Savoie, as parties exist not to serve the best interests of their members, but instead the best interests of party leaders. Parties are no longer vehicles for advancing big thinking, but instead they are a marketing tool to be leveraged on behalf of leaders in the “permanent election campaign” process that is now the norm.
The House of Commons is another key institution of representative democracy that in Canada suffers democratic deficit. The Commons fulfills incredibly important functions like giving citizens from all communities a voice, choosing the executive, and holding the executive to account, in part by overseeing government spending. However, despite the importance of the Commons, according to Savoie, it’s faulty on several fronts – including effectively representing the views of constituents and holding the executive to account on spending and the Budgetary process.
The biggest impediment highlighted by Savoie preventing MPs from effectively representing the needs of their constituents is party discipline. He says, in the House of Commons “loyalty, partisanship, and party discipline trump all.” According to David Kilgour – a 27 year veteran of the House, “a loyal MP, who votes for the party line will be a candidate for promotion – if in the government party, perhaps Cabinet – or other benefits from the party such as interesting trips or appointment to an interesting House committee…in light of this, ‘caucus solidarity and my constituents be damned’ might be the real oath of office for honourable members in all political parties.”
Strict party discipline in Canada has deleterious affects on democracy. It puts MPs in conflict with their constituents when they are forced to vote against their best interests, it limits open debate on important issues, and further drives polarization in the Commons, accentuating cleavages between parties. According to Savoie, part of the reason why party discipline is so much stronger in Canada than in Westminster counterparts like Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, is the tight rope that party leaders keep on their MPs. That tight rope Savoie argues further, has to do with keeping the regional factor under control and preventing flare ups. In Canada, “MPs do not have the freedom to respond to regional pressures before Parliament or in public for fear that it would be regarded as a criticism of the party leader.” In 2013, an MP quit the Conservative caucus to protest the PMO using MPs, as he called it, “like trained seals.”
Savoie also argues that the Commons in Canada today is entirely ineffective in its role of holding the executive to account on its spending, and in fact, MPs have largely opted to abdicate much of this responsibility to the media and officers of Parliament like the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Part of the challenge for MPs is their diminished role – MPs “sit at the end of the assembly line in the budget process.” Unsurprisingly, when it comes to budgets, it’s the prime minister and minister of finance who hold the keys and drive.
Government MPs support budgets – no questions asked – and opposition MPs rarely invest the necessary energy to find real fault. Former Mulroney minister Lowell Murray says that, “Parliament – specifically the House of Commons – over a period of more than forty years, has allowed its most vital power, the power of the purse, to become a dead letter, their Supply and Estimates an empty ritual.” Former auditor general Sheila Fraser is quoted in a similar vein, stating that, “MPs are failing Canadians in one of their most fundamental roles: the scrutiny of yearly spending estimates.”
For Savoie, our Commons falls well short of the responsibilities Walter Bagehot foresaw being imparted on it through the Westminster model. Savoie’s assessment of the democratic health of other essential institutions like the Senate, the Cabinet, and the media is equally grim. He refers to the Senate as “the institution that never was,” Cabinet as “the institution that once was,” and suggests that the media is in the midst of significant disruption, preventing it from effectively serving its democratic function.
The MacDonald Commission called the Senate in its current form, “an institutional failure.” Savoie refers to it as a “much maligned institution” and Andrew Coyne notes that the Senate is “elected by no one and accountable to no one.” For nearly the entire history of Canada the Senate has been the subject of discussions around reform. Calls for Senate reform have been fueled largely by questions surrounding the legitimacy of the institution and the institution’s role in Canadian society and democracy.
The fact that Senators are appointed strips them of legitimacy in many people’s minds. While Trudeau has brought in a new independent appointments process to curb flagrant partisanship, it still remains that Senators are unelected. Savoie highlights of the Senate that, “if appointees are suspect and lack legitimacy, then the work it does is suspect and lacks legitimacy.” The work the Senate does, and its actual function in our democracy raises further questions – what is the role of the Senate?
Interestingly, under the new independent appointment process for Senators there is no definite job description outlining the expectations or roles independent Senators are expected to fulfil. Traditionally, the Senate has existed to fulfil the “sober second thought” function, ensuring that legislation receives careful and deliberate consideration before being passed into law – essentially acting as a safety valve that protects against tyranny of the majority and populist policy emanating from Canada’s lower, elected House.
As initially conceived, the Senate was also intended to represent regional interests. However, Savoie argues that the Senate has never held the democratic legitimacy to effectively provide a regional perspective in Ottawa. More recently, the Senate has become a place where minority interests are promoted and represented – in particular minority perspectives that have traditionally lacked representation in Canada’s democratic institutions. This third role was identified by the Supreme Court when it wrote that the Senate, “serves as a forum for ethnic, gender, religious, linguistic, and Aboriginal groups that did not always have a meaningful opportunity to present their views through the popular democratic process.” This third role is necessary and a deeply positive development, yet this additional role also serves to further muddy the waters on what exactly the Senate’s role in Canada is.
Savoie argues that today “the Senate remains an institution that lacks a clear role and norms that its members can easily grasp. The institution was born of a compromise struck by the Fathers of Confederation that avoided dealing with the basic requirements of federalism. Virtually from day one, Canadians saw that the institution would never serve the country well.”
Unlike the Senate, Savoie argues that the Cabinet used to be a powerful democratic institution, yet with the sustained concentration of power over time in Canada’s executive, the Cabinet is no longer the democratic cornerstone it once was – it has in fact been reduced to a “focus group” or “sounding board” for the Prime Minster and their closest advisors. Key decisions are no longer made by powerful ministers or by the collective at the Cabinet table. Instead, they are made in bi-lateral meetings by the prime minister, bypassing Cabinet entirely.
Previously, Canada had powerful ministers of their own brand and status – Savoie highlights the likes of C.D. Howe, John Diefenbaker, André Oullet, Lloyd Axworthy, and Paul Martin – and notes that we no longer have these “big beasts” of Cabinet like we once did. Today, despite promises of government by cabinet being back, there is only one brand for ministers and MPs, and that is the brand of the prime minister. Savoie says that “competing brands from ministers only dilute the prime minister’s brand and it’s not tolerated. Prime ministers now have in their hands all levers of power to dominate every issue they wish to dominate and to have their ministers and MPs blend into their brand.”
Cabinet’s lack of power is detrimental to regional representational Canada. Previously, powerful regional ministers sat at the Cabinet table to represent the perspectives and unique needs of Atlantic Canada, Western Canada, Quebec, and others. The role of Cabinet today is in effect, according to Savoie, “to be a symbolic representation of government unity before Parliament, the media, and Canadians.” Savoie questions further, “who if anyone now speaks for the regions inside the federal government?”
The incredible resources available to prime ministers have also served to diminish the role of Cabinet. Today the prime minister is supported by an ever-growing Prime Minister’s Office and a Privy Council Office that, while it is supposed to support Cabinet as a whole, has overtime focused itself on supporting only the prime minister. Savoie refers to the PMO and PCO as “the centre” of government and notes that overtime, prime ministers have opted to govern from “the centre,” casting Cabinet aside in favour of their close advisors in the PMO and PCO. This according to Savoie is “court” rather than Cabinet government, and with power being ever more concentrated in the prime minister and their court, “British monarchs of yesteryear would be comfortable with these levers.”
One of the functions of media in a democracy is to assist citizens in making “competent political choices” as a “well-functioning representative democracy and a free press go hand in hand.” However, today Canada’s media is in peril – we are facing what Andrew Potter has dubbed, “the deinstitutionalization” of media, wherein readership and revenues are declining for traditional media, while at the same time the use social media is expanding. The challenge is that social media lacks the same consumer protections that create trust in traditional media. Potter explains, “In some cases its literally a guy in sweatpants sitting on a couch making stuff up, writing their fabrications as a news story, and putting it on the internet…and this is where the de-institutionalization starts to bite: online, every article, in a sense, is on equal footing.” Savoie encourages us to ask ourselves, is social media reinvigorating democracy or wreaking havoc on it?
As traditional media declines, there are significant implications for regional representation in Canada. National newspapers are closing regional offices and regional newspapers are pulling their national correspondents out of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. National papers closing regional hubs makes it less likely that regional issues will be put forward on the national agenda, and regional papers pulling staff out of Ottawa makes it harder to have national issues and federal decisions conveyed in a way “that connects to regional or local concerns.”
At present the growth of social media puts trust issues front and centre, while at the same time the decline of traditional media amplifies issues related to regional representation at the national level. Savoie sums up the challenge: “Trust in the institutions of representative democracy is declining, and the media have a lot to answer for. The traditional print media are fast losing currency, and with it objective criteria that they sought to promote the last century. We are returning to partisan journalism and a world where facts are interwoven with alternate facts…Representative democracy, meanwhile, is founded on the idea that an informed citizenry will make informed decisions about who should have the power to lead.”
Savoie further highlights how other institutions are failing in Canada’s democracy. He notes of the public service that management challenges make it “a whale that can’t swim” and of it’s serious aversion to risk, Savoie says if Canada’s public service were to ice a hockey team, it would have six goalies on the ice at once. Savoie also highlights how our courts are increasingly becoming, “managers of the public service” with a bigger say in how policies and programs are implemented, and how by focusing their advocacy on the PMO and PCO, lobbyists have contributed to the decline of Cabinet government by reinforcing that power lies at “the centre.” Every institution in Canada is to some degree facing or contributing to our democratic deficit.
In a recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail, Business Council of Canada president Goldy Hyder noted that the crumbling state of the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex is emblematic of Canada’s “neglected infrastructure.” The state of neglect and disrepair at 24 Sussex is also emblematic of Canada’s democracy. In an international context, where autocratic and populist impulses are overtaking leaders across the globe, Canada’s democracy shines brightly – in particular, when we look at it from a distance. However, as Donald Savoie highlights, when we take a closer look at each of the institutions that underpin Canada’s democracy, there is much to be desired. As Canadians we must all be vigilant about keeping our democratic house in order. That means engaging politically, holding our representatives to account, involving ourselves in the process – participating in parties and standing as candidates – and being deliberate and careful consumers of media. Every Canadian has a role to play in the protection and improvement of our democracy. Canada’s democracy got to where it is today only through the hard work and dedication of those that came before us – lets keep it up and improve on the foundations we’ve been provided. When it comes to democracy, don’t be a passive bystander – let’s all put on our gloves, grab our toolboxes and get to work on getting our democratic house in order.
