Political Strategy 205: Listen to your Elders

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/05/party-leaders-do-they-wield-too-much-power.html

Yes, yes they do. The real travesty is when you compare the amount of power wielded by Pary Leaders and compare that to the amount of power wielded by those who would be willing to use it on behalf of the public good in accordance with the primary assumptions of Canadian democracy.

In short, I don't like the centralization of power in the hyper-partisan party politics system. According to that CBC poll neither do 92% of Canadians.

Why? For one, people like Peter Milliken who intimitely understand the history and processes that define an effective democratic system traditionally do not end up in those roles. What we tend to see is a House of Commons that looks more like Spy vs. Spy or a hockey game than a house of debate and representation.

The only difference is that in the House of Commons there would only be white spies....

Over the last year I have had two of the people who I respect most in Canadian Politics, the Rt. Hon. John Turner and the Hon. Peter Milliken, address me on a topic. You might not be surprised to hear that the topic was over-centralization of power in the hands of Party Leaders, and the marginalization of the MP in the current party system. These are not men who lack an understanding of our parliamentary system.

 John Turner is a Rhode Scholar who won his first election in 1962, served as an MP in 3 provinces, served in 5 of Canada's most important Departments and sat as Leader of the Opposition for 6 years. In short, he knows a thing or two about being a Party Leader and how parties operate.

Peter Milliken is Peter-God-Damn-Milliken. If you don't know his resume then you can just look it right the hell up.

The problems that these men have identified are pervasive, and strike at the very fundamentals of an effective system of representation. They argue that whipped votes, extreme party discipline, a marginalization of Private Member Bills and the prevalence of wedge issues such as the Long-Gun debate all damage the ability of Members of Parliament to effectively voice the opinions and needs of their constituents. This, in turn, makes it nearly impossible for the average Canadian to have a say in the management of our political system.

When the only Bills that can be passed through our Parliament need to come through the Prime Minister's Office the ability of individuals to affect change is minimized. Systems of governance where only the wealthy are able to develop policy become (even further) entrenched. There is no need for meaningful regional representation, there is no space for local issues, the only person the Prime Minister needs to listen to is himself and, on occasion, a massive and unwieldy Caucus in which no individual member carries enough weight to leverage for change.

This isn't only a Conservative problem either. Within the Liberal party under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin the only individual whose opinion mattered was the leader. Anyone that actively worked against a leader would risk being marginalized or even exiled from Caucus (Sorry John Manley).

The New Democratic Party may well provide an alternative, but given how important Ol Bon Jack is to the operations of the party, and the rapid and fundamental change in the look of the NDP Caucus nothing is guaranteed to be carried forward.

Or any other day for that matter

So, when all is said and done the only people left to speak out against a slowly developing system that gradually chokes the ability of Canadians to participate in their governance are those retiring from that system. The only ones that can speak without damning their own political futures is the longest serving Speaker of the House sitting on the twilight of a brilliant career in his "farewell interview" and an old man, gradually growing sicker, in an address to the House of Commons filled not by real representatives, but students.

As my friend Charmander once said: "Not a single (firetruck) was given to this fundamental shift in the nature of Canadian Democracy." (I might be paraphrasing). The really disgusting thing about all this is that if you were to ask the average Canadian if they believe that the most effective system of Governance is one where policy is determined not by the individuals who we choose to elect, but determined almost exclusively by the party leader they choose through a system of wheeling, dealing, and backstabbing at a Holiday Inn conference center somewhere in Oakville I am willing to bet they would disagree. But, of course, nobody informs themselves of how the system is changing and, as a result, there is not a single firetruck to be found.

I don't have any answers to this problem. If I'm being fair, there are plenty of people who would disagree that there is any problem at all. However, I'm a firm believer in the primary lesson of Political Strategy 205, listen to your elders. If two of the smartest, best informed people in Canada point to a phenomena and say this is a serious problem I'm fairly likely to at least give it a look.

In my opinion, a system that marginalizes the voices of the people it is meant to represent is a broken one. Unfortunately, there isn't much that either of us can do about it... we aren't Party Leaders.