Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

PMO and PCO have become indistinguishable

At Convocation last year, the Honourable John Crosbie decried excessive centralization of power within the federal government. I know this, because he sent me a copy of his speech; and by way of retaliation I sent him copy of one of mine on a related subject.

John Crosbie, who was gold medallist in Politics at Queens in his youth and is an honorary doctor here now, was one of the most gifted and dynamic parliamentarians of our day. Not surprisingly, he is deeply concerned by the erosion of parliamentary democracy resulting from this centralization of power, which began more than 40 years ago and has accelerated exponentially over that period.

This centralization of power has led, inevitably I believe, to other afflictions. One of these is dysfunction in what we used to understand to be the practice of cabinet government. Another is the impairment of the professional, merit-based, non-partisan public service.

The essence of cabinet government – collective deliberation and decision, collective responsibility, ministerial accountability to Parliament – has surely become more form than substance when, as has been documented, some ministers are not even in the room when major decisions are made directly engaging their authority and responsibility. The strange predicaments in which such ministers have found themselves, and their apparent bewilderment arose, it turns out, because they were not (as the saying goes) “in the loop” and were caught almost unawares by subsequent developments. Walter Bagehot once described cabinet as a buckle linking executive and Parliament. When some ministers are required to sit silent in Parliament and allow others to field questions for them, relating to the conduct of their portfolios, it is obvious that the buckle is bent out of shape, if not completely broken.

Ministers should not be treated as ciphers and they should certainly not act as if they were ciphers. “The Centre”, as it is loosely called in Ottawa, has taken on more power than it can properly, or even efficiently, exercise. John Crosbie correctly identified the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office in this regard. I would add that these two bodies which have legitimate but quite different vocations – one partisan political, the other non-partisan governance – have become virtually indistinguishable in practise, each acting as enforcer for the other.

As for the Canadian public service tradition, Queen’s University was instrumental in creating it. From the critical early days in the first quarter of the 20th century, the names most renowned, notably in the fields of foreign affairs and of finance and economics, were Queens’s professors and their best and brightest graduates. The tradition continues down to our day and our Chancellor David Dodge is only the most eminent and one of the most recent exemplars, a model to be followed, I hope, by some of today’s graduates.

The Canadian public service tradition we have known is in my opinion now vulnerable, exposed and in danger of being destabilized. This state of affairs, also in the making for some time, is one malign element in what the late Professor Peter Aucoin described as the New Political Governance. (Peter Aucoin’s Ph.D. was from Queens. He died too young last July, before he could know that the book he co-authored with Lori Turnbull and Mark Jarvis – Democratizing the Constitution – had won the Donner Foundation Prize for best book on public policy.) Prof. Aucoin defined the New Political Governance in part as one in which the continuous political campaign is integrated with governance, and in which there is pressure on the public service to be “promiscuously partisan for the government of the day.”

These are strong words, but examples abound, notoriously but not exclusively in the area of government communications.

Such developments can confront public servants with a moral dilemma. In our tradition they must of course loyally support the democratically elected government and conscientiously implement its policies. However, it is not their role to become apologists or cheerleaders for those policies and for that government; and not their role to provide “cover” – legal cover, policy cover and communications cover – for partisan strategies or actions, some of which may violate legal, constitutional or parliamentary norms. The dilemma occurs when those above them, whose official responsibility it is to refuse partisan use of the public service, try instead to enable it. The resulting disillusionment and confusion of purpose can only demoralize and destabilize an institution which has been a constant and positive factor in our eventful national life.

I am aware that in some circles these concerns are dismissed as mere “process issues.” However as Canadians increasingly discover controversial decisions sprung on them they begin to ask not just “what” and “why” but “how” such things could happen in a parliamentary democracy.

Issues of this kind, of process and of substance, have engaged professors and students at Queen’s University during almost all of Canada’s history since Confederation. This place has had an extraordinary influence on our national life during all that time. In my own experience of more than a half century in and around Canadian politics, I and my colleagues, irrespective of party have been encouraged and enlightened by the generosity and understanding of Queens’s scholars.

On the issue at hand, I give the last word to those iconic Queen’s professors, Corry and Hodgetts:

“The more power is concentrated, the more nicely calculated the means of controlling it must be. The elaboration of new and more effective controls has not kept pace with the growing concentration of power. More thought must be given to such controls in the immediate future”.

That was in 1963. Dear classmates of 2012 – Over to you!

Original Article
Source: iPolitics 
Author: Lowell Murray

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