Vive Le Canada - Canadian Democracy, is it broken?

In my opinion, and it would seem many other citizens who have posted here and on other blogs, our parliamentary system is in imminent danger of collapse. It matters not whether you are a supporter of one party or another, if you are able to think for yourself and can see through the “spin” you cannot help but be aware that the “party system” is putting our democracy in increasing danger of imploding. The threatening and controlling attitude of our current minority government with regard to the throne speech and any following legislation is but the latest visible signs of the cracks. It has become the norm for a few with direct access to the PMO who are not necessarily in cabinet or elected representatives to set the agenda, and for the PMO to direct the elected representatives of that party as to how to vote. Bills that have passed but do not meet the approval of the party in power are simply ignored or side tracked. That is not, in my view democracy.

Recently here in Ontario there has been a failed attempt to bring in a new way of electing our MPPs, whilst provincial politics (at least in Ontario) have not quite sunk to the depths that Federal politics has, one wonder how much difference it would have made. When an elite few dictate to our MPs or MPPs, and the majority of those elected to represent US do nothing to push for independent thinking and voting, then democracy is indeed in big trouble. The few who do speak out are relegated to the back benches forever or summarily ejected from the party, what is wrong with this picture?

What can we do to change things? The answer is damn little. We, the public, have but one chance to change things and that at election time. But how many of those that speak up will be refused as candidates by the partys involved, how many if they ran as independents would get elected, and would there be enough of them to force change? The best guess I can come up with is “no chance in hell”! Perhaps a better approach would be to push for procedural changes in parliament to limit the party power, the chance of this ever happening is about the same but never the less I am going to throw out a couple of suggestions in that regard with the current situation in Ottawa in mind.

I believe that there should be NO SUCH THING as a WHIPPED VOTE, in short it should be illegal to pressure any MP to vote in any particular way. MPs who are affiliated with a particular party naturally will support in general that parties' platform and if they make a habit of voting against bills put forward by that party may well expect to have some discussions as to whether they should remain within that party. They would have to weigh that against whether the bill is in fact acceptable to themselves and those they represent. We must allow MPs to vote on the bills merits, not whether or not it fits a particular parties' agenda or philosophy. To balance the all free vote situation and to reduce the political games being played there should also be NO SUCH THING as a VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE except that which specifically says “THIS HOUSE HAS NO CONFIDENCE IN ………” so that no “accidental” or “engineered” falling of governments could take place. It should not be up to the party in power to decide whether a particular vote is or is not a vote of confidence, even in the case of the throne speech which lays out the parties' fundamental plan. If such a vote fails then it must be broken into smaller proposals, reworked or otherwise modified so as to be acceptable to the MAJORITY of MPs in a FREE vote.

Never mind asking candidates (whenever that opportunity may happen) about party policy, or their view on Afghanistan, or SPP, ask them about what they are going to do to protect and enhance our parliamentary system, whether they will vote against their party and for their constituents wishes when necessary, whether they will publicly make their views known in such cases, will they work with MPs from all parties' towards consensus in both the house and committees. Do they view their job as representing us in parliament or as representing their partys views to us! For without some fundamental changes, our views, and those of our representatives, will be meaningless, there is a word that describes a regime in which the leader and a chosen few run the country with little regard to views other than their own, and that word is NOT Democracy.

[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 16, 2007]