Sunday, May 04, 2008

On Restructuring Government and Term Limits

I get e-mail - and from time to time, a writer takes the time to approach a topic in some detail. What follows is the body of an e-mail I received at the end of last week. I will add my commentary on some of the topics after the writer's e-mail. (Please note, I have edited out references to names and personal context in the e-mail for privacy reasons)

Because I am not sure exactly whether you mean to limit the terms of the legislator or the government I have approached the matter from two aspects. The first is possible if highly unusual, the second should never be possible in a parliamentary system.

a) Lets look at the first, at the possible, if highly unusual situation;

By this method legislation would be needed to limit the length of time a person would be allowed to sit in the legislature. After that time that person would have to step down in favour of another person. From what I know of the make-up of a legislature anywhere, this would be a highly unusual step. Even in the US there seems to be no limit to how long a person may be in office in Congress. The US presidency is a different situation as he is limited to two 4-year terms. A possibility, but not too likely, is for the political party to have this form of limit in its constitution. The best bet would be that the prospective MLA/MP would state in his/her election campaign that they will step down after a fixed period. I have only known of two people to do this in Canada – Frank McKenna, former premier of Nova Scotia and R. Gary Dickson former Liberal MLA for Calgary Buffalo.

b) The second scenario affects the government per se.

I frankly do not believe that this is possible nor should it ever be contemplated under the Westminster style of government that we follow in Canada. Presently governments are elected for a maximum term of five years (certain provinces and the federal government have set fixed election dates – every 4 years) after which an election is called. The obvious problem is that the same bad apples (Alberta?) can be re-elected. That is the risk that the electors face. To state that a governing party must turn the reins of government over to another party goes against the main underpinning of a parliamentary democracy, namely that it is the people who elect the government. In short, a government is elected by the people for the people, at least that is how it is supposed to be. Unfortunately once they get into power they forget that basic principle. Sir Winston S Churchill always stated the he and the other MP's in the UK were elected by “the will of the people”.

So all this begs the question “How do we change the government”. The simple answer is by having a strong opposition party which can make its presence felt both in the legislature and in the media. This requires an electorate which is prepared to be knowledgeable about the platforms of the various parties and to use that knowledge on voting day. Thus a parliamentary democracy always reflects “the will of the people”. Another problem with restricting the term of office is that the province or country could be denied the necessary services of the likes of Peter Lougheed, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Sir John A. Mac Donald to name but a few. The only way I can think of to rid ourselves of the likes of Rob Anders, Graig Chandler (although he was not elected) is to have strong candidates on the other side coupled with enough voters who will vote for the person not the party.

Many years ago the question was raised as to why do we need a strong opposition. I cannot remember who raised the topic but I came across it when reading “Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century”. This book discusses each of the premiers of Alberta from Alexander Cameron Rutherford in 1905 to Ralph Klein. If I remember rightly it came up during the term of office of the UFA in the 1920's or early 1930's. Unfortunately I haven't, since, been able to find the comment. I must re-read that part again sometime. I don't think the question was ever answered but the raising of it points to a flaw in the way Albertans think on matters political.


This fairs quite nicely with some other conversations I've been having with a few other people.

(1) On term limits, the Westminster system of government is designed in such a way that it pretty much precludes term limits in any practical sense - unless we would apply them to all members of the house. The problem with doing that is one of continuity. One of the key premises of either the Westminster or the US Republican style of government is that the legislative houses provide a significant degree of continuity between political leadership and the bureaucracy. This is achieved by permitting individual legislators to sit for protracted periods of time - in effect becoming a part of the system with ties to both the electorate and the bureaucracy.

While I would like to see limits placed on how long someone can hold cabinet posts (including the Premier/Prime Minister), I suspect that doing so may be impractical without harsh changes to the party constitutions.

(2) Democracy depends on the active participation of the public in order to work effectively. The reason for this is simple - even in Alberta, there is quite a wide diversity of political opinion. Unfortunately, several decades of single-party rule have accustomed Alberta voters to a "it doesn't matter" apathy (as the last election demonstrated so well)

What breeds voter apathy? Several things - a lack of knowledge and awareness is key. Far too many people simply have no clue how government policy affects their daily lives. The majority of people I know that do not bother to vote claim that they don't believe that government above the local council (and in Calgary, even that's pretty abstract for most of us) has any direct impact on them.

Apathy is also the spawn of complacency. Alberta is an interesting case study. We have had close to 20 years of comparatively good economic fortunes - quite frankly a shaved chimpanzee could have balanced Alberta's books in the last decade or so. When times are perceived to be "good", people are reluctant to shake things up by changing the government. (A classic case of 'The Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg")

I have come to view education as a vital and key part of making a viable, living democracy. If people are given the intellectual tools with which they can understand the basics of our system of government, they can then influence it more effectively as voters.

Alberta is a unique case for several reasons. First, in the last thirty years, we have had not one, but two very strong personalities occupy the Premier's Office - Peter Lougheed and (choke) Ralph Klein.

The second part of the picture is that conservatives in the province have been very effective in demonizing the very term "liberal" since Pierre Trudeau's ill-fated NEP. This has proven to be an amazingly powerful tool for them to use in reinforcing their grip on power in Alberta.

The third part has been a subtle, but significant campaign on the part of Alberta followers of the neo-conservative movement out of the US to dismantle and handicap the public education system. This started back when Don Getty was the premier. For those who do not remember, it was under Getty that the first rounds of the cutbacks that Ralph took to new heights happened. One of the key areas cut was public education - at all levels. This strongly mirrors attempts by Ronald Reagan to dismantle the US Department of Education during his tenure in the White House.

Besides the usual conservative mantra about "less government", there is a deliberate intent to weakening the public education system. In general, a weak education tends to favour the simplistic talking points and sound bytes that the neoCons like to toss around. If you look back at the 2006 Federal Election, it's pretty clear that Harper said nothing meaningful through the entire campaign.

Without an adequate education that engages people in the political process in their youth, government becomes an abstract, and untouchable notion - something that is easily demonized and that plays into the goals of the neoCons.

The last point I'd like to raise is that of electoral reform. To be polite, I'd claim that Alberta (in particular) has experienced a degree of manipulation of electoral boundaries that has all but undermined the basic principles of Representation by Population that is the theoretical underpinning of our riding system. I believe (and have believed for some time) that the representation system in Alberta is a disaster today. Radical reform is needed to dispel the sense that there is a significant disparity between rural and urban vote "weight" in the government.

Without an educational infrastructure that enables people to understand how government affects them, and how their participation is meaningful, no reform - whether we talk about term limits, riding reform or voter recall will achieve any significant results.

As my writer earlier points out, the Westminster system works best when there is a strong opposition. A strong opposition is not going happen easily in the current environment in Alberta.

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