Canada West Foundation Blog

by: Robert Roach, Senior Researcher and the Director of The West in Canada Project

Majorities are not evil
Majority governments are the norm in Canada, so it is a bit odd to hear a large number of commentators acting like a Tory majority is some sort of evil aberration out of Tolkien’s Land of Mordor. It is true that the Harper government will be able to pursue its agenda without the restrictions of a minority Parliament, but this is exactly the same as it was for Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien. We are back to business as usual and not—as some seem to think—out on a crazy limb that will break and send the country into freefall.

In addition, majority governments like to win more than one majority. Hence, while they can pursue their vision for the country without constant fear of a non-confidence vote, they tend to keep one eye on the next election cycle. In other words, radical policies that will alienate large chunks of voters remain unappealing regardless of majority status.

Regional fault lines remain
From a regional perspective, the outcome of the election is very interesting. You barely need two hands to count the Conservative seats in Quebec whereas the NDP have become the de facto representatives of Quebec in the House. This is a new dynamic. In some ways, Quebec has become like Alberta in that it has chosen to side with the opposition rather than the government. Not that long ago, it was Alberta MPs who had only a small presence on the government side of the House.

On the bright side, a Harper majority likely means that the federal government will do as much as it can to advance Senate reform (full reform still requires the provinces to get on board). This is good for the country, good for Quebec and good for the West. A properly designed Senate has the potential to ensure that regional representation does not depend on which party forms the government in the House. Maybe, just maybe, Canada will finally start to fix this broken part of our political system. Maybe.

The Rise of the NDP
Given the nature of the Canadian system, the Official Opposition in a majority Parliament is largely irrelevant in terms of policy. They have an important job to do trying to keep the government’s feet over the coals, but they can’t block government legislation. In this sense, it matters little which party forms the opposition. However, the rise of the NDP is important for several reasons: 1) it is the first time in Canadian history that the Liberal party finds itself in the third party position and it remains to be seen if it can recover; 2) the fuzzy mandate that Layton has from Quebec voters will be a factor but it is impossible to say how this will play out; and 3) the ideological differences between the Tories and the NDPs are relatively clear and will present Canadians with a black and white set of alternatives to watch over the next four years.

The West is Still In
This election shows that a party with a leader from the West and a strong base of support in the region can, by also appealing to Ontario voters, form a majority government. Regardless of your political stripes, the Harper government is not a bad thing from a regional perspective. A government with a strong western base will have a natural connection to the region’s needs and unique circumstances. Because they are governing a nation rather than a region, these needs will not always take precedence, but they should be at least understood and given a fair hearing. This does not mean that governments without a strong western base can’t do this, but in reality, it is much more likely when they do.

by Robert Roach
Director of the West in Canada Project

A new Canada West Foundation report shows that regional discontent with the federal government continues to be a key feature of Canadian politics. It also shows that discontent exists in every part of the country, not just its traditional home base in the West.

Many lament this and pray for a day when everyone comes to their senses and toes the line put down by the government in Ottawa. This, of course, only works if you agree with the line Ottawa puts down.

For many years, Ontario residents saw a rough congruence with what Ottawa wanted and what they wanted. Ontario was Canada and Canada was Ontario (plus Quebec, but that’s a different story). This makes sense for Ontario was, and is, the province with the most voters, Canada’s largest city, the biggest economy and the ear of the federal government. Federal governments ignore Ontario at their peril.

Meanwhile, the West was seen by the centre as a series of provincial outposts that should report to head office and definitely not the other way around. When we got cranky, we were either ignored or, on occasion, punished. As a result, discontent with the federal government was a natural element of western Canadian political culture.

The recent Canada West Foundation study shows that western discontent has not gone away, but the election of a Prime Minister from the West has seen it go from a rolling boil to a nice calm simmer. A lot of this is perception rather than the result of a consistent pro-western program on the part of the federal Tories, but perception counts in politics.

Indeed, the perception that a gap has formed between Ottawa’s interests and Ontario’s interests has caused discontent to rise in Ontario in recent years. Because provincial premiers have cast themselves as the defenders of the provincial faith, Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty has picked up on the perceived gap and used it to his advantage. After all, someone has to take the blame for Ontario’s newly minted “have-not” status.

While the swing in the regional discontent pendulum is interesting to note and helps explain the current woof and warp of federal-provincial relations in Canada, it points to a more important stone in the Canadian shoe. Namely, given that Canada is a land of diverse regions (and the better for it), shouldn’t there be a more effective means of addressing regional discontent than waiting for the Prime Minister to be from your region or for your Premier to huff and puff to the media about how unfair everything is?

Maybe, just maybe, we need a mechanism within the federal government that is a permanent and powerful means of expressing the full range of regional interests.

So what is that mechanism? Wait for it … the Senate! Please don’t stop reading and let me explain.

The lack of success at reforming the Canadian Senate has left the topic with the political equivalent of horrendous body odor. Everyone just wants to get away from it and hopes that it doesn’t show up again. This is extremely unfortunate because the much-maligned Senate can be given an overhaul and, once this is accomplished, it can make sure that regional interests are better represented within the national government.

This does not mean that regional discontent and regional winners and losers will go away. In a big country like Canada, you cannot please every region all of the time. Senate reform is not a panacea for all that ails Canadian democracy. But, surely, we can do a lot better than the goofy system and broken Senate that we rely on now?

So the next time the topic of Senate reform comes by, consider plugging your nose and calling for change. Canada’s regional diversity deserves it.

Last Friday Prime Minister Harper appointed Salma Ataullahjan to fill the last Senate vacancy. Ms. Ataullahjan is a former Conservative candidate and has pledged to support the Conservative government’s efforts to reform the Senate. Considering the fact that with this appointment, the Conservatives have the same number of voting members in the Upper Chamber as the Liberals and independents combined, the possibility of Senate reform is greater now than ever! But, as the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson noted, Senate reform is “a subject that animates a few Canadians and bores the rest.”

This does not mean that the Senate is not an important issue. The Canadian Senate needs reforming— it is undemocratic and, although intended to be a regional balance to the House of Commons, it is not an effective regional voice in Ottawa. Reform has the potential to make the Senate more representative and to improve the functioning of the Canadian political machine.

Yet, as a young(ish) person concerned with issues of public policy—a self proclaimed policy wonk wannabe—even I struggle to care about Senate reform.

Why?

For one, Senate reform is not a “sexy” issue like climate change or animal rights. Therefore, you do not see protestors out scaling the walls of parliament to hang giant banners demanding that the Canadian Senate be reformed.

But it is more than that.

Senate reform does not address the issues that really matter. There are much more pressing issues in Canadian politics, like citizen disillusionment with government and politics. Only 58.8% of eligible Canadians voted in the 2008 federal election. The issue is even more prominent among young Canadians as only 37.4% of this sector of the population voted in the same election! Voter apathy is often attributed to increased identification requirements, people being too busy to vote and even “lazy, incompetent young people.” But, perhaps the most common reason given is that people increasingly just do not care about politics.

However, according to Statistics Canada, the reality is that people (particularly youth), “are interested in political issues,” and “committed to the tenets of democracy,” but they are, “wary of politicians.”  So, what the voting statistics really are is a symptom of Canadian politics lacking: 1) trust in politicians, and 2) long-term vision on the part of our policymakers. What our politicians are selling, Canadians just aren’t buying!

This should not be a surprise. To the first point, the question has been asked in countless polls: whom do you trust? The answer is usually the same. Doctors and nurses tend to come first, the police are near the top, and journalists and politicians rank at the very bottom.

To the second point, we see a government that tends to launch attacks at people rather than policy. Our political leaders seem most concerned about how their actions are going to play out in public opinion polls rather than thinking about how they will impact Canada’s future. They are not rock stars whose job it is to entertain. Politicians should be thinking about what Canada can and should be and what needs to be done to get us there.  They should be thinking about the next five or ten years, not just the next five or ten minutes.

That is what matters. If you want people to care, you need to address the issues that matter. Citizen disillusionment with politicians and the political system is one major issue, one not addressed by the current Senate reform proposals. Again, it is not that the issue of Senate reform does not have merit.  However, tinkering with the mechanics of the Senate when people are increasingly apathetic about democracy is a little bit like a pilot fiddling with his headset when the plane is crashing—it really just misses the point. People do not care— and they won’t—at least not until the bigger fish are fried.

Posted by: Candice Powley

I recently received a notification from the Queen’s University Centre for the Study of Democracy that it is holding a Debate on Senate Reform. Overall, this is great. We need more debate on this issue—especially now that the Harper government has put Senate reform on the national agenda in a meaningful way for the first time since the Charlottetown Accord.

Nonetheless, and without being mean spirited, I can’t help but wonder about the representativeness of a debate between two Senators appointed by Paul Martin (one from Ontario and one from Nova Scotia), a Bloc MP (Quebec), and a NDP MP (Ontario). The four debaters, and especially Senator Hugh Segal, will no doubt have very interesting—and likely intensely partisan—perspectives on Senate reform. What’s missing is a voice from the West. Senate reform is NOT an exclusively western Canadian concern—it is vitally important to all parts of the country. But given the need for a reformed Senate to better represent the diversity of Canada and Canadians, a representative from the West would have been appropriate.

To avoid preaching to the choir (on either side), the Canada West Foundation and York University’s Centre for Public Policy and Law held a forum on Senate reform that brought together a wider range of perspectives on the Senate and Senate reform.

I commend the Centre for the Study of Democracy for dipping its toe into this issue, but perhaps their next debate could include a western perspective on an issue that has been near and dear to western Canada for decades (not to mention kept alive by it while it was largely ignored by the rest of the country).

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CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY, Queen’s University

DEBATE ON SENATE REFORM

May 25, 2010, noon to 1:30 PM, Wallace Hall, Queen’s University

Among Canadian democratic institutions, the Senate is arguably the most controversial and, for many Canadians, the least understood. With legislation to reform the Senate once again before Parliament, the Centre will be holding a debate to discuss what, if anything, is wrong with the Senate of Canada, whether it should be reformed and, if so, by what means.

Debaters: Senator Hugh Segal; Senator James S. Cowan; MP David Christopherson; MP Richard Nadeau.

Moderator: Journalist Jane Taber of CTVGlobeMedia.

The debate will be open to the public, will be broadcasted by CPAC and will be available online.

Get involved! Submit a question on Facebook.

Posted By: Robert Roach

Over 40 years ago J.M.S. Careless wrote that “the experience of regionalism remains prominent and distinctive in Canadian history—time has tended less to erode it than to develop it.” This observation holds true, regionalism continues to be prominent in the national dialogue to this day. We regularly hear that the West is distinct from the center, the North is not the same as Atlantic Canada and so on.

Now, granted there are regional differences, but are they really as acute as some make them out to be?

Canadians have been certain for so long that we are regionally divided that we’ve dedicated significant portions of our governmental systems to accommodate regionalism. Our Senate is a good example. One of the primary purposes of the Senate is to provide regional representation and this is done through the division of seats. As such, the four traditional regions (Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces and the western provinces) all get 24 seats each, Newfoundland and Labrador gets six and each of the territories gets one. This formula remains static regardless of population shifts so, theoretically, even if the population of the West doubled, these numbers wouldn’t change.

Our electoral system is another example. There are few redeeming features of first-past-the-post as far as electoral systems go, but the one thing it does really, really well is reward geographically concentrated or regionally based parties. That’s why we have a party like the Bloc Québécois and why the Reform Party was able to make such a dramatic entrance onto the federal scene via the West. These parties were able to get their foot (and leg and torso) in the door because our electoral system caters to regionally concentrated parties.

As long as we are comfortable with the notion that region is the most important characteristic of Canadians, this is all well and good. But what if we aren’t sure?

Hear me out: when one of the main functions of the Senate is to represent regional interests, that sends a message that the most important characteristic about you, from the government’s point of view, is whether you live in Quebec, Nova Scotia or British Columbia. That is more important than any other identity you might have including your gender, religious beliefs, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, etc. We have designed a political system wherein these identities are of secondary importance to where you live.

This raises an interesting question: are the political institutions and systems we have in place a reflection of the regional differences that exist in this country, or, do they actually contribute to the continued perception of regional divisiveness by masking complexity and elevating geography to a higher level of importance than other forms of identity?

As an example of how complexity can be masked, take a look at the electoral distribution map of Canada. At first glance, there appears to be quite a bit that differentiates an Ontarian from a Saskatchewanian based on their different voting behaviors. Western Canada is a veritable sea of Conservative blue, Quebec is dominated by the Bloc Québécois and Atlantic Canada is varying shades of Liberal red. From that perspective, there appears to be quite a bit that separates any given person in Alberta from any given person in PEI.

This is not, however, an accurate reflection of the variance of Canadian perspectives and ideologies. In the 2008 federal election, the Conservatives might have received 96% of the seats in Alberta, but they only received 65% of the vote (that is, 65% of the 53% who bothered to vote). Similarly, in PEI the Liberals got 75% of the seats, but only 48% of the vote. Our first-past-the-post electoral system exaggerates the differences between regions and helps to encourage political parties to focus on regional strengths. There are undoubtedly regional differences of ideology and thought, but they are not as dramatic as they may first appear due to the masking effect of our current political system.

As a thought experiment, if Canada changed over to a more proportional system of voting and we made the Senate representative of cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity, what effect do you think that would have on our understanding of regions?

Posted By: Shawna Ritchie

On Wednesday, the Canada West Foundation in conjunction with The Centre for Public Policy and Law at York University, hosted a forum on Senate reform. From across Canada academics, policy analysts, a few former Senators and even a Senator elect were brought together to re-invigorate the Senate reform debate.

Watch Senate Reform Forum archived webcasts

The question at hand was not whether or not to reform Senate but, to what ends should the Senate be reformed?

As we at the Canada West Foundation have previously noted, discussion of Senate reform tends to become bogged down by the details such that we have lost the forest for the trees. This forum took a step back and examined at what the fundamental purpose of the Senate is, or at least what it should be.

Before going any further, you may notice from the list of participants that not only the usual suspects were involved in this debate. This alone is important to note. For too long the Senate reform debate has occurred only amongst individuals living west of Winnipeg and has been equated with “the West wanting in.” HOWEVER, the reality is that there are important reasons why Senate reform is necessary—reasons which concern ALL Canadians.

So what are those reasons?

A Senate – For Whom? For What?
After a lot of good discussion there was consensus on a few things the Senate should be:

#1 – The Senate should be a place of “sober second thought.”

#2 – The Senate should be a place where public policy is improved.

#3 – The Senate should be representative of Canadians ways that the House of Commons is not.

#4 – The Senate should provide a check on the powers of the Prime Minister.

Do these seem like reasonable conclusions about what the Senate should be doing? Even if you are not convinced that we should bother reforming the Senate for those reasons, let’s flip the question around: why shouldn’t we reform the Senate? Why should we maintain the status quo when the majority of Canadians are not sold on the importance of the Senate? Why does the burden of proof always seem to lie with those who want change?

Overall, this forum allowed for a lot of good discussion and I think it would be safe to say it was a good start to answering some of the fundamental questions that need to be answered before getting to the nitty gritty of Senate reform.

But, one thing I was left uncertain about was whether these reasons capture the imagination of Canadians… Are you convinced?

Related:
Forum on Senate reform seeks to ignite national debate
What’s an elected Senate for?
Watch Senate Reform Forum archived webcasts

Posted By: Candice Powley

It is likely that the Harper government will continue to press forward with its Senate reform agenda when the House of Commons goes back to work in March.

At present, the Harper government is going ahead with Senate reform without a clearly articulated vision of the destination. Term limits, while important, just don’t capture the imagination of Canadians (most would probably be quite surprised to learn that Senators can stick around until they reach age 75).

Simply referencing the old Triple E model is also not good enough. “Equal, elected and effective” for what? Why should Canadians care?

Four powerful arguments why Canadians should care spring to mind that need to be fleshed-out and vigorously debated.

First, a reformed Senate could be used to overcome the chronic inability of the House of Commons to reflect the diversity of the Canadian people. Women, visible minorities, Aboriginals, small political parties and other minority groups are poorly represented in the current House of Commons. This doesn’t mean that MPs don’t care about these groups, but it is a problem when the country’s main legislative body does not include the same diversity as the population it represents.

Fixing this shortfall can’t be done via appointments to the Senate because this is, no matter how sincere, a form of tokenism. The shortfall must be fixed by way of an electoral process.

Second, a reformed Senate could help ensure that federal policy is based on a wider variety of input with a premium placed on compromise and consensus among diverse perspectives. Admittedly, this makes for a slower, more complex and generally messier legislative process, but that’s how a healthy democracy works.

Third, a reformed Senate could serve as a check on what virtually everyone agrees is the alarming concentration of power in the hands of the Prime Minister and the central agencies that report to his office. Even in boring old Canada, too much power in the hands of one individual is a bad idea. With an elected Senate hovering over the Prime Minister’s shoulder, the concentration of power would be greatly dissipated.

Fourth, there is the longstanding need to use the Senate to better capture, express and institutionalize Canada’s regional diversity. A properly designed elected Senate could achieve this and help knit the country together.

Not everyone will agree with these arguments while others will suggest alternative reasons for reforming the Senate. The point is that we need more debate about the ultimate goals of Senate reform. To this end, a new Canada West Foundation paper coming out in a few weeks examines this issue in more detail.

The goal is to help initiate a broad public debate about how we want ourselves to be governed. If this is not an important enough issue for Canadians to spend some time and energy on, our country is in deep trouble.

Tell us what you think.

Posted By: Roger Gibbins

According to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed the following five individuals to the Senate this morning:

• Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, a victims’ rights advocate from Quebec
• Bob Runciman, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister in Ontario
• Vim Kochhar, an Ontario businessman and activist on behalf of the disabled
• Elizabeth (Beth) Marshall of Newfoundland and Labrador, a former auditor general and a Conservative member of the legislative assembly, and
• Rose-May Poirier, a former Conservative cabinet minister in New Brunswick. (View bios, here.)

Why is an advocate of Senate reform and an elected Senate appointing more Senators rather than pushing for their election?

Harper’s stated rationale goes something like this: as long as the Senate was dominated by Liberal appointees, Senate reform would be blocked by the Senate itself. To get around this hump, Harper has filled 28 vacancies since 2006 in an effort to outnumber the Liberals sitting in the Senate. With these five new appointments, the Conservatives have 51 Senate seats and the Liberals have 49 (the remaining 5 seats are held by independents and Progressive Conservatives). The next step is to push ahead with reforms like term limits.

As much as this irks those of us who have railed against the anti-democratic nature of appointing Senators, the barriers to reform mean that this sort of political sleight of hand may be the only way to kickstart change.

Let’s hope this works so we can end the farce that appointing Senators makes of our democracy and create an elected Senate that is subject to the will of the people on a regular basis. This is likely a long way off and the irony of using more appointments to get there highlights the pressing need to get real reform off the ground.

Posted By: Robert Roach