Patrick N. Malcolmson - The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada

THE
C ANADIAN R EGIME

Fifth Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN CANADA

Patrick Malcolmson and Richard Myers

Copyright University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2012

www.utphighereducation.com

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Malcolmson, Patrick N., 1953

The Canadian regime : an introduction to parliamentary government in Canada / Patrick Malcolmson and Richard Myers.5th ed.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4426-0590-9

1. CanadaPolitics and governmentTextbooks. I. Myers, Richard II. Title

JL75.M34 2012 320.471 C2012-903069-4

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MAP
P ARLIAMENTARY R EPRESENTATION BY P ROVINCE

P ART O NE
I NTRODUCTION

C HAPTER O NE
C ANADAS R EGIME P RINCIPLES

C HAPTER T WO
T HE C ONSTITUTION

P ART T WO
B ASIC P RINCIPLES OF THE C ANADIAN C ONSTITUTION

C HAPTER T HREE
R ESPONSIBLE G OVERNMENT

C HAPTER F OUR
F EDERALISM

C HAPTER F IVE
T HE C ANADIAN C HARTER OF R IGHTS AND F REEDOMS

P ART T HREE
I NSTITUTIONS

C HAPTER S IX
T HE C ROWN AND ITS S ERVANTS

C HAPTER S EVEN
P ARLIAMENT

C HAPTER E IGHT
T HE J UDICIARY

P ART F OUR
P ARTICIPATION

C HAPTER N INE
E LECTIONS

C HAPTER T EN
P OLITICAL P ARTIES

C HAPTER E LEVEN
I NTEREST G ROUPS , P UBLIC O PINION, AND D EMOCRATIC C ITIZENSHIP

APPENDIX
T HE C ONSTITUTION A CTS 1867 AND 1982

Of all regimes, the democratic regime is in greatest need of a politically educated populace. The democratic principle requires the rule of the people. Such rule demands that the people have an education in politics that makes government by the people both possible and prudent. If the great body of voting citizens lacks such an education, two consequences follow. First, people become passive and unwitting followers of the opinion leaders of the day. Demagoguery becomes indistinguishable from principled political rhetoric, and the tyranny of the majoritythe Achilles heel of democracygrows more probable. Second, people come to have entirely unrealistic expectations of politics. Lacking any clear understanding of what is possible, they let their hopes, desires, and dreams govern their political demands.

There is ample evidence to suggest that both of these characteristics are easily observable in Canadian politics today. We believe that this is due, in large part, to the poor condition of civic education in contemporary Canada. This book has been written in the hope of strengthening that Canadian civic education.

Our book is an attempt to explain and describe the most important political institutions of Canadas national government. Its premise is that Canadianscitizens, university students, and even many of our politiciansneed a straightforward, explanatory introduction to these institutions. Our aim is to educate Canadians to a more sober and realistic set of expectations about politics by explaining the institutional limitations that structure all political action. The connection between institutions and issues is very clear. How can one intelligently discuss problems concerning the tax structure without some understanding of federalism? Or same-sex marriage without some understanding of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Supreme Court? Or the role of a Member of Parliament (MP) without understanding the nature of parliamentary or responsible government? Yet all too often one finds that people want to discuss current political problems without giving any consideration to how these issues are tied to the structures and institutions of government. Thus, the local MP is criticized for always voting the party line, with little consideration as to how the Canadian form of parliamentary democracy makes it exceedingly difficult for MPs to vote against their party on any crucial political issue. One might liken such discussions to criticizing a chess move without understanding the rules of chess.

Our basic objective is to present the reader with a short and clear account of Canadian government. We have tried to focus on the logic of how our institutions work and how they fit together. For that reason, this book, unlike similar texts, concentrates more on explaining basic principles and less on describing the arcane details of our institutions. We have tried to ensure that our account is written in straightforward language and that all technical terms are clearly explained. We have also tried to write the book so that it presupposes little prior knowledge of the subject matter. It is gratifying to hear from readers of previous editions that its clarity has been appreciated.

While our primary objective has been to provide the reader with a clear account of Canadian government, we have also been guided by a second objective. There is a thread that runs through the entire book, an underlying theme that endows it with unity and purpose. We have used the term regime to suggest that a countrys political institutions form an organic whole, a kind of complex ecosystem with an inner logic and coherence that holds it together. The Canadian regime is a political ecosystem whose inner logic derives from its unique combination of responsible government and federalism, a combination that explains why our institutions are what they are and why we do things the way we do. By extension, it also explains why we do so many things differently from our neighbours to the south: the American regime is built on a different combination of core principles, namely, separation of powers and federalism. Throughout the book, we try to explain Canadian institutions and practices in terms of the underlying regime principles that govern them. Frequently, one of the best ways to make our point is to contrast Canadian practices with those of the United States, showing how our approach is the logical consequence of responsible government while theirs is the logical consequence of the separation of powers. This direct comparison of regime principles makes it easier for readers on both sides of the border to understand the regime logic of both countries. That, in turn, makes our book particularly useful for political science instructors in the United States who want their students to learn about the parliamentary alternative to separation of powers and find it more appropriate to use their northern neighbours as the test case rather than European countries such as Britain, Italy, or Germany.