The Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is made up of elected representatives (members of parliament). It borrows structures from the Westminster model, which is used in other nations such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The Canadian Prime Minister must maintain the support of this House (Franks & Smith, 2012). Most essential, the Prime Minister is the person with the most support in the House of Commons. It is crucial in terms of oversight, legislative function, and resource allocation. However, as compared to other House of Commons in different countries such as US Congress and House of Commons in Britain, the Canadian House of Commons is relatively weak because of its inability to check the executive (Savoie, 2013). The executive in Canada tend to dominate the legislature hence curtailing its powers to hold it accountable. For this reason, the reforms should be introduced in the Canadian House of Commons in order to make it more effective in ensuring that the executive is to remain accountable to the citizenry.

Various scholars have noted that the House of Commons in Canada offers excessive powers to the Office of the Prime Minister. Precisely, the Prime Minister has centralized many powers, which frustrates the opposition and the backbenchers (Lenard & Simeon, 2012). Moreover, concerns have been raised on the ineffectiveness of House of Commons especially how to scrutinize and hold the executive accountable. Similarly, it has demonstrated the ability to detect various scandals in the government such as the sponsorship scandal in 2003. Finally, there is a wider concern in loss of public confidence in political institutions and politicians in Canada (Franks & Smith, 2012). Based on this report there is huge frustrations and mistrust among the members of public on the functions of House of Commons and members of Parliament (MPs).

The research by Lenard & Simeon (2012) indicates that the office of Canadian Prime Minister is a source of concern in the country because of the imbalance of power between the House of Commons and this office. For a long time, Prime Ministers in the country have usurped excessive powers over parliamentary processes such as dismissal or formation of governments. In addition, the office of Prime Minister seeks to advance or protect the partisan-political interests of the ruling party (Charlton & Barker, 2014). Therefore, in most cases, the holder of that office may perform in bad faith because of partisanship hence disregarding the principles of democracy or public purpose. Furthermore, the powers of Prime Minister may be abused, especially dissolution, prorogation and confidence as well as alteration of administration between elections (Savoie, 2013).

Research have pointed out that Canada has failed to enact explicit expectations, guidelines and rules in terms of utilization of these powers. For instance, other countries with Westminster model of parliament such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand have enacted these legislations (Lenard & Simeon, 2012). In particular, New Zealand has approved rules to institute that in case an administration loses public confidence in the House of Commons, the Governor General should determine, whether another government could be selected from the same house (Ditchburn & Fox, 2016). In addition, after a Prime Minister loses the confidence of the members of Parliament, they has no powers to dissolve the House of Commons. In this respect, it demonstrates the fact that if the Prime Minister fails to win the House’s confidence, they should remain an ordinary member (Franks & Smith, 2012).

According to Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis (2013), the Canadian House of Commons lacks crucial guidelines that expose its integrity to abuse. For instance, the Canadian prime mister has centralized a lot of powers which they uses to manipulate the parliamentary processes in a way that affects the capacity of this institution to accomplish its three key roles (Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis, 2013). Specifically, the office of Prime Minister in Canada has inhibited the House role in reviewing government laws. In addition, it is unable to examine the administration of government and to withdraw or extend confidence as it considers fit (Charlton & Barker, 2014).

Contrary to other systems of parliament especially in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, the Canadian Prime Minister possess special powers which are used to affect the effectiveness of House of Commons in the country (Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis, 2013). First, the Prime Minister has the authority to unilaterally change the programme of opposition days to hinder with the opposition’s capacity to raise crucial matters and to remove its confidence in the administration when it is needed. Furthermore, the office of the Prime Minister in Canada has the powers to pronounce what constitute or does not constitute a non-confidence vote (Savoie, 2013). Furthermore, the office of Canadian prime minister has the capacity to prorogue the House of Commons in the country in order to delay confidence votes (Franks & Smith, 2012). Similarly, they can shut down an inquiry in parliament. For this reason, this office is able to silence the representatives of people to hold the executive to account.

Similarly, the office of Prime Minister in the country has facilitated abuse of democracy in parliament since members of parliament in the ruling party has no powers to dismiss or appoint party leaders (Charlton & Barker, 2014). Therefore, the backbench MPs belonging to the ruling party have minimal role in examining and holding the administration to account. Therefore, they cannot provide adequate oversight to actions of the government (Savoie, 2013). Additionally, the Prime Minister has authorities to demand a snap election in case it seems suitable for those in power to do so. For this reason, this office limits the powers of the representative of the people to demand accountability from the executive, which consequently weakens the House of Commons (Ditchburn & Fox, 2016).

Inability to empower the Canadian House of Commons, the constitution weakens its capacity to accomplish the scrutinizing role. In addition, it adversely affects the confidence of members of parliament, especially in the opposition when trying to keep the government on its toes. Most of members of the opposition are intimidated when they try to initiate a vote of no confidence through snap elections, dissolving or proroguing the parliament (Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis, 2013). Contrary to the wishes of parliament, the Prime Minister in Canada has the discretion to make a decision in case they think the administration has lost the House of Common’s support. Most notably, these discretions are officially allocated to the Governor General by the Canadian constitution, the holders of this office have embraced the advice of the Prime Minister on these issues (Poguntke & Webb, 2005). The only exception occurred in 1926 when the Governor General refused to take advice from the Prime Minister, which set a constitutional precedent.

Various legal scholars have argued that the concentration of this amount of power in one office does not conform to strong democracies such as in the United States, Britain and Australia (Franks & Smith, 2012). Moreover, since the Governor General is normally unelected he/she is unlikely to restrain the Canadian Prime Minister from power abuse pertaining to the functions of House of Commons. The constitution is not clear on what decisions that the Governor General must or must not take when under these conditions. The principle of democracy dictates that the Canadian people have sovereign power, which is bestowed to parliament through its representatives (Savoie, 2013). Therefore, the House of Commons should have more powers relative the Governor General or the Prime Minister.

For these reasons, reforms in Canadian House of Commons are eminent. Some of the reforms that should be introduced include the fixed terms for members of parliament, proper non-confidence procedure and parliament approval before proroguing House of Commons (Franks & Smith, 2012). Since the Canadian Prime Minister has the ability to silence the Member of Parliament through snap elections, there should be a fixed term of House of Commons, which runs for four years. In this regard, the elections in the country can only take place every four years. In addition, the general elections will only be held on a definite date after expiry of this term (Poguntke & Webb, 2005). Alternatively, the Member of Parliament will be given powers to dissolve the House of Commons after two-thirds of the members pass dissolution motion leading to a new election. Subsequently, such provisions will effectively contain the powers of the Prime Minister to demand an election on government’s favourable occasion (Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis, 2013). In addition, it prevents forcing elections following the lack of confidence among the majority of members of parliament.

Secondly, the reforms should be geared towards enactment of procedures that promote beneficial non-confidence. Pursuant to these reforms, the members of the opposition can only initiate vote of no confidence against the government through a clear motion (Savoie, 2013). In addition, the non-confidence motion should also indicate the Member of Parliament (MP) who would substitute the Prime Minister and later establish a new administration that has the backing of most of the members in the House of Commons. For the non-confidence motion to succeed, it must win the simple majority of the votes (Charlton & Barker, 2014). In so doing, it would empower the House of Common to oversight the financial activities of the government without fear of intimidation from the office of the Prime Minister. In this regard, it would increase the powers of the opposition to check the ruling party against abusing its constitutional responsibilities (Dahlström, Pierre & Peters, 2011).

The ability to prorogue parliament has been abused for a long time by the Canadian Prime Minister. Therefore, the new reforms should seek to empower the House of Common so that its approval is sought before Canadian parliament is prorogued (Franks & Smith, 2012). Significantly, this kind of reform is very important because it would restrict the majority or minority government led by the Prime Minister from dissolving parliament when faced with accountability questions. In Canada, Prime Ministers have used this tactic to keep away members of parliament from reviewing their financial and audit records (Whittington, 2008). Moreover, these types of reforms would embed power to the democratic elected representatives of the people. Similarly, it would strengthen the obligation of the distinguished democratic and constitutional institution in the Canadian parliamentary democracy, that is the House of Commons (Savoie, 2013).

One of the most successful processes of entrenching these reforms is through constitutional amendment where the powers of Governor General that allows them to dissolve or prorogue Parliament would be repealed. Nonetheless, constitutional amendment in Canada is a challenging processes hence the need to use alternative processes (Dahlström, Pierre & Peters, 2011). A substitute process can be to communicate the process in an official government article. Significantly, this alternate method has been done in New Zealand through the Cabinet Manual. The process pursues to implement a clear agreement of appropriate political stakeholders that the reform be considered as convention (Whittington, 2008). Therefore, the adoption of the new provision becomes binding on and by every political actor especially Prime Ministers in Canada (Savoie, 2013). Although this would fail to eliminate the powers of the Governor General, it would pronounce what is considered an agreement.

Conclusion

Canadian parliamentary system, as compared to modern democracies, such as the United States, Britain and New Zealand has a week House of Commons. The underlying problem includes centralization of powers in the office of the Prime Minister (Aucoin, Bakvis & Jarvis, 2013). In most cases, these powers are often abused through dissolving parliament, forcing snap elections and proroguing parliament in order to silence powers. The House of Commons in Canada is also weak because it is unable to check the executives when faced with serious scandals such as those involving financial records. Moreover, as compared to the Westminster structure that is used in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, the Canadian system is prone to abuse because the Prime Minister can advance partisan interest in the House of Commons (Charlton & Barker, 2014). For this reason, country needs reforms in order to empower the House of Commons. For instance, the term of the house should be fixed in order to avoid intimidation of parliament from the office of Prime Minister and Governor General (Franks & Smith, 2012). In addition, the process of initiating vote of no confidence from the opposition should be repealed. Finally, the Prime Minister should seek parliament approval before House of Commons is prorogued.



References

Aucoin, P., Bakvis, H., & Jarvis, M. D. (2013). Constraining Executive Power in the Era of New Political Governance. In H. Barkvis & M. D Jarvis (Eds.). Governing: Essays in honour of Donald J. Savoie (pp. 45-66). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press

Charlton M. & Barker, P. (Eds.) (2014). Crosscurrents. (8th ed.) Canada: Nelson College Indigenous

Dahlström, C., Pierre, J., & Peters, B. (2011). Steering from the centre: Strengthening political control in western democracies. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Ditchburn, J., & Fox, G. (2016). The Harper factor. London: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Franks, C. E. S., & Smith, D. E. (2012). The Canadian House of Commons under stress: Reform and adaptation. In H. Barkvis & M. D Jarvis (Eds.). New public management to new political governance: Essays in honour of Donald J. Savoie (pp. 70-104). Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Lenard, P., & Simeon, R. (2012). Imperfect democracies: The democratic deficit in Canada and the United States. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Poguntke, T., & Webb, P. (2005). The Presidentialization of Politics in Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis. In T. Poguntke & P. Webb (Eds.) The presidentialization of politics: A comparative study of modern democracies (pp. 1-26). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Savoie, D. (2013). What is government good at?. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Savoie, D. (2013). Whatever happened to the music teacher: How government decides and why. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Whittington, M. (2008) The Prime Minister, Cabinet, and the Executive Power in Canada. In M. Whittington & G. Williams (Eds.). Canadian Politics in the 21st Century (7th ed.) (pp. 28-53). Canada: Nelson College Indigenous.