For as long as most of us can remember, those running our major political parties have wielded a great deal of power in Canada's parliamentary democracy.
The party system, with something called "party discipline" as one of its pillars, has helped ensure that most of those elected to the House of Commons or provincial legislatures have little or no freedom to diverge from the main message decided on by the leader and his/her inner circle, then carefully crafted and delivered by the party spin doctors.
That means most of those we go to the polls to elect are little more than minions of the real power brokers, which begs the question: When even those we choose to represent us are perceived to be mere pawns, need we wonder why voter turnout - only around 60 per cent in the two most recent federal elections and an appalling 50 per cent in the 2009 B.C. vote - keeps falling?
Of course, part of that problem in B.C. could well be a result of the flawed first-past-the-post voting system, which guarantees that in most ridings, post-election, more than 50 per cent of voters will be represented by someone other than the person he or she chose. That gives rise to another sad fact about the '09 provincial election - by a significant margin, we blew a chance to adopt a system of voting that, while a tad confusing, could well have helped re-invigorate B.C.'s system of governance.
But we digress.
Last month, a group of Conservative Members of Parliament made an appeal to House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer, whose ruling on a point of parliamentary privilege could well help pave the way toward other parliamentary reforms. In agreeing to use his discretion in recognizing MPs whose names don't appear on party-approved speakers' lists, but who wish to address the House, Scheer opened at least a small window into the backrooms of power.
In the past, we've written about the Harper government's shortsighted and anti-democratic practice of muzzling government scientists whose findings might make explaining the government's actions (or lack thereof) more difficult. We look forward to the successful completion of information commissioner Suzanne Legault's probe into that practice. In the meantime, Canadians can take a small measure of comfort in the fact that in the House, at least, party leaders will now find it more difficult to muzzle their own MPs.
David Burke
