"The State of Canadian Democracy"

Notes for an address
by the Honourable Stéphane Dion
President of the Privy Council and
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs
Leadership Forum

Ottawa, Ontario

February 11, 2003

Check against delivery

The Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs has offered me its prestigious forum to speak to you today about the state of Canadian democracy. I am flattered, but at the same time I ask myself why I deserve this honour.

I am not the Government House Leader. You are not, I presume, expecting a speech on past and present government initiatives concerning parliamentary, government or electoral practices. My colleague, Don Boudria, would be much better suited to speak about this impressive record from the first parliamentary initiative in 1993 (like the referral of government bills to committee before second reading) to the current Prime Minister’s ethics package: a new independent Ethics Commissioner, a new Code of Conduct for parliamentarians, and a bill on political party financing.

Although I am the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, I do not imagine that you expect a presentation on federal-provincial relations. That would be straying off topic. Federalism and democracy have strong links (there is no true federalism without democracy), but they are not the same thing.

No, I assume I was invited for reasons having more to do with my personal journey. I imagine you wish to hear the views of an academic who, after writing about democracy and Canada, has been active for seven years in the political life of this country. And so I will speak to you today in my capacity as a political scientist/politician.

I am aware that our democracy is said to be feeling a certain "malaise." According to the Law Commission of Canada: "A growing ‘democratic malaise’ has begun to characterize the Canadian political landscape."¹ This statement strikes me as exaggerated. Rather, I would say that our democracy remains a work in progress, that it is experiencing some noticeable problems, which, by the way, it shares with other democracies, and for which the solutions are not simple.

There are two themes I would like to develop in particular today. The first has to do with democratic leadership. I have chosen this theme because the organizers of this conference have identified the perception of an excessive concentration of power, in the hands of the Prime Minister and his immediate entourage, as one of the sources of concern in terms of the health of Canadian democracy. I will show you where I see the link between democracy and leadership.

My second theme is that of institutional reform as an antidote to our "democratic malaise." The conference organizers raised a hypothesis that has been the subject of numerous debates which maintains that such troubling trends as the decline in voter turnout could be reversed if we were to replace some of our institutions outright, chief among them the first-past-the-post system. I would like to tell you about my great interest in this hypothesis, but also about a certain scepticism. Caution is the order of the day, for we could do more harm than good if we went ahead with institutional changes without properly weighing the consequences first.

I will conclude my remarks with a discussion of values. The optimal functioning of institutions is an important aspect of the future of democracy, but no more so than the need to express civic values.

1. Democracy and leadership

The assertion that power is too concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and his immediate entourage can mean two things: that power is being increasingly concentrated in relation to past practices, or that it is overly concentrated in relation to an ideal standard.

As for the first assertion, the trend toward this concentration of power over time, I have yet to read anything that substantiates this. The works by Donald Savoie and Jeffrey Simpson,² are at times captivating, but to my mind they do not prove the thesis of an increasing concentration of power as the years go by. I find nothing in these works that can convince me that the Prime Minister and his immediate entourage, in particular the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister’s Office, have acquired more power under Jean Chrétien than they had under Brian Mulroney or Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

However, if I compare their descriptions with analysis of an earlier time, like the one penned by Jack Granatstein on the Mackenzie King era in The Ottawa Men,³ it is evident and without doubt, that power at that time was far more concentrated in a few hands than it is today. There is no possible comparison to what we are experiencing. The political system was less complex, there was less expertise, and there were far fewer checks and balances on power.

But expectations of democracy change. We now demand of our elected officials conduct much more irreproachable than before.

Regarding these requirements, I know that some people, including Liberals that nevertheless admire Mr. Chrétien, find that he is too authoritarian. I am afraid that on this topic, my personal experience might not be of much value. I have never worked with any prime minister other than Jean Chrétien. In fact, I have never had a boss other than him, since as you know, academics have no boss, thereby pursuing the most liberal of professions.

One day, Mr. Chrétien asked me if I liked working with him. I replied: "Not always". He asked me why not. I told him: "Because you don’t always do what I ask you to." Which shows you just how unrepresentative my judgment is in this regard!

While I have worked closely with only one prime minister, I have, on the other hand, worked with three deputy prime ministers, two finance ministers, three foreign affairs ministers, two chiefs of staff in the Prime Minister’s Office, three clerks of the Privy Council... I can confirm to you what everyone knows: power shifts a lot according to the people holding it.

Power is a very difficult concept to define. I have a friend who worked in political offices under Brian Mulroney. He told me all sorts of things regarding the concentration of power. However, I avoid concluding from his remarks that power has never been so concentrated as in the hands of Brian Mulroney and his entourage.

My thesis director, the great French sociologist Michel Crozier, taught me that power is not a possession that some have and others do not. Power is a relationship within systems of complex actions.⁴ Analysing it is never simple. That is why I suggest a great deal of caution before making peremptory judgments on a supposed trend toward concentration of power within the Government of Canada.

As for determining whether the power wielded by our prime ministers is excessive in relation to some ideal standard, we must first agree on the standard in question. Certainly, the combination of a parliamentary government and a first-past-the-post system often places our prime ministers and our premiers in a position that allows them to enjoy absolute majorities in the House or the legislative assemblies. This gives them a more solid base than that afforded a president, such as in the USA and Mexico, who has to deal with both houses of Congress, or a prime minister, such as in Israel and Belgium, leading a governing coalition of parties elected under a proportional system.

But on the one hand, one must bear in mind that in our decentralized federation, our federal government has fewer areas of jurisdiction than do the national governments of other countries. Consequently, to use a sport analogy, our Prime Minister plays on a smaller rink than his foreign counterparts even if he has more freedom to manoeuvre.

On the other hand, I see nothing questionable, from a democratic standpoint, in the fact that we in Canada are able to elect stable governments that are usually composed of a single party. We can and we should discuss the respective advantages of presidential and parliamentary systems, or of the various electoral systems, but let us agree that these choices of institutions remain within the realm of democracy. They express different modalities. Certainly, the modalities which originate from our electoral system and our parliamentary government favour the exercise of leadership. But the point is, democracy and leadership are not mutually exclusive.

I find it very appropriate that it is within its annual Leadership Forum that the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs chose the state of Canadian democracy as its theme for this year. Indeed, in representative democracies it is generally felt that elected officials must conduct themselves as leaders, that is as decision-makers who accept responsibility for their decisions. Elected officials are asked to act according to their conscience, according to what they feel is just, desirable and feasible. We do not want elected officials without conviction, who like weathervanes follow the winds of public opinion, tossed about by polls.

I know that one notion of democracy would have the elected official conform at all times to the preferences of the majority of his electors. For example, if he is against the death penalty but most of the voters in his constituency are in favour of it, he must vote for the death penalty. This notion is present in democracies, but it does not strike me as dominant anywhere. The elected official is generally recognized as having the right, if not the obligation, to make unpopular decisions if he considers them to serve the common good. His task, at election time, will be to convince his electors of his judgment as a leader. The Canadian political system favours the expression of such leadership and permits the electorate to sanction it.

It is true, however, that we do not want these leaders we elect to behave like dictators between elections. The power of elected officials is subject to law in a democracy. That is why there is no democracy without the rule of law. It is through the law that we determine electoral procedures, relations between the executive and legislative bodies, the independence of the judiciary, the division of jurisdictions in a federation, the charters that safeguard rights and freedoms, and so on. There is certainly room for improvement, but I think we can say that the rule of law is doing well in Canada.

We also require of elected leaders in a democracy the most transparency possible. Nothing they do must be concealed from the public, except what is kept secret out of respect for privacy and the public interest. A democracy such as Canada is constantly refining the mechanisms that foster this transparency: access to information laws, the reports of auditors general, ombudsmen, and so forth.

Finally, in a democracy, we also hope that the actions of our leaders are not only transparent, but that they are accompanied by fruitful and ongoing consultation and dialogue with the population. A leader must make decisions on the strength of a deep understanding of the various opinions that prevail among citizens, groups, experts and so on. Hence the hearings of parliamentary commissions, white papers, ministerial tours, etc.

Democracy is a work constantly perfecting itself. Minister Boudria could talk to you about all the government has done in this vein since 1993 and describe coming measures, such as an expanded mandate for the Ethics Counsellor, or the important bill on the financing of political parties. For myself, I would like to discuss the hypothesis according to which a significant improvement to our democracy necessarily implies fundamental institutional change, including a change to the electoral system.

2. Change our institutions? The grass isn't always greener on the other side

I follow the current debates on our institutions with great interest. It is healthy for our institutions to be continually challenged. This allows us to better understand them, improve them or eventually replace them. I am wary, however, of getting too carried away: we must avoid any ill-considered expectations of institutional change.

Certainly, our institutions and our politicians enjoy less public confidence than they did 20, 30 or 40 years ago. This is confirmed in many surveys. For instance, in 1965, 49% of Canadians felt that "government does not care what people think", a proportion which climbed to 53% in 1979, 63% in 1984 and 70% in 1990, then stabilizing (a poll released today by the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs, in the context of this forum, indicates a proportion of 68%⁵). In 1979, 15% of Canadians said they felt "very little" respect for the House of Commons, a figure which rose to 20% in 1985 and 33% in 1993.⁶

Before concluding that our institutions have had their day and need to be changed, we should ask ourselves if this problem of confidence is unique to Canada. The answer is no. It can be found in democracies that do not have the same institutions as we do. The satisfaction level with the way democracy works is average in Canada relative to other countries, neither especially high nor especially low.⁷

Take the example of party discipline. Those who say that our parliamentary institutions are outmoded take issue particularly with party discipline, which they claim prevents MPs from defending their opinions and the interests of their constituents. But as political scientist Louis Massicotte has pointed out, disenchantment with elected officials is not any higher in the United States. In that country, where there is little or no party discipline, barely one fifth of the population say they have "enormous" or "great" confidence in Congress.⁸

I agree that we have to reflect on the importance ascribed to party discipline in Canada. Mr. Chrétien has increased the number of free votes in the House, and perhaps should it be done more. But there is some validity to the principle that candidates who are elected as a team, under a particular party banner and on a common platform, should work as a team once they are elected. If we were to abandon this principle, I am sure our democracy would be no better off and the public would not have more confidence in it.

I now come to our first-past-the-post electoral system. I already pointed out its great advantage: it allows a party in power to exercise leadership and assume the consequences at election time. But this system also has some obvious disadvantages. I see four of these.

First, it makes it possible for a party to come to power without a plurality of the popular vote, as is the case in my province today. Second, election results can produce an opposition without enough MPs to play its proper role. Third, it tends to artificially accentuate the regional concentration of political parties. For example, we Liberals have almost all the seats in Ontario, even though half of Ontarians did not vote for us. In the West, we are under-represented in Parliament when we actually received the support of one quarter of the voters.

Fourth, this electoral system seems to have a mildly negative effect on voter turnout, since in a great many ridings the die appears to be cast in advance. Voter turnout is four to five percentage points higher under a proportional representation system.⁹

The ideal would be to find a mixed formula that lets us preserve the advantages of our electoral system while eliminating its weaknesses. I am following research in this field with great interest. But here again, I feel the need to caution against unrealistic expectations.

For example, while it is true that proportional representation encourages slightly higher voter turnout, the countries that have adopted it have seen their turnout decline in recent years as well.¹⁰ They have not managed to escape this unfortunate trend with which we are too familiar here in Canada.

The lack of public confidence in politics also exists in democracies that employ proportional representation. New Zealand offers a telling example. That country abandoned the Westminster system for a proportional representation formula in October 1996. Three years ago, Professor Jonathan Boston of the School of Government at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand drew from this experience a conclusion which is not at all encouraging, even though he is in favour of this electoral system: "[On the basis of New Zealand’s experience to date], [a]ny suggestion, therefore, that electoral reform may provide a cure for the constitutional discontent that currently afflicts many democracies can be quickly dismissed. Indeed, there is a risk that it might simply make matters worse."¹¹

We must also take into account the effects that a change of electoral system would have on our type of decentralized federalism. Most of the countries that have retained proportional representation have only a single parliament that really matters. Here in Canada, there are few things that our federal government can do without having to negotiate with the provinces. When our fourteen federal, provincial and territorial first ministers meet and come to an agreement, as they did last week on health care, they are in a position to honour that agreement. They do not have to renegotiate it later with fourteen parliamentary coalitions.

To take another example, when the Government of Canada took steps to establish the early childhood development initiative, it was necessary to negotiate for almost two years with the provinces and territories. Imagine the additional time it would have taken if we had had to negotiate with governments preoccupied with maintaining parliamentary coalitions as best they could.

There is sometimes talk of adopting in Canada the electoral system used in Germany, which allows much room for proportional representation. Germany, by no means, figures as a country having "one single parliament that really matters," to use my earlier expression. Even so, German federalism is more centralized than ours. Its constitution or Basic Law provides for no fewer than 26 concurrent jurisdictions, not just three as is the case here. It also establishes seven other spheres where the federal parliament can institute framework laws requiring the Länder to enact legislation in compliance with those laws. Much of the activity of the Länder consists in enforcing federal laws they have helped to shape through the Bundesrat, the equivalent of what in Canada would be a provincial senate, if it existed. In Germany, even the salaries of public servants in the Länder and municipalities have to comply with rules set by federal framework laws.

I am not saying that we have nothing to learn from German federalism. I simply maintain that even if we applied the German electoral system to Canada, we may not get the expected result because our institutions are different.

Today, with globalization, not only must our federal government negotiate with the provinces, but increasingly it must also take part in supranational decision-making forums. I have noted you are discussing this phenomenon in one of your panels. In such a context, Canada finds itself more than ever obliged to exercise leadership if it wants to promote its interests both at home and abroad. We do not want a poorly designed reform of the electoral system producing in Canada a situation analogous to what the Germans call a joint-decision trap (Die Politikverflechtungs-Falle), that is, an overly cumbersome decision-making system.¹²

Conclusion

In summary, I would like to see us reflect on improving our institutions, and eventually replacing them, very openly but also prudently, because rash reforms would do us great harm. In conclusion, I would add that we need to reflect not only on our institutions, but also on the values upon which democracy is founded.

Let us return to the very worrisome example of declining voter turnout, a trend which is affecting democracies whether their regime is presidential or parliamentary, whether their electoral system allows for proportional representation or not. In Canada, this decline has been found to be statistically verifiable only among young people, that is, voters born after 1970, in particular among less-educated youth:¹³ "On the contrary, turnout has remained fairly stable among those who were born before 1970."¹⁴ The same phenomenon seems to be occurring in the United States.¹⁵

Contrary to what one might think, there is no indication these young people are getting involved in alternative forms of political action in great numbers. They are simply less informed and less interested in politics than other voters: "The low level of interest and information of those born after 1970 is clearly a crucial source of their high level of abstention."¹⁶ Similarly, there is much less sense of a moral obligation or duty to vote among young people than among older voters.¹⁷ I would not be surprised if this were found to be true in the United States and Europe as well.

What is it then with our ability – or inability – to connect with and interest young people? We would all like to know the answer, but allow me to venture one hypothesis. Samuel Huntington¹⁸ has written that democracy bears within itself an anti-establishment ethic. The more the values of deference and respect for authority lose their hold on people to the benefit of the democratic values of liberty and equality, the more people tend to mistrust those who govern them. I believe it is primarily this values dynamic that is at the source of the "democratic malaise."

Could it be that this shift in values is particularly pronounced in young people? Perhaps they are more mistrustful of politics than their elders without being any the less democratic? Whatever the case, we have to find a way of making contact with them, to persuade them to take an interest in politics, because politics is interested in them.

So I hope there is at least as much discussion of the transmission of civic values as there is of improving institutions. By advancing these two thoughts, forums such as this one will help Canada to progress towards ever more democracy.

1. Law Commission of Canada, Renewing Democracy: Debating Electoral Reform in Canada, Discussion paper, (Ottawa, 2002), p. 39.

2. Donald J. Savoie, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 440 pages; Jeffrey Simpson, The Friendly Dictatorship (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001), 238 pages.

3. J. L Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 333 pages.

4. Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, Actors and Systems: the Politics of Collective Action (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 333 pages.

5. Pollara Survey, "Canadian Society Today", February 2003. See also: André Blais et al., Anatomy of a Liberal Victory: Making Sense of the Vote in the 2000 Canadian Election (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002), p. 55.

6. I discuss these poll results and others on the same subject in "Rising Cynicism: Who is to Blame?," Canadian Parliamentary Review (Winter 1993-1994), pp. 33-35.

7. Richard Nadeau, "Satisfaction with Democracy: The Canadian Paradox," in Neil Nevitte (ed.), Value Change and Governance in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), pp. 44-45.

8. Louis Massicotte, "Parliament: The Show Goes on, but the Public Seems Bored," in James P. Bickerton and Alain-G. Gagnon (eds.), Canadian Politics, 2nd ed. (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1994), p. 339.

9. André Blais and A. Dobrzynska, "Turnout in Electoral Democracies," European Journal of Political Research, 33 (1998), pp. 239-261.

10. Anne-Marie Grenier, Le déclin de la participation électorale dans les démocraties établies depuis 1961: l'influence du mode de scrutin, Masters thesis presented to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for a degree in political science, Université de Montréal, 2002.

11. Jonathan Boston, "Institutional Change in a Small Democracy: New Zealand’s Experience of Electoral Reform," address given in June 2000 at a symposium entitled Parliamentary Government at the Millennium: Continuity and Change in Westminster Systems, organized by the Canadian Study of Parliament Group, June 10-11, 2000, p. 43. During a telephone conversation on February 10, 2003, Professor Boston confirmed to me this less than encouraging conclusion is still the case today.

12. Fritz W. Scharpf, "The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration," Public Administration, 66 (1988), pp. 239-78.

13. Blais et al, op. cit., p. 46 - 50.

14. Ibid, p. 60.

15. See chapter 3 in: Warren E. Miller et J. M. Shanks, The New American Voter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 640 pages.

16. Ibid, p. 54.

17. Ibid, p. 58.

18. Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1981), 303 pages.