|
Under
our political system, power is heavily concentrated in
the hands of one person – the Prime Minister. However,
the new parliament, which will open on October 4th, has
the potential for significant change in the way business
is conducted in the House of Commons. This is because
no party has a majority. As the leader of a minority government,
the Prime Minister is unable to simply exercise party
discipline in the House of Commons in order to advance
his agenda.
Recognizing
this potential for change, the Leader of the Conservative
Party of Canada, Stephen Harper, the Leader of the Bloc
Québécois, Gilles Duceppe, and the Leader
of the New Democratic Party, Jack Layton, are proposing
a series of changes to the way the House of Commons conducts
its business. These proposals include some of the democratic
reforms that were first proposed by Preston Manning and
the Reform Party. For example, MPs would be allowed to
vote on all opposition motions, including on the ratification
of international treaties and on Canadian participation
in armed conflicts.
Since
much of the important scrutiny of government legislation,
policy and spending occurs in Parliament’s committees,
the new committee structure would include a majority of
opposition members. While the elected chairs of most committees
would come from the Liberal Party, the first vice-chair
will come from the Official Opposition, the Conservative
Party, and the second vice-chair from another opposition
party.
Furthermore,
members of the Conservative Party would chair the Public
Accounts Committee, the Government Operations Committee,
and the Committee on Privacy, Access to Information and
Ethics, all of which play an important role in scrutinizing
government spending.
Finally,
since a minority government is fragile by nature, the
three opposition leaders have proposed a specific definition
of which votes would result in the defeat of the government
and therefore require a new general election. They suggest
that only the final vote on the Speech from the Throne,
the final vote on the Budget, global votes on the main
spending estimates of the government and votes explicitly
identified as questions of confidence be considered as
confidence votes. The defeat of other government initiatives
would not require a new general election.
The
opposition parties believe that their joint proposal is
constructive and will ensure that Parliament becomes much
more responsive in addressing the pressing concerns that
many Canadians are facing. This proposal is an important
step forward in addressing the “democratic deficit”
in our political system. If he really understood the message
sent by the voters in the last general election, Prime
Minister Paul Martin will have no choice but to welcome
these positive suggestions.
|
