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Democracy in Canada Democracy in Canada The Disintegration of Our Institutions Donald J. Savoie McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019 ISBN 978-0-7735-5902-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-0040-2 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-2280-0041-9 (ePUB) Legal deposit third quarter 2019 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding was also received from the Donald J. Savoie Institute. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Democracy in Canada : the disintegration of our institutions / Donald J. Savoie. Names: Savoie, Donald J., 1947– author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190117028 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190117052 | ISBN 9780773559028 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780228000402 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228000419 (ePUB) Subjects: LCSH: Democracy—Canada. | LCSH: Canada—Politics and government. Classification: LCC JL186.5 .S35 2019 | DDC 320.971—dc23 This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon. Contents Preface Introduction PART ONE THE CONTEXT 1 Understanding Democracy 2 Understanding the Roots of Canadian Democracy 3 Canada: Setting, People, and Culture 4 Canada Then 5 Canadian Federalism Now 6 Everything Canadian Is Regional, Except National Political Institutions PART TWO THE CHANGING FACE OF CANADIAN DEMOCRACY 7 Getting Elected: The Deinstitutionalization of Political Parties 8 The Commons: The Institution That Fails 9 The Senate: The Institution That Never Was 10 The Cabinet: The Institution That Once Was 11 The Media: The Lost Institution 12 A Nowhere Man, in a Nowhere Land: Public Servants Now Operate in Two Institutions 13 The Public Service: An Institution with Six Goalies 14 New Forces above the Fault Line PART THREE WHY AND WHAT NOW? 15 Is Canadian Democracy Failing? 16 Looking Ahead Notes Index Preface Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), more than any other political theorist, captured my interest as a student of political science. I was fascinated that an aristocrat from France would return from an extended visit to the United States with fresh insights on the workings of democracy in America and how it contrasted with what he saw in Europe. The last thing an aristocrat would wish to do, I thought, was to explore the structure of democracy and report back to Europe on its strengths. I decided in the summer of 2015 to reread his classic Democracy in America. Tocqueville’s work resonates still. He explored issues that matter as much today as they did in the 1830s: the relationship between self-interest and collective action, why central governments adore uniformity, what the meaning of equality is, and how career politicians approach their work. He made the point that democracy is not satisfied with existing equality but tries to equalize everything. He wrote about the importance of a free press and the sovereignty of the people but warned against an ill-informed public opinion. He also tied democracy to equality of condition and warned against the tyranny of the majority. What struck me in rereading Tocqueville was how much representative democracy had evolved since I was an undergraduate student. Few would have foreseen forty years ago that democracy, however broadly defined, would sweep aside communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. C.B. Macpherson, one of Canada’s leading political scientists in the 1960s and ’70s, wrote that “most of Eastern Europe has been brought into the Soviet orbit, and is no longer regarded as likely to move into the liberal- democratic pattern.”1 He misread the situation. He was hardly alone. No one could have predicted that we would witness the Arab Spring, that China would embrace a form of a market economy, that access to information legislation would become the norm for democratic states, that government bureaucracy would lose standing to the extent that it has, and the list goes on. One of the preoccupations of political science students in the late 1960s and early ’70s was how best to promote “participatory democracy.” But that was then. Howard Doughty summed it up well when he wrote, “It has been some time since the phrase participatory democracy was uttered in polite company. For many people of a certain age, however, the term evokes fond memories.”2 I decided to take stock of the health of Canada’s democracy. Canada’s political institutions appear in good health, at least when compared with those of many other countries. The Arab Spring remains a work in progress; Russian oligarchs and the country’s political leaders have hampered the development of the country’s democratic institutions; and virtually all western liberal democracies are confronting important challenges, including declining voter turnout and low morale in government bureaucracies.3 We Canadians can be proud of how our national political and administrative institutions operate, at least when compared to those of other countries. Canadian democracy, however, is not without problems. A survey of Canadians reveals that they have little trust in their Members of Parliament, that politics repels more Canadians than it attracts, and that “the legitimacy of our entire democracy is at risk.”4 Robertson Davies wrote: “Canada is not a country you love. It is a country you worry about.”5 I decided to write this book because Canada is well worth worrying about. I also take to heart then president Obama’s call to action in his farewell address that applies as much to Canada as it does to the United States: “Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted. All of us should be throwing ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions.”6 This is my contribution to Canadian institutions. At the risk of sounding Olympian, I consider this book my magnum opus. The book deals with the two issues that have dominated my work since I published my first book on Canadian federalism in 1981. I have since published extensively on regionalism, economic development, federal-provincial relations, on Canada’s political-administrative institutions, particularly on how the prime minister and Cabinet work with Parliament, and on relations between politicians and public servants. In this book, I seek to bring the various questions raised in my earlier work to pose – and hopefully start to answer – a much broader question: how healthy is Canadian democracy? I hasten to add, however, that I do not borrow sections from my earlier books. This book is not a second edition of any of my work on federalism, regionalism, or the machinery of government. It is a treatise on some of the most pressing questions for Canadians: who holds political power, how does one secure power, how do we hold accountable those who wield power, and how do our national political and administrative institutions decide and why. This book hardly constitutes a definitive, or even the only, answer. I doubt that such a book could ever be written. I am certainly not the only student of government exploring issues that continue to shape our political and administrative institutions. My hope is that this book will encourage others to focus their interest on the structure of our democratic institutions and on how and why they can and should be improved. I recognize that this is an ambitious book, one that addresses a broad theme and the workings of several institutions. The specialists, many of whom I quote in this book, will very likely be left sur leur faim, thinking that some issues are unattended while others are not fully explored. To be sure, working from a narrow perspective holds important advantages. One can explore completely the details of an issue from several angles. I was not able to do this, particularly when reviewing certain issues. But the price is well worth paying, given the current state of Canadian democracy. My career has given me an excellent vantage point to review the health of Canada’s democracy. I have published extensively on the role of the prime minister, bureaucracy, and regionalism. But these tell only part of the story. I have had the good fortune of preparing a report for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on economic development in Atlantic Canada, of having several one-on-one discussions with four prime ministers in office: Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Paul Martin. I have had many lengthy discussions with several former federal Cabinet ministers including, among others, Roméo LeBlanc (a Liberal) and Elmer MacKay (a Conservative). I also had numerous one-on-one discussions with several clerks of the Privy Council, notably Gordon Robertson, Paul Tellier, Jocelyne Bourgon, Mel Cappe, and Wayne Wouters, and a number of line department deputy ministers, among others, Peter Harder (at Foreign Affairs and later as government representative in the Senate), Richard Dicerni (at Industry Canada), and Michael Horgan (at Finance). I always came away from these discussions with a deeper understanding of the workings of government. I also worked for two of the leading senior public servants of the day, Gérard Veilleux and John (Jack) Manion. I served at the assistant deputy minister level in the Treasury Board Secretariat in Ottawa in 1987–88. If I have a message for the next generation of political scientists and students of public administration and public policy, it is to go out and meet those who are in the thick of things trying to make the policy-making process and the machinery of government work. I could not have produced the bulk of my publications without seeking the views and advice of practitioners. For example, when I set out to write a book on the work of central agencies, I envisaged something different than the final product, Governing from the Centre. I had a breakfast interview with a senior Cabinet minister in the Chrétien government, who told me, “You academics have it all wrong – Cabinet is not a decision-making body, it is a focus group for the prime minister.” Later interviews substantiated this view. I also owe a special thank you to those who have travelled the territory before me, and I acknowledge many of my intellectual debts in the endnotes. Others, however, are not so formally acknowledged. I owe a very special thank you to my wife, Linda, for putting up once again with my insatiable appetite for work. I am very fortunate that she has, over the years, always supported me despite my desire to work long hours and to sacrifice too many weekends for my research. Gabriel Arsenault, a bright young scholar full of promise at my university, read the manuscript and never hesitated to identify its shortcomings. B. Guy Peters, a friend of many years and a co-author, read parts of the manuscript that I was struggling with and provided invaluable advice. I owe a special thank you to two anonymous reviewers. Both did their homework, both presented a detailed assessment of the manuscript, and both did more than one can possibly expect from a reviewer. Their comments and suggestions made for a much-improved book. Finally, I owe a heartfelt thank you to Philip Cercone who has always supported my work from my very first book to this one. No author could be better served. I