There was another example of the shocking level of civic illiteracy in our elected officials yesterday as Green Party leader Elizabeth May again trotted out the canard that political parties aren’t in the constitution. She was making a perfectly good point of privilege around the way that independent MPs and those from not officially recognised parties are being adversely affected by rules changes that are being carried forward from the last parliament, and that’s fine, but she’s shockingly wrong about the constitutional status of parties. Why? Because while political parties are not literally in the Constitution Acts of 1867 or 1982, they are part of the grounding framework of our system of Responsible Government, which is in and of itself a constitutional convention – part of our unwritten constitutional inheritance from the United Kingdom. It shouldn’t need reminding but apparently it does because apparently nobody learns civics any longer, but constitutional conventions are constitutional. In fact, they are just as enforceable as elements of the written constitution. And lo and behold, the preamble to the 1867 Act is:

Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom

This is exactly where our Responsible Government framework lies. The UK has an unwritten constitution, and its constitutional conventions have stood the test of time, and this is precisely why May and others who follow her logic are dead wrong. Parties are at the heart of Responsible Government because it’s how a government gains and maintains confidence. The system simply cannot hold with hundreds of “loose fish” all vying for attention and reward. (If you try to bring up the party-less territorial governments, smack yourself upside the head because you simply cannot scale up a consensus model from 19 members in NWT or 22 in Nunavut to 338 in Ottawa. It is a complete impossibility). Does that mean that we don’t currently have problems with the powers accumulated by party leaders? No, we absolutely do, but that’s also because we tinkered with the system of selecting those leaders, presidentializing them with massive membership votes rather than caucus selection that keeps them accountable in the Responsible Government tradition. But parties are absolutely essential to the functioning of our parliamentary system, and the fact the written portions of our constitution are silent on that fact is indicative of absolutely nothing. If one relies solely on the written portions and not the constitutional conventions, they are wholly ignorant of our system of government, and need to be called out as such.

Good reads:

• Leading constitutional experts went to Senate committee yesterday and excoriated C-14 as being unconstitutional. Expect some big amendments.
• Meanwhile, Jane Philpott keeps insisting that provincial regulations on assisted dying aren’t enough, despite expert advice to the contrary.
• The government also says it’s “open to amendments” to the RCMP unionization bill, despite rejecting those amendments in the Commons.
• The government has started building its narrative to buy Super Hornets by talking about the “growing capability gap” left by their predecessors.
• The head of UN Women said that Trudeau’s declaration of his feminism is “lighting a fire” globally. Canada’s back, etc.
• A group of off-reserve First Nations leaders protested at Rideau Hall, apparently not grasping that under Responsible Government, the GG can’t hear their grievances.
• Attempts to start social finance projects are being stymied by complexities in the system, including the threat that charities could lose their status.
• Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has announced that he’ll step down at the end of the year, a year-and-a-half early.
• There are concerns that, based on the UK’s experience, that the new PCO “Deliverology” unit could be another exercise in central control.
• Lobbying communications have doubled over the last year! Yes, because there’s a new government and they need to communicate their positions…
• Ontario NDP MPP and outspoken Mulcair critic Cheri DiNovo has announced she’ll run for the federal leadership, hoping to return the party to the left.
• Some MPs are getting additional office budget top-ups to help “balance” out the demands of larger geography that demands more than one riding office.
• Andrew Coyne looks at some issues with implementing a minimum income scheme in Canada.
• Kady O’Malley gives an explainer of what happens if the Commons and the Senate can’t agree on a bill.
• Jen Gerson looks at Trudeau as an example of a resurgence in theatricality in our politics.

Odds and ends:

NDP MP Niki Ashton went to North Dakota over the weekend to campaign for Bernie Sanders, because getting involved in another country’s politics seems like a smart thing to do…