Roundup: Perverting the Westminster system

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Amidst the various detritus floating out there of post-Brexit thinkpieces, one could blink and miss a pair of posts the Andrew Potter made yesterday, but let me state that it would be a mistake to do so. The first post was a response to another trolling post from someone else who stated that a Brexit vote would never have happened in the American system because of all of its various checks and balances. Potter, however, doesn’t rise to the bait in quite the way you would think, and instead looks at the ways in which Responsible Government in the UK has gone wrong of late, which led to this situation. Things like the referendum itself not being a usual parliamentary instrument, or the fixed-parliaments legislation, and the ways in which party leadership contests have done away with the usual accountability mechanisms on the leaders that are being elected rather than selected. In other words, it’s the perversions of the Westminster system that have caused the problems at hand, not the system itself that is to blame as the original trolling post would otherwise indicate. And for those of you who’ve been following my writing for a while, this is a recurring theme with me too (which you’ll see expounded upon in my book when it’s released next year) – that it’s the constant attempts to tinker with the system that wind up being the problem because we’ve been forgetting how the system is actually supposed to operate. If we left the system alone and used it the way it’s intended, we wouldn’t have these kinds of problems creeping in, forcing people to demand yet more tinkering reforms.

The second post from Potter is a continuation from an aside in the first piece, but it’s worth a read nevertheless because it’s a quick look at ways in which the changes that America needs to its system go beyond simple electoral reform, but rather a change to a Westminster-style parliamentary system rather than its current morass that more resembles a pre-Responsible Government reflection of the “balanced constitution” model that the UK was experimenting with at the time. One imagines that it would mean turning their president into a more figurehead role than also having him or her be the head of government as well as head of state as the office is now (this is the part that Potter glosses over), but the rest of the points stand – that a confidence-based system instead of term limits would allow its heads of government to burn out in a third term rather than create independent power bases that are then used for dynastic purposes (witness both the Bush and Clinton dynasties), that problems with things like Supreme Court appointments would rectify themselves, and that it would force reforms to their party system that would largely prevent the kind of outsider demagogue problem that we saw in the current election cycle with Trump and Sanders. It’s certainly thought provoking, and a timely defence of our parliamentary institutions as they are supposed to function.

Good reads:

  • Canada Post issued a 72-hour lockout notice, and the government is not threatening back-to-work legislation.
  • Justin Trudeau has invited William and Kate to for a royal tour in Canada next year, but everyone focuses on their being photogenic rather than substance.
  • That the government is commenting on said invitation before it’s been accepted may turn out to be a bit of poor form.
  • Despite the European Commission deciding not to fast-track CETA approval, Chrystia Freeland says 90 percent of the deal could be in force by next year.
  • Justin Trudeau is pointing out to critics of our low levels of defence spending that we shoulder more than our share of the burden in NATO.
  • Harjit Sajjan is expected to give out more details on the next steps in the fighter jet replacement programme while addressing aerospace officials today.
  • The government has announced another $382 million for First Nations child healthcare.
  • Jason Kenney’s announcement today means he won’t be in Ottawa for the electoral reform committee’s meeting (or likely on the committee at all afterward).
  • Incidentally, an Ontario MPP is threatening to sue Kenney if he doesn’t retract comments he made about him excusing China’s human rights record.
  • Both Daneille Smith and Stephen Carter find Kenney’s chances of uniting the right in Alberta to be slim.
  • Michael Den Tandt tries to divine what Jason Kenney’s move to provincial politics augurs for the fate of the federal party. Susan Delcaourt agrees that it spells trouble.
  • My Loonie Politics column this week looks at why the UK Labour Party meltdown proves that Michael Chong’s Reform Act was the wrong way to go.

Odds and ends:

Senator Patrick Brazeau pleaded not guilty to impaired driving charges. Of course.

The Ottawa Citizen rounds up their electoral reform op-eds and editorials to date.