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Politics : Prime Minister Jean Chretien -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (116)	11/20/2002 7:26:45 PM
From: SofaSpud	Respond to of 443

Assertion: Where we really blew it was in deciding to elect party leaders by a vote of all members of the party, not just the parliamentry caucus. Query: They're elected by all party members? At a party convention? Why? Back in the days when the position of Prime Minister was less formalized, the leader (= prime minister for the party with the majority of seats) was elected by the MPs in his caucus. This was still the practice followed by the British Tory party in 1990. You may recall the riots when Maggie introduced the poll tax. Her MPs got cold feet, and decided that they'd stand zip chance of being re-elected with her as leader. So the caucus told her that John Major was their leader, and she wasn't. That was how Maggie retired -- nothing to do with what she wanted. I don't remember off the top the evolution of that process in Canada. I know both parties were electing leaders at conventions of all the membership by the 1950s. One reason given for the change was that it seemed more "democratic". I can think of a couple of more pragmatic reasons: (1) the Conservative government that was in charge during WWI imposed conscription, which was violently opposed in Quebec; thereafter a Tory MP from Quebec was about as common as a Republican in the post-reconstruction south; (2) and related to the above, the Liberals won every election from 1935 through 1955; in Canada Senators are appointed by the PM, and Liberal PMs tend to appoint very few opposition Senators, so Tory Senators got increasingly scarce. Those two things added up to the Conservative caucus becoming not very representative of the population, which may have encouraged opening things up to a broader base of all Tory party members. [I just checked, and the Liberals were doing conventions by 1919, when Mackenzie King was selected]. That cost us the big check on the PM's power. The PM (=party leader) decides who is in cabinet, who sits on boards and commissions, who goes to the Senate, who sits on the Supreme court. The party leader has to sign the nomination papers for anyone who wants to run for Parliament under his party's banner. So as Joe Blow MP, if you want any useful perqs during your term, you toe the line. If you want to run for re-election, you toe the line. And if you and your colleagues decide the PM is a disaster (we won't name any names, right JC?), there is precious little you can do about it short of utter career suicide. So yes, in theory and by tradition, we too have checks and balances. As late as the turn of the last century the Crown was still an effective check. But by and large a Canadian PM with a majority in Parliament has the kind of power that you usually associate with African despots. Yes, if he did something blatantly, egregiously contrary to constitutional practice, the Governor General could do something about it. But he appoints the GG too. The Crown's remaining power is a very blunt instrument and a last resort. Bottom line is the system is dysfunctional, and is not working as intended.