The continued fascination with the particular garbage piece of legislation known as the Reform Act never ceases to amaze me that so many people, and even fairly credible organizations, can continue to treat it like it's a good thing and that it is somehow a panacea to some of the woes in our democracy. We got yet another example of that this week from the Samara Centre for Democracy, who decided to tally the different adoption rates of the Act's four main parts by the various parties over the previous parliament as well as the current one.
"My colleagues and I were frustrated with the lack of clarity around the #ReformAct votes and their effects on [Canadian politics], and so decided to put together a definitive record of the results so far," tweeted Samara researcher Paul Thomas. "The results may SHOCK you [sic]."
Well, the results are in, and they're not shocking in the slightest that none of the parties have bothered adopting the particular measures that would let the caucus trigger a leadership review, and that only the Bloc have adopted the measure that would allow caucus to choose an interim leader should they oust the current one. Samara's analysis was also aghast that the Liberals and NDP didn't adopt the measure that would allow caucus to get a say as to whether or not someone could be booted from their ranks.
"These might seem like minor changes, but adopting them could go a long way to give MPs more independence to represent the communities that elected them," the report says. "For instance, if caucus membership is controlled by MPs, then the party leader can no longer threaten to expel those who may wish to vote against the party line. The leader would also know that failing to listen to MPs' concerns could eventually result in the launch of a leadership review."
The problem inherent in this line of thinking is that it fundamentally doesn't understand that the garbage Reform Act did absolutely nothing to empower MPs or give them more independence in fact, it did the exact opposite. MPs already had all the power they need to organize themselves and their caucuses, and even to remove an unpopular leader if they actually wanted to. These new rules didn't give MPs any new powers or abilities rather, it placed limits around what they could already do. The most egregious example is around the so-called ability to trigger a leadership review (meaning they can't even effectively oust a leader who is proving to be bad news for the party), and the percentage votes required to do so. Ensuring a twenty-percent threshold to even trigger a vote does more to protect a leader than not having these rules in place because we've seen examples where leaders were pressured to resign when a mere one or two MPs or MLAs (as was one provincial example) came out publicly. The Reform Act rules neuter that entirely and sets a threshold so high that there would need to be open revolt and a split in the caucus before anything like this could be triggered, even if parties voted to adopt it. Add to that, even if they voted for the provision about letting caucus decide whether or not to boot individual MPs, it does nothing about the power of the leader to sign nomination papers, so it's a hollow gesture at best.
Part of the problem here is that the Act was oversold when Michael Chong first proposed it, and when it was neutered by amendments to make it palatable for the various parties, it became a politician's syllogism We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this. They didn't, in fact, need to do anything, if they understood their roles as MPs, but that's part of the problem most MPs don't actually understand what their roles are, and they start inventing fanciful ones for themselves rather than the actual work of holding government to account.
Media hasn't helped with this in the slightest and the Samara piece did note that at least. At the time the Act was first adopted, the narrative around it was that this was a way for the Conservatives to push back against the "tyrant" Stephen Harper, as everyone was convinced that he was a Bond villain holding his MPs hostage and that they would gladly take some kind of mechanism to push him out. That was never actually true, but it's certainly why all parties voted overwhelmingly in favour of it. At the beginning of this parliament, when the caucuses were voting on it, it became wrapped up in the narrative that this would allow the Conservatives to dump Andrew Scheer after his failed campaign and his initial refusal to fall on his sword for it. Add to that, there is the pre-existing contradiction in the media where we constantly demand that MPs act more independently, and then immediately bellow about the party leaders "losing control" of their caucus when an MP does step outside of the lines and vote contrary to the rest of the party, thus reinforcing the discipline in the first place.
What bothers me so much about this report by Samara is the fact that they continue to be completely credulous about this particular piece of legislation, and its aims around the so-called "independence" of MPs. (Samara is often credulous about things parties tell them, such as when they believed the NDP telling them that they held open nominations in 2011 when we know for a fact that's not how their Quebec candidates were selected in advance of the "Orange Wave.") For a charity devoted to improving democracy, they continue to look for quick fixes that don't address the underlying problems with our system (such as the bastardized way in which leaders are chosen), and when they simply repeat the spin about legislation like this without actually deconstructing it, it means that their credibility takes a hit when we need what they should be offering more than ever.
Photo Credit: National Post
