In Democratizing the
Constitution co-authors Peter Aucoin, Mark Jarvis and Lori Turnbull point
out that democracy has been thwarted by any number of Canadian Prime
Ministers: Joe Clark waited 142 days
before summoning parliament in 1979; Jean Chretien prorogued parliament in 2003
(as did Sir John A. Macdonald, deep in the Pacific Railway Scandal, in 1873);
and Paul Martin failed to recognize losing the confidence of the House in May
2005. However, these three political
scientists agree that Stephen Harper has taken the prime ministerial
abuse of power to even greater heights.
Prorogation in 2008 was a blatant partisan activity that undermined “the
spirit of responsible government”.[1]
Our prime minister was clearly acting
in “bad faith”.
There is no better evidence of Harper’s bad faith than his
own, earlier attempt (while acting as Leader of the Loyal Opposition) at
forming a coalition government with Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québécois and Jack
Layton of the NDP. Here is Harper’s joint letter to Governor General Adrienne
Clarkson in 2004, and it deserves to be reproduced:
As leaders of the
opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority
government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th
Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of
the government’s program.
We respectfully point out that the
opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been
in close consultation. We believe that,
should a request for dissolution arise this should give your options before
exercising your constitutional authority. (Harper, Duceppe, and Layton,
2004).[2]
Democratizing the
Constitution argues that British Prime Ministers do not share Harper’s flip-flop
trademark of acting in complete bad faith on substantial constitutional matters
because they tend to appreciate the unwritten
limits of their parliamentary conventions.[3] After all, the impulses behind the Magna
Carta (1215) are primarily English (rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period before the
Norman Conquest of 1066), and therefore not Canadian, distinct (dare I say) from
our delayed second-generation colonial descent. And it is doubtful that Harper is going to
celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta in
2015 with as much doctrinaire devotion as it did with the War of 1812, which
was a year-long display. The book argues
that Canadian prime ministers have more executive powers over parliament than
do their British, Australian and New Zealand counterparts, all adherents to the
Westminster model.[4] Consider, as well, that no British Prime
Minister can anticipate a majority in the House of Lords, because 25% of its
appointees are non-partisan (outside of any party affiliation), and these
peerages are considered life-long honours.[5]
Contrast this with Stephen Harper’s numerous appointments to
the Canadian Senate, where “merit” and “capacity” play decidedly little or no role
among potential candidates and where “disabilities” such as illiteracy are
nationally recognized – and then endowed. [6]
Again, failure at electoral politics is another sure way to get the official nod
from the Prime Minister (who in these cases of “choice” is aided by the non-elected
PMO, which now numbers some 100 officials).[7] Harper also continues to stack the government
(and fund loyalists) with the second-largest Cabinet in Canadian history,
shorter by 1 member after Mulroney’s record. [8]
The sheer bulk of numbers among Cabinet and Parliamentary Secretaries in Canada
again diffuses the sense of individual responsibility - and contrasts starkly
with the pared-down numbers of the Cabinet in Britain. This also begs the question: since Harper
makes all the decisions in his over-controlled government, why does he not even
make an attempt at gender equity in Cabinet?
It might make for good public relations.
The reason why the British are relatively more successful in
keeping to parliamentary democracy is that they retain the virtue (as Montesquieu
might put it) appropriate to a monarchy: in other words they respect the
“spirit” of the laws.[9] Despite Harper’s alleged pro-monarchist bent,
the way in which he reinvents parliamentary tradition for his own purposes suggests
that he has replaced any notion of constitutional “spirit” with the much more
Darwinian system of competitive “game theory” which in fact ignores political tradition. Failure to abide by our unwritten rules means
that we need to supplement our constitution with written laws, which is what
Australia and New Zealand have done – and this is what Democratizing the Constitution advocates for Canadians.
It is ironic that the government under Harper has hugely
expanded the Criminal Code along with mandatory prison sentences (courting populism)
but fails to see any written needs with respect to our own constitution. This lacunae demonstrates the hidden
presumption, typical of Harper Conservatives, that our political life is best
regulated by the hidden hand of election – and not by parliament itself. Montesquieu explains that the more a society
articulates its laws (and moves away from precedent), the more it veers toward
republican tendencies. Presently Canada’s
constitution is in a veritable no-man’s land – devoid both of “spirit” and written
laws. It is neither very monarchical by
virtue nor republican in predisposition:
it is supposed to be a constitutional monarchy yet needs some basic
scripting, certainly. And in this current
void grows the potential for despotism, because (now) anything goes.[10]
From the Conservative perspective, federal politics is but a
game in Canada. Politics is about
“winning” or “losing” (following the American model) – not about “responsible” parliament
or about which party has the “confidence” of the House and, thus, the right to
form a government.[11] Under the current regime the distinction
between “parliament” and “government” is also completely lost, aided by a media
unable to find a less potent term for the all-too-frequent usage known as “the Harper
government”.[12] Allow me to suggest as an alternative (as I
have indicated before): “the Government of Harper”.
The biggest problem with Harper’s constitutional abuses is
that Canadian public opinion lets him get away with it, and the excellent book Lowering Higher Education, jointly
written by sociologists James Côté
and Anton Allahar is the only publication (to my knowledge) that makes any link
between the decline of parliament in Canada and the decline in ‘the idea of the
university’ (both, originally, founded as gothic, medieval institutions). As critical thinking skills diminish among
university students, so too do we as a people put up with a dumber education (because
it is popular) all the while our own politics changes dramatically.[13]
The link is inescapable.
Lowering Higher
Education explains that the typical liberal arts and science universities
across Canada, and the USA, (as well as Britain) are now coping with
massification, vocationalism, and corporatization. Access to education is a good idea, but not
everyone is ideally suited to the academic life, something North American
universities have yet to discover. Universities have also become more associated
with “social justice” but for disadvantaged students (and maybe some aspiring
academics) the system is itself replete with impermeable barriers and “false
promises”.[14] From another point of view there is also a
high level of disengagement where high grades are granted for mediocre work.[15] Curriculum is watered down in high school
(and most certainly earlier) and grade inflation in endemic to all systems, the
end result being that first-year university students are poorly prepared in
terms of skill and personal direction: students have high expectations for top
grades but lack the requisite effort.[16] According to the 2007 National Survey of
Student Engagement (NSSE) conducted by the Centre for Postsecondary Research 84%
of grades assigned in Canadian Universities are apparently either an A or B. In the United States the proportion is even
higher – resting at a keen 90%.[17] One should question the accuracy of these
reported statistics, but the trend seems clear.
The end result is not mass education but “mass certification”
– and a diminished culture of learning, distracted by cell phones, iPods,
texting, twitter, email, employment needs, and (of course) the ever-present extracurricular.[18]
Instead of being educated in critical skills, students are trained - in university – by means of memorization, and “consumers”
can be fond of it because it is easier than thinking.[19] Perhaps my only regret is not taking that
BSc. (Hons) degree in “Surf Science” - or the degree in “Property Management”![20]
As well, the popularity of free university
on-line courses (directed, unfortunately, for the benefit of privileged social
segments – and driven by university competition for prestige) turns some
professors from scholars into stars; lost is the modest class tutor of ten
individuals. And the phenomenon of distance
education (say, at the University of Phoenix in Vancouver), aided by Wikipedia, encourages the belief that
there are better online substitutes for the classroom environment, now
preferably media “interactive” but possibly missing out on intellectual esprit.
Today’s students are occupied with “clickers” (so I am told) but my own
experience has been that young students are less argumentative; they pose fewer
significant questions; and they are often weak at thinking through issues – all
the while, it appears, in some academic disciplines multiple choice prevails.
Students also tend to regard themselves as “consumers” of education: in paying
tuition they, in effect, think of themselves as purchasing credentials from
this or that university brand; implicitly the tail tries wagging the dog here, often
regardless of institution.
As today’s students “consume” their education, numbing
themselves in the process, so Canadians “consume” their politics, veering
towards rigid ideological conformity to seek clarity and avoid troubling
ambiguity. Since Harper’s ascendance the predilection for “populism” on the
Right and Left feeds into an “anti-intellectualism” that undermines the liberal
arts and sciences with its once-firm commitment to civic action through transformative,
critical education. Moreover, Harper’s
“bad faith” of Prorogation in 2008, so much a topic in Democratizing the Constitution, feeds on the intellectual
dishonesty characteristic of closed political systems.[21] Ideologies self-justify power, and there is
nothing less honest (and less intellectual and less critical) in politics.
Harper got away with twisting unwritten truths in our constitution requiring
his “responsibility” to the House partly because education in Canada tends to
lack moral dynamism, which may or may not have something to do with its (mass)
public, secular and hyper-specialized features.
Or it may have something to do with the fact that faculty have mortgages
too, leaving less opportunity for the type of honour originating in Homer. [22]
Furthermore, the relative absence of mentorship, allowing students a free hand
in taking a smorgasbord of courses, tidbit after tidbit, weakens the moral imagination.
In other words, a university education
in Canada does not necessarily build or test “character”; rather, it induces
apathy, conformism and the obeisant.
Harper is not some “brilliant” steward (as the Canadian
media – and many pundits are so prone to suggest) – he is simply better at
turning Conservative followers (and his Cabinet) into disciplined objects (or a
machine), just as student “consumers” are treated as empty vessels before the
corporate university’s industrial process.
Conservative nationalism begs a
form of determinism which inhibits individual freedom, hence Harper’s emphasis
on the military and on Canada’s regarded emergence as a nation at Vimy in 1917,
where there really was no middle ground following years of trench warfare (as
the binary monument suggests). Put
another way: our new $20 bills (which feature the Vimy memorial) stand in
testimony to Harper’s aim - the ideal of an excluded middle. Defined by their limits, “consumers” (be they
students or be they Canada’s current crop of ideologues) are an ironic enemy of
“the open society” that they allegedly espouse, confusing liberalism with
liberal economic theory, and freedom with capitalism (hence the proselytizing argument
for trade with China, and everywhere else).[23]
Instead students turn individuality into meaningless corporate icon-bearing
badges; yes, we can all be customers at McDonalds when we are not exercising
“choice” at Starbucks (found on almost any campus).
The trouble with “responsibility” in Canada is that it is
considered an old-fashioned notion. It
has its roots in the middle ages where the oath of fealty protected lord and
vassal (hence the idea behind the Senate), where the monarchy was not above the
law (hence the supposed supremacy of House of Commons), and where the philosopher
carefully instructed his students in the trivium
and quadrivium (so numbered after
Augustine’s trinity and the four basic elements) hence the idea of the
university. With colonialism these core traditions
were transplanted onto a different continent; but “responsibility” in the
history of Canadian political thought is not an organic notion. It was weakened upon grafting (implicitly as
Europeans and other later immigrants flooded the continent), but we were
blessed with the fact that the country was considered unfinished, indicated by
the neo-gothic architecture in Ottawa (as opposed to the neo-classical in
Washington DC). Yet in the face of
modernity, or post modernity, and as many of Canada’s universities have
populations numbering in the tens of thousands, it is difficult to inculcate
“responsibility” in a sense personified by the idealism of the middle ages,
which was less than egalitarian (and prone to crusades). Today numbers of Canadians short-change
themselves by clinging to ideologies, veritable ‘crib sheets’ to life, in the
face of globalization, economic crises and scarcity, and as we search – unquestioningly
– for a medieval magician nonetheless to take dreaded responsibility. Thinking critically is still too difficult as
we now cede ancient liberties, responsibilities and political institutions to
our anti-statist statists.
In reviewing these two books in combination the conclusion
seems inescapable: the decline of parliament is connected to the decline of ‘the
idea of the university’, and Harper ultimately benefits from an uninformed, rather
populist public. But which particular reading do I recommend? Prize-winning Democratizing the Constitution can be a painful read because it is
so repetitive owing to poor editing, or perhaps because it underestimates its
audience, which may be a hard thing to do in Canadian politics. As an artful substitute may I recommend
instead Goethe’s Faust (where Faust
sells his soul to the devil) or the following excerpt from Thomas Aquinas’s De regimine principum [‘On the
Government of Princes’, circa 1267] which sums up Canada’s problems with the Chrétien
era and Harper’s regime nicely:
Again, it sometimes
happens that a community expels a tyrant with the help of some other ruler who,
having achieved power, snatches at tyranny himself and, fearing to suffer at
the hands of another what he has himself done to another, forces his subjects
into a slavery even more grievous than before.
It is often true in cases of tyranny that a subsequent tyrant proves to
be worse than his predecessor; for, while not undoing any of the troubles
inflicted by his predecessor, he devises new ones of his own, out of the malice
of his heart.[24]
While Lowering Higher
Education is a valuable book (perhaps a bit too schematic in its beginning),
Canadians should read first Democratizing
the Constitution, because it examines the terrible problem of political tyranny and abuse, but alas one has to put up with its annoying premise that the reader
is an ill-equipped (or at least forgetful) first-year university student.
[1] Peter Aucoin, Mark D. Jarvis, Lori Turnbull, Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming
Responsible Government (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2011), p. 65.
[9] The more the
government approaches a republic, the more the manner of judging becomes fixed;
and it was the vice of the Lacedaemonian republic that the ephors judged
arbitrarily without laws to guide them.
In Rome, the first consuls judged like the ephors; the drawbacks of this
were felt, and precise laws were made.
In despotic
states there is no law; the judge himself is the rule. In monarchical states there is a law; and,
when it is precise, the judge follows it; when it is not, he seeks its spirit.
In republican government, it is the nature of the constitution for judges to
follow the letter of the law. No law can
be interpreted to the detriment of a citizen when it is a question of his
goods, his honor, or his life.
See Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political
Thought, tr. and ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel
Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 76 (Part I, Book 6, chapter 3: “In which
governments and in which cases one should judge according to a precise text of
the law.”)
[18] James E. Côté and Anton
L. Allahar, Lowering Higher Education.
The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1911), p. 181.
[21] See R.W. Dyson, “Introduction” in Aquinas: Political Writings. Cambridge
Texts in the History of Political Thought. ed. and tr. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. xxxv.
[22] See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral
Theory, 3rd ed (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).
[23] Paul Ricoeur, History and Truth, tr. Charles A.
Kelbley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007), p. 270.
[24] Aquinas, “De regimine principum” in Aquinas: Political Writings. Cambridge Texts,
ed. and tr. R.W. Dyson, p. 18.
