Author: revparlc

The Changing Use of Standing Order 31 Statements

This entry is part 7 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

The Changing Use of Standing Order 31 Statements

Standing Order 31s are permitted 15 minutes of the House’s floor time each day during which selected MPs can speak for a maximum of one minute each in order to draw attention to issues or events. These have often been used to congratulate groups or individual citizens, bring attention to a problem, or make a statement on a policy issue. Increasingly, they appear to have also been used to make negative statements about other parliamentary parties or leaders, or to praise the MPs’ own party. The purpose of this article is to provide evidence of the changing nature of this venue toward partisan purposes, and to highlight the trends of change and party use of this venue in recent years.

One of the House of Commons’ least visible, and likely least known, venues has received a fair bit of attention over the past year. This recent attention to Standing Order 31 members’ statements (SO 31s) has been due in part to MPs asserting themselves to counter what they have deemed to be excessive party control over the venue, while other attention has been given to a broader analysis of how these statements have changed over time by those in academia and the media.

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Parliamentary Procedure Goes to School

This entry is part 8 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

Parliamentary Procedure Goes to School

It has been almost 10 years since the National Assembly and Université Laval joined forces to set up the first university course on parliamentary procedure in a legislative assembly. The course, Law and Parliamentary Practice, was offered for the first time during the 2005 winter semester by the university’s Law Department, as part of its undergraduate program. In January 2014, the course will be welcoming its 10th cohort of students!

The Assembly’s objective of several years standing—to make people more aware of its activities and operations—provided the initial impetus for the project, but another objective was to train a pool of potential employees for the Assembly, thus ensuring future stability and a certain continuity of the Assembly’s heritage. Collaboration between the Assembly and the university—both with deep roots in Québec City—seemed as necessary as it was inevitable, and the two institutions signed a formal partnership agreement in 2005.

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How to Govern in Coalition or Minority: The Case of New Zealand

This entry is part 9 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

How to Govern in Coalition or Minority: The Case of New Zealand

New Zealand switched electoral systems from single member plurality to mixed member proportionality for the 1996 election. The country’s leadership was well aware that this change would mean that no one political party would have a majority of seats in the legislature, so extensive study was undertaken in advance with respect to coalition and minority governments. While this advance work held the public service in good stead, the political parties failed to respond adequately to the new governing dynamics. Even with the leadership of a former senior jurist as governor general, it would take until Y2K for the political elites to learn how to operate within the new paradigm. The procedural improvements made by New Zealand in this period have most recently informed improvements to parliamentary government in the United Kingdom and Australia. This paper examines these and other lessons that New Zealand may offer Canada.

Canada, along with the United Kingdom1, Australia2. and New Zealand share the ‘Westminster-model’, so named because this design has been inherited from that used for the British at the Palace of Westminster. Also called ‘responsible parliamentary government’, a label that emerged here in Canada, it is a parliamentary system whereby the people elect representatives to a legislature and it, in turn, chooses a government. The process is guided by a set of unwritten constitutional conventions. And while these conventions offer specific guidance as to by whom and how decisions should be made, when it comes to the ‘reserve powers’ of the monarch or her governor general – dissolving parliament, proroguing a session and choosing or dismissing a prime minister – they have begun to operationalize differently in each of these countries.

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A Tribute to Gary Levy

This entry is part 10 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

A Tribute to Gary Levy

After 30 years, Gary Levy is retiring as Editor of the Canadian Parliamentary Review. This current edition is the last issue to be edited by him. Gary has been the first and only Editor of the Review and it has been through his efforts that it has grown and developed into the respected and renowned journal that it is across the country and throughout the Commonwealth. It is a source of pride for the Canadian Region of CPA to see how much the Review is read and esteemed by loyal readers everywhere.

We all know how hard Gary worked in seeking out countless articles highlighting various issues related to Parliament and the Legislatures that otherwise might not have been published in the CPR. The Editorial Board owes him a great debt of thanks for building an interest and appreciation for the work of Canadian Legislatures. The CPR under his Editorship filled an important niche by providing a vehicle for Canadian legislators to publish essays and studies relevant to other legislators, while also incorporating articles of interest to the academic community and to the general public who follow the activities of our Legislatures.

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Parliamentary Bookshelf Vol 36 No 4

This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

Parliamentary Bookshelf

The Voice of the Backbenchers: The 1922 Committee By Philip Norton, Conservative History Group, London, 2013, 86 p.

Canada and the United Kingdom supposedly share a similar form of government known as the Westminster Model but the argument can be made that we follow it in name only. The reason is not our federal constitution or the limits on parliamentary sovereignty imposed by the Canadian Charter and the Supreme Court or any other obvious constitutional distinction.

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CPA Activities: The Canadian Scene Vol 36 No 4

This entry is part 13 of 13 in the series Vol 36 No 4 (Winter)

CPA Activities: The Canadian Scene

CPA Canadian Regional Seminar

The 35th Canadian Regional Seminar of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland from October 31 to November 3, 2013. The Seminar included five business sessions over two days.  A total of 43 delegates participated including representatives from the House of Commons, each of the ten provinces and one of the territories (Nunavut). The host for the Seminar was Ross Wiseman MHA, Speaker of the House of Assembly, Newfoundland & Labrador.

The first business session dealt with Urbanization and Demographics. The presenter was Dr. Robert Greenwood from the University of Warwick. He has served as a Director and Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy in Economic Development departments in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Saskatchewan and has taught, consulted, published and presented extensively on the issues. The Chair of the session was Douglas Horne, Deputy Speaker of the British Columbia Legislature.

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Reflections on Politics and Gender

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series Vol 36 No 3 (Autumn)

Vol 36 No 3Reflections on Politics and Gender

This article looks at factors that determine the number of women in politics. It suggests that family influence and role models are important. It also outlines some personal experiences that culminated with the election of Alberta’s first female Premier.

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Empowering Ontario Legislators

This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series Vol 36 No 3 (Autumn)

Empowering Ontario Legislators

Members of Provincial Parliament are elected to represent their constituents, fight on their behalf in the Legislature and in Government and to legislate on issues of local importance. Despite their job description, Members are not always able to represent their constituents as well as they might. The practises and Standing Orders of the House make representing local constituents difficult. Changes could be made to the Standing Orders to enable local representatives to put their constituents first.

The first area we should look at relates to Private members’ Bills. A number of surveys have shown that people have little faith in Government’s ability to fix problems; it’s not hard to see why. In a previous era, Private Member’s Bills throughout the Commonwealth were used to cause sea changes in the law.

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Electronic Petitions: A Proposal to Enhance Democratic Participation

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series Vol 36 No 3 (Autumn)

Electronic Petitions: A Proposal to Enhance Democratic Participation

Declining rates of political participation demand practical reforms to enhance citizen engagement in our democratic institutions. Tabled in the House of Commons on February 13, 2013, Motion 428 aims to modernize and improve Canada’s antiquated paper-based petitioning process by establishing a system for electronic petitions. It further proposes allowing petitions to trigger short debates in Parliament if they receive a certain threshold of signatures from the public and are sponsored by at least five Members of Parliament. After providing comparative information on similar reforms implemented in other jurisdictions, this article argues that empowering citizens to initiate and sign petitions online will make our democracy more accessible, participatory, and responsive. It concludes with a brief discussion of the prospects of success for a motion submitted by an opposition Member during a period of majority government.

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