Author: revparlc

Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny of the Estimates

This entry is part 9 of 13 in the series Vol 35 No 4 (Winter)

Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny of the Estimates

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates has a mandate, amongst other matters, to review and report on the process for considering the estimates and supply. The Committee began a review of this issue in February 2012. It held 13 meetings and heard from 31 witnesses, including knowledge observers, academics, departmental officials, and international experts. On June 20, 2012, the Committee presented its report to the House of Commons. The report made 16 recommendations to improve the procedures, structure, and support related to parliamentary scrutiny of the estimates. The government presented its response to the report on October 18, 2012. This article summarizes the report’s observations and recommendations, as well as the government’s response.

One of the fundamental roles of Parliament is to review and authorize the government’s expenditure of public funds. To this end, the government presents its spending plans to Parliament in the form of “estimates,” which are then referred to and scrutinized by the appropriate standing committee. In this way, Parliament can hold the government to account for its spending. However, it has long been acknowledged that Parliament does not effectively fulfill its role and standing committees are at best making a cursory review of the government’s spending plans.

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The Ontario Legislative Library Marks 100 Years in the North Wing

This entry is part 10 of 13 in the series Vol 35 No 4 (Winter)

The Ontario Legislative Library Marks 100 Years in the North Wing

In May 2012 the Ontario Legislative Library published an illustrated book, Built to Last, to tell the story of the planning, construction and evolution of the Library in the North Wing and provides a snapshot of the facility in its 100th year. The book draws on the Library’s photo collection, original architectural drawings, archival materials of former Legislative Librarians, interviews with staff and contemporary photographs.

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Parliamentary Bookshelf Vol 35 No 4

This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series Vol 35 No 4 (Winter)

Parliamentary Bookshelf

Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice, 13th Edition, edited by Harry Evens and Rosemary Laing, Canberra: Department of the Senate, 2012, 942 p.

The publication of Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice, 13th edition is a wonderful tribute to James Rowland Odgers, Clerk of the Australian Senate from 1965 to 1979, and to Harry Evens, also Clerk of the Senate from 1988 to 2009. Odgers, who began compiling this parliamentary authority in 1953, edited five versions of the book with the sixth being produced in 1991 following his death but based on material he had prepared. Evens, the longest serving Senate Clerk, wrote all subsequent editions, co-editing the thirteenth with the current Senate Clerk, Dr. Rosemary Laing who has had twenty-two years’ experience working in the Senate. The book will undoubtedly prove invaluable to their President and committee chairs, assisting them to resolve questions on how their legislature should proceed on the business before them as well as to students of constitutionalism who monitor the Senate as to how well it fulfills its constitutional functions vis-à-vis the executive, the House of Representatives and the judiciary.

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CPA Activities: The Canadian Scene Vol 35 No 4

This entry is part 13 of 13 in the series Vol 35 No 4 (Winter)

CPA Activities: The Canadian Scene

Thirty Fourth Canadian Regional Seminar

The 34th Seminar of the Canadian Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association was held in Edmonton from October 11-14, 2012. Twenty-nine legislators from most Canadian jurisdictions attended. Only Quebec, Yukon and the federal Parliament were unable to send delegates.

The Seminar was hosted by Alberta Speaker Gene Zwozdesky and Deputy Speaker George Rogers. Other Speakers in attendance were Bill Barisoff, British Columbia, Daryl Reid, Manitoba, Gordie Gosse, Nova Scotia, Carolyn Bertram, Prince Edward Island, Dale Graham, New Brunswick, Jackie Jacobson, Northwest Territories and Hunter Tootoo, Nunavut.

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Reinforcing Parliamentary Democracy: A Project for the Canadian Region of CPA

This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series Vol 35 No 3 (Autumn)

Vol 35 No 3Reinforcing Parliamentary Democracy: A Project for the Canadian Region of CPA

This article proposes that the legislatures of the Canadian Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association establish working relationships with legislatures in the Commonwealth Caribbean along the lines of those undertaken between the Australian and the Pacific Regions of CPA. The purpose of the project would be to increase co-operation between Parliaments, including the sharing of ideas and best practices.

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The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians’ Conference in Canada

This entry is part 2 of 12 in the series Vol 35 No 3 (Autumn)

The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians’ Conference in Canada

The CWP, as part of the larger Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, works for better representation for women in legislatures throughout Canada and the Commonwealth. In July the 2012 Conference of the CWP was held in Quebec City. This article looks at the agenda of the Conference and future projects for the CWP (Canada).

The CWP-Canadian Region is governed by a steering committee that promotes the views and concerns of women parliamentarians throughout the region and is responsible for developing programs to further the aims of the CWP within the region. It is composed of one representative from each province and territory and one representative from the federal parliament . Each member serves a three-year term. Its operations are overseen by a Chair, who also represents Canada on the CWP Steering Committee – International.

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Women’s Participation in Politics: A View from the Caribbean

This entry is part 3 of 12 in the series Vol 35 No 3 (Autumn)

Women’s Participation in Politics: A View from the Caribbean

Historically, the traditional role of women was thought to be one of domestic ingenuity; managing the household with the greatest proficiency without any prospect of upward mobility. This article looks at the recent progress women have made in politics, particularly in Caribbean Parliaments.

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, an American Medical Physicist, co-winner of the 1977 Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine stated that “we still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.”

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Remembering the War of 1812

This entry is part 4 of 12 in the series Vol 35 No 3 (Autumn)

Remembering the War of 1812

This year, the Canadian government has decided to commemorate the War of 1812 bicentennial by recognizing key battles and heroes in re-enactments and other events, restoring various heritage sites pertinent to the war, and honouring a number of military regiments with connections to the militias of the war era. This article looks at the history of the War and how it has been perceived by the various parties who participated.

Two hundred years ago, an anxious American president reluctantly signed a declaration of war on Great Britain. Indeed, on the face of it, James Madison was sensible to be concerned. His new nation was in a state of political and financial disarray. Its army and navy was miniscule in comparison to the British war machine, which was in high gear fighting against Napoleon and the French. But in the nearly thirty years since the conclusion of the American War of Independence, British authorities had never fully reconciled themselves to the loss of thirteen of their colonies in North America and had been pursuing policies that angered raw, youthful American sensitivities.

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Parliamentary Tradition and the Legacy of 1812

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series Vol 35 No 3 (Autumn)

Parliamentary Tradition and the Legacy of 1812

This year, for the bicentennial of the War of 1812, many Canadians will be celebrating Canada’s military tradition. Our parliamentary traditions go back more than two hundred years and we tend to take them for granted. Had the outcome of the war with the United States been different, we may have had another governance system. The parliamentary debt that is owed for those who fought in that struggle should never be forgotten. This article suggests we should spend a bit of time reflecting on our parliamentary traditions as well as our military ones.

Our parliamentary tradition developed from two basic sources: the backwoods legislature of Upper Canada whose first sitting on September 17, 1792 near Niagara Falls was held, according to historian W.C. Croften, “under a tree, a large stone serving for the Clerk’s Table,” and the much larger provincial parliament of Lower Canada which met in Quebec City in a seventeenth century church. At least five major characteristics of the modern Canadian Parliament can be traced to the procedures and practices that these assemblies developed before 1812.

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