Workplace Harassment Policy in a Parliamentary Context

This entry is part 1 of 10 in the series Vol 39 No. 2 (Summer)

Workplace Harassment Policy in a Parliamentary Context

Creating and implementing guidelines that directly affect working relationships in a context where there are many separate employers, like Quebec’s National Assembly, presents some unique challenges. In this article, the author outlines how a multi-party Working Group examined best practices for preventing and managing situations involving workplace harassment and adapted them to suit the parliamentary context. In-depth, methodical deliberations by the Working Group resulted in a consensus policy that was proactively communicated to stakeholders.

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Organizing the Hall of Power

This entry is part 3 of 10 in the series Vol 39 No. 2 (Summer)

Organizing the Hall of Power

This article attempts to define the work of federal parliamentarians’ staffers so that their position, responsibilities, and ultimately their role can be better understood by parliamentary observers and the public at large. The author first discusses the role of an MP’s staff member in order to build a job description of common tasks and responsibilities. Then he explores and defines some possible organizational structures of Members of Parliament’s offices based on his own observations.

Much has been written about the roles of Members of Parliament and the operations of Canada’s Parliament in order to better understand how Canada is governed. Tragedy in the Commons, for example, endeavored to conduct “exit interviews” with Members of Parliament to discuss how they experienced elections, governing, party politics, dealing with constituents’ issues, and ultimately defeat or retirement from public life. But while the role of Members of Parliament may be becoming more well known, the same cannot be said for their right-hand men and women: Canada’s political staffers.

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The Crown and Prime Ministerial Power

This entry is part 4 of 10 in the series Vol 39 No. 2 (Summer)

The Crown and Prime Ministerial Power

This article elaborates on the relationship between the Crown and prime ministerial power through the lenses of the confidence convention and royal prerogatives. The article highlights how the prime minister’s status as the Crown’s first councilor complicates the operation of the confidence convention, the means which the House ultimately determines who heads the governing ministry. The article then outlines how the prime minister’s discretionary authority to exercise key royal prerogatives serves as the foundation of the centralization of government around the first minister. Rather than seeing the centralization of power in the prime minister as a form of ‘presidentialisation’, the article argues that it is more accurately understood as a form of ‘regalisation’, owing to its source in royal authority.

Queen Elizabeth II surpassed Queen Victoria’s time on the throne on September 9, 2015. The Canadian government marked the occasion with a commemorative bank note, stamp, and coin. Monarchists celebrated the event and politicians made statements. But most Canadians probably shrugged. Polls indicate that Canadians are ambivalent toward the monarchy.¹ If we were to rewrite the Canadian constitution from scratch, it’s unlikely that Canada would have a sovereign. There is no longer a deep affection for the Crown as an institution or unifying symbol of the nation. A notable number of Canadians hold these feelings, of course, but no honest monarchist can think that most people share these sentiments. The Queen herself is admired, and Will and Kate draw crowds and sell magazines, but the Crown is not revered.

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Indigenizing Parliament

This entry is part 5 of 10 in the series Vol 39 No. 2 (Summer)

Indigenizing Parliament

While acknowledging the deep ambivalence on the part of the Indigenous political class about the desirability of greater representation in Parliament, based on a long history of settler colonialism and formal political exclusion, the author posits that it would be a mistake to leave parliamentary reform out of the broader exploration of reconciliation that is currently underway. Without prejudicing outcomes by advocating for particular reforms, the author outlines some historic models from Canada and aboard and some of the challenges that participants will face when restarting this conversation.

Indigenous peoples play an ever more central role in political life in Canada. Episodes like the Idle No More movement, or ongoing contention over resource extraction attract a new kind of attention and intellectual investment on the part of non-Indigenous peoples. The challenge of building a more consensual political community in the aftermath of settler colonialism is an entirely mainstream preoccupation, more now than ever before. But curiously, the question of reforming political institutions has rather receded from view. In particular, parliamentary reform and “decolonization” have existed in separate intellectual universes.

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Canadian Study of Parliament Group Seminar

This entry is part 6 of 10 in the series Vol 39 No. 2 (Summer)

Canadian Study of Parliament Group Seminar

From backbenchers, to cabinet ministers to first ministers, parliamentarians rely on the assistance of political staff to fulfill their role’s many responsibilities. Yet staffers’ roles in parliamentary democracy are not well understood. Noting the growing number of ministerial staffers and a similar growth in the perception of their influence over government decision-making, on March 18, 2016, the Canadian Study of Parliament Group convened a seminar featuring two panels of current and former political staff, public servants and academics to examine the role of staffers and their interactions with the public service. Panelists were also asked if they believed reforms were required to address the unique position that political staff hold in relation to parliamentary government.

First Panel

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Has the Senate Changed?

This entry is part 4 of 12 in the series Vol 39 No.1 (Spring)

Has the Senate Changed?

With the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada reference making transformative reform or abolition of the Senate unlikely in the near future, the author asks if informal or incremental reforms have occurred in the past 30 years. Using quantitative data, he finds that the upper chamber has become more representative of aspects of Canadian diversity in the sociological sense. Women, Aboriginal people and official-language minorities are represented in greater numbers in the Senate than in the House of Commons. The data concerning the Senate’s effect on legislative business in Parliament reveals a somewhat uneven record.

Despite the absence of major constitutional amendments in recent decades, the Senate of Canada has changed in certain respects; however, these changes have not improved Canadians’ generally negative view of the Senate.

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Some Suggestions for Incremental Reform of the Senate

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series Vol 39 No.1 (Spring)

Some Suggestions for Incremental Reform of the Senate

The provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867 respecting the qualification and disqualification of Senators are outdated. They can be modernized without controversy and early action to accomplish that could be the impetus for Parliament and the Legislatures to address more significant aspects of Senate reform.

*Subsequent to the acceptance of this article for publication and immediately prior to publication, on March 10, 2016 Senator Dennis Glen Patterson introduced Bill S-221 and gave notice of a constitutional amendment resolution the combined effect of which, if adopted, will be to substantially effect the first three changes suggested by the author. Continue reading “Some Suggestions for Incremental Reform of the Senate”

Interest Groups and Parliamentary Committees: Leveling the Playing Field

This entry is part 6 of 12 in the series Vol 39 No.1 (Spring)

Interest Groups and Parliamentary Committees: Leveling the Playing Field

Parliamentary committees in Canada are undeniably important resources for interest groups – particularly in terms of gaining information, articulating one’s message on public record, and establishing oneself as a legitimate stakeholder in the eyes of politicians, government and the public. However, one of the intended functions of standing committees — to serve as a venue for non-governmental influence on policy — has largely proved to be a canard in Canada’s House of Commons. The first part of this article prioritizes the challenges facing non-governmental actors who wish to exert policy influence through parliamentary committees. It asserts that standing committees’ function of carrying out studies has more surmountable challenges than the function of legislative reviews. The second part of the article emphasizes that two developments are imperative in order to realize the potential committee studies hold: first, the open-ended nature of studies and the inadequacy of follow-up mechanisms should be addressed (with the scope of questions designed to feed into a pipeline of future legislative activity wherever feasible), and second, long-overdue accountability mechanisms should be introduced to ensure that the government responds to committee reports upon request.

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Rule by Regulation: Revitalizing Parliament’s Supervisory Role in the Making of Subordinate Legislation

This entry is part 7 of 12 in the series Vol 39 No.1 (Spring)

Rule by Regulation: Revitalizing Parliament’s Supervisory Role in the Making of Subordinate Legislation

This article highlights the increasing use of regulations, or subordinate legislation, as a source of federal law. Notably, the Supreme Court of Canada has observed the importance of regulations in ascertaining a legislature’s intent with regard to a certain matter even though it is the executive and not Parliament that makes regulations. The author explains the current process in place to provide parliamentary oversight to regulations and suggests that Canada may want to adapt the UK model by dividing the existing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations into two separate committees. Methodologically screening new regulations under the proposed committee system would play an important role in supporting transparency in government by helping to publicize the exercise of legislative power by the executive, alleviating concern over governments using the regulation-making process to shield important public policy choices from public scrutiny.

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The Great Fire of 1916 on Parliament Hill

This entry is part 8 of 12 in the series Vol 39 No.1 (Spring)

The Great Fire of 1916 on Parliament Hill

On a bitterly cold evening on February 3, 1916, Members of Parliament were in the House of Commons to participate in an evening session when a fire started on one of the lower shelves in a Reading Room at 8:55 p.m. Four minutes later the first fire engine arrived on the Hill as flames engulfed the roof of Centre Block. At 9 p.m., the Chief Doorkeeper of the House of Commons alerted MPs by yelling, “There is a big fire in the Reading Room; everybody get out quickly!” Quick thinking by Librarian Michael Connolly MacCormac saved the structure from complete destruction when he dispatched a messenger to close its iron doors. At the stroke of midnight the bell in the Victoria Tower came crashing down. The fire raged towards the Senate by 12:45 a.m., but firefighters’ efforts to contain it allowed many pieces of art to be saved from the Senate side. It was 2:00 a.m. before firefighters had it under control (though it continued to smolder for much of the next day and flared up twice more). Seven people lost their lives in the Great Fire of 1916 and the Centre Block was in ruins. Reconstruction, which began later that year, and was completed in 1922 (with the Peace Tower being completed in 1927).

Sources:
Library of Parliament
Library and Archives Canada
Senate of Canada