Category: Feature

A Constituency of Millions: “Elected” Senators Discuss Alternatives to Operating a Province-wide Constituency Office

Article 5 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

A Constituency of Millions: “Elected” Senators Discuss Alternatives to Operating a Province-wide Constituency Office

Unlike Members of Parliament who are elected to well-defined constituencies, it’s unusual for Canadian Senators to operate constituency offices in their efforts to represent their home provinces/regions. Former Senator Bert Brown of Alberta, who was appointed to the Senate after a province-sponsored election process, ran an office in Calgary as a part of his efforts to be an active representative to the people of his province; but in separate interviews with the Canadian Parliamentary Review, two current “elected” Senators from the province, Senators Doug Black and Betty Unger, suggest they prefer to employ alternatives to a stationary physical space in their outreach and consultations.

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“The People’s Office”: Constituency Offices in the Far North

Article 6 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

“The People’s Office”: Constituency Offices in the Far North

In this roundtable discussion, three MLAs from rural/northern parts of the Northwest Territories reflect on the unique challenges parliamentarians face when doing constituency work in remote communities. They explain that offices often tailor themselves to the needs of the community. For MLAs, an office helps to create work/life balance, offers a source of much-needed local employment, and provides an additional connection to the seat of government. They are also the office of last appeal for constituents frustrated by bureaucratic decisions.

CPR: When you represent a geographically vast district, how do you decide where to set up your constituency office(s)? How do you balance where you spend your time?

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British Columbia Reaches a New Benchmark for Women’s Representation

Article 7 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

British Columbia Reaches a New Benchmark for Women’s Representation

With 36 per cent of its MLAs now women, British Columbia currently has the highest proportion of women parliamentarians in Canada. Moreover, women hold key decision-making positions in the province as Lieutenant Governor, Premier and Speaker. While celebrating these milestones, in this article, B.C. Speaker Linda Reid warns against complacency and urges parliamentarians across Canada and the Commonwealth to continue implementing changes designed to facilitate a level playing field for women interested in political life. She provides several examples of innovations which have contributed to the province’s success at bolstering the number of women representatives and improving the quality of their work life in politics.

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Experiential Learning in the Constituency Office: Educational Innovation at Ryerson University

Article 8 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

Experiential Learning in the Constituency Office: Educational Innovation at Ryerson University

In 2013, some senior undergraduate students in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University were given the opportunity to be the first class to enroll in an innovative course called the Constituency Office Project. Pairing each student with a Member of Parliament or Member of Provincial Parliament in the Greater Toronto Area, the course allowed students to experience the practical application of political theories they had learned in the classroom. In this article Patrice Dutil outlines the steps taken to set up the course, lists some of its scholastic resources, and shares the feedback he received from the first participants.

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Perceptions and Performance: How Do MPs Shape Up?

Article 9 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

Perceptions and Performance: How Do MPs Shape Up?

Drawing from several chapters contained in Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up: Perceptions and Performance, in this article Elisabeth Gidengil and Heather Bastedo examine citizens’ evaluations of their elected representatives and assess several key aspects of MPs’ performance in light of these evaluations. Noting some possible reasons for a disjuncture between citizens’ perceptions of MPs and how MPs perform their representational roles, the authors suggest some possible avenues for improving MPs’ public image.

Satisfaction with the way democracy works in Canada lags behind a number of other established democracies. In fact, only a bare majority of Canadians (55 per cent) are satisfied with the country’s democratic performance, placing Canada in 11th place among 20 countries in which the same question was posed.1 Moreover, dissatisfaction with the way democracy works in Canada has grown in recent years. Canadians appear to be particularly displeased with the performance of their MPs.2 But is their dissatisfaction warranted?

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Book Excerpt: Tragedy in the Commons – “What Job Is This Anyway?”

Article 10 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

Book Excerpt: Tragedy in the Commons – “What Job Is This Anyway?”

In Tragedy in the Commons: Former Members of Parliament Speak Out About Canada’s Failing Democracy, authors Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan draw on exit interviews with 80 former parliamentarians to reveal how federal politicians felt about their experiences leading and directing the country. Chief among their findings: many MPs did not have a clear understanding about what their job in Ottawa was, and often felt stymied by a partisan system that constricted their freedom in Ottawa. These selected excerpts from Chapter 4 (“What Job Is This Anyway?”) suggest that many MPs interviewed found the most tangible result of their work to be individual casework for constituents in their home ridings, prompting the authors to ask if all constituency work alone is the best use of an MP’s talents and time.

Once they’ve faced down the challenges of their first weeks in Ottawa—where the office is, how to claim expenses, where to find staff, how to get to the bathroom—new MPs face a more long-term hurdle: managing the many demands on their attention and schedule. The former Liberal MP for Miramichi, New Brunswick, Charles Hubbard, for one, was astonished by the number of people who approached his office to seek help from one of the federal bureaucracies, such as Immigration Canada, Revenue Canada or Service Canada. “Your office is always facing calls where somebody is frustrated with trying to approach the government,” said Hubbard. “When you think of somebody having trouble with his income tax or with his EI or trying to access the Canada Pension or an old age pension, and they get the proverbial runaround, they wind up calling your office.”

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The Constituency Project Ten Years On

Article 11 / 14 , Vol 37 No 2 (Summer)

The Constituency Project Ten Years On

Ten years ago an enterprising Ph.D candidate at the London School of Economics spent four months touring nearly 100 of Canada’s federal constituency offices — what he calls perhaps “the country’s most dramatic if accidental parliamentary reform” — in an attempt to better understand a political culture where voter participation and trust in government were on the decline. In this article Peter MacLeod reflects on some of the subtle insights he picked up during his journey and looks to future innovations. He concludes by asking if, in the digital age, new generations of MPs will be more inclined to think of their offices and local budgets in terms of open platforms for community building and learning.

In 2004, I returned to Canada after two years spent tracking the New Labour experiment from my post as a researcher at the London think tank, Demos. Though post-9/11, these were still heady, pre-recession days where the British government was on a spending tear, London was booming, and Anthony Gidden’s call for Third Way politics still felt fresh.

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The Senate – An Essential House of Parliament

Article 2 / 10 , Vol 37 No 1 (Spring)

The Senate – An Essential House of Parliament

The Senate plays a critical role in the form and function of the Canadian Parliament. In this article, the Hon. Noël A. Kinsella highlights the Senate’s role as a regional counterweight to representation by population, an independent source of legislative review, an excellent source for investigative policy studies, and a place where appointments can sometimes balance disparities in representation of the Canadian population in the elected chamber. This article is revised from remarks made to the 31st Canadian Presiding Officers’ Conference in Ottawa.

Yet again the Senate is at the centre of a constitutional debate. Last November, the Supreme Court of Canada sat three days hearing arguments on the Senate, dealing with various issues about its reform or abolition. These questions were brought forward by the federal government to clarify the parameters of possible changes or reforms to the Senate. In brief, the government wants to know what it can do without involving the constitutional amending formula of either 7/50 or unanimity. This concentrated attention is not new: in Quebec City in 1864, the Fathers of Confederation devoted six days to the topic of the Senate.

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