Language of Canadian Politics, The: A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts, 4th edition

The Language of Canadian Politics A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts 4th edition

The Language of Canadian Politics A Guide to Important Terms and Concepts 4th edition

John McMenemy

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication McMenemy, John, 1940– The language of Canadian politics : a guide to important terms and concepts / John McMenemy. — 4th ed. ISBN-13: 978-0-88920-503-1 ISBN-10: 0-88920-503-5 1. Canada—Politics and government—Terminology. I. Title. JA61.M33 2006

320.971'03

C2006-901465-5

© 2006 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada www.wlupress.wlu.ca Cover design by Robert Tombs. Cover photograph is a partial profile of the centre block of Canada’s parliament buildings overlooking the Ottawa River. Cover photograph courtesy of iStock International Inc. Text design by Catharine Bonas-Taylor.

Printed in Canada Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

contents

Note to Readers Acknowledgements

xxi xxv

A Aboriginal rights. See Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal); and Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements Access to Information Act (Canada). See Freedom of information Accountability Act (statute) Activists (party) Administration (public) Administrative (executive) federalism Administrative law Administrator (of Canada). Aeronautics Case (1932). See Treaty power Affirmative (Positive) action Agence de la francophonie (Agency for the FrenchSpeaking Community). See Community (the Francophone; La Francophonie) Agenda (of meeting; public/private) Ambassador Amending formulae (constitutional). See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; and General amending formula (Constitution Act, 1982) Amendment (legislative; constitutional) Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 Appointment power Aspect Doctrine (constitution) Associate / Assistant deputy minister

v

185; 236 142 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 393 4

68 4 4

80; 147 5 5 7 8 8

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Contents

Asymmetrical federalism Auditor General of Canada B Backbencher Balance of power (legislative) Ballot Bandwagon effect Bank of Canada (central bank) Bar (of the House) Bellwether riding Bicameral Bicultural cleavage Big M Drug Mart Case (1985) Bilingualism and biculturalism Bill. See Act (statute) Bill 63; 22; 101; 178; 86 (Quebec) Bill of Rights (Recognition and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Act, Canada, 1960) Bloc Québécois Block payments (grants) Borrowing power British connection British North America Act. See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended Brokerage politics Budget and budgetary process Bureaucracy By-election C CPAC (Cable Public Affairs Channel) Cabinet Cabinet organization Cadre parties Calgary Declaration (Framework; 1997) Campaign (election) Canada Act, 1982 (U.K.) Canada Assistance Plan (CAP, 1966–1995) Canada Clause (Preamble, Charlottetown Accord, 1992) Canada Council Canada Gazette Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) Canada Labour Code Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Canada (Quebec) Pension Plan (CPP, QPP, 1966) Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989) Canadian Alliance party

8 9 10 10 10 11 11 12 12 12 13 14 14 2 15 15 15 16 17 17 80 18 18 20 20 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 28 29 29 29 30 30 31 31 32

Contents

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio-Canada; CBC) Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) Canadian Human Rights Commission (Act; Chief Commissioner) Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Canadian Judicial Council Canadian Parliamentary Guide Canadian Press / Broadcast News Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Candidate Canvass Capital crime and punishment Career public (civil) service Carter v. Saskatchewan (A.-G.) (1991) Caucus Censure Census Central agency Central bank. See Bank of Canada (central bank) Centralization (decentralization) Centrist Charlottetown Accord (1992) Charter groups; interests Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canada, 1982). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) Charter of the French Language (Quebec) Chief Electoral Officer (Elections Canada) Chief Justice Chief of staff (principal secretary) Chief of the Defence Staff (Vice-Chief; Deputy Chief) Citizen Civil law (Civil Code; Code civil) Civil liberties Civil service Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation) Class cleavage Clawback Clerk of the House of Commons (of the Senate) Clerk of the Privy Council Closure Coalition government Collective (cabinet/ministerial) responsibility Collectivism Combines (anti-combines legislation; competition policy) Commission (board, agency, tribunal)

33 34 40 40 41 41 41 41 42 44 44 44 45 45 45 47 47 48 11 48 48 49 50 34 50 52 52 52 53 53 53 54 54 54 55 57 58 58 58 59 60 60 61 61

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Commission for Environmental Co-operation (of North America) (NAEC; NAFTA) 62 Commissions of inquiry (judicial) 62 Commissioner of Official Languages (language ombudsman) 65 Committee of the Whole (Supply; Ways and Means) 65 Common Law 66 Commonwealth of Nations 66 Communications Security Establishment (CSE) 67 Community (the Francophone; La Francophonie) 68 Compact theory of Confederation 68 Competition policy. See Combines (anti-combines legislation; competition policy) 61 Comptroller General of Canada 69 Concurrent majority. See Double majority 111 Concurrent powers 69 Conditional grants (special-purpose transfer payments) 70 Confederation 71 Conference of First Ministers. 72 Conference of Ministers (of Education, Finance, etc.) 73 Conference of Provincial First Ministers 73 Confidence (of the House; Chamber of…) 74 Conflict of interest 74 Conscription 75 Consensus 76 Conservatism 76 Conservative Party (2003–) 76 Consociational democracy 77 Consolidated Revenue Fund 78 Constituency (riding) 78 Constituency (riding) association 78 Constituent assembly 79 Constitution 79 Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended 80 Constitutional Act, 1791 (U.K.) 83 Constitutional amendments. See Amendment (legislative; constitutional); and Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended 5; 80 “Consultative mechanisms” (forums and reports on constitutional reform) 83 Consumer Price Index (CPI) 85 Continentalism 85 Contracting (opting) out 85 Controverted election 86 Convention (constitutional). See Custom, convention, and usage 96 Convention (party) 87 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) 88

Contents

Co-operative federalism Council of Atlantic Premiers Council of Maritime Premiers. See Council of Atlantic Premiers Council of the Federation Count (election), official and unofficial Courts. See Judicial system (judiciary) Criminal Code of Canada Crossing the floor Crown Crown corporation Crown prerogatives Cultural duality Custom, convention, and usage

90 90 90 181 91 91 92 93 94 95 96

D Declaratory power Delegate theory of representation Delegated power Department (of government) Deputy minister Deregulation Direct (indirect) taxation Disallowance Discretionary power Dispute settlement mechanism Dissolution of Parliament (the Legislature) Distinct society clause Division of the House Division (distribution) of powers Dominion (of Canada; government; status; Day) Dominion-provincial conferences Double majority Duff Doctrine (constitution)

98 98 99 100 101 103 103 104 105 105 106 106 107 107 110 110 111 111

E Economic nationalism Economic union of Canada Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats) Electoral law (controls, subsidies) Electoral system Elites Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers) Emergency power Employment equity. See Equity legislation Employment Insurance (EI) Entrenchment, constitutional

89 90

112 113 114 115 117 120 121 122 127 123 124

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Enumeration (of powers) 124 Enumeration (of voters) 124 Environmentalism 125 Equality rights. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); and Equity legislation 34; 127 Equalization grants (unconditional transfer payments) 126 Equity legislation 127 Established Programs Financing (EPF) 127 Estimates 128 Ethics Commissioner (Senate Ethics Officer) 129 Executive, the 130 Executive (administrative) federalism 130 Executive assistant, ministerial (chief of staff; exempt staff) 131 Executive Council 132 Extraterritoriality 132

F FLQ Crisis. See October (FLQ) Crisis (1970) Federal Court (Federal Court of Appeal) Federal-provincial conferences Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism) Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism) Federalism Filibuster Finance, Department (minister) of Financial Administration Act (Canada) First Ministers’ Conference. See Conference of First Ministers First-past-the-post electoral system Fiscal federalism Fiscal policy Fragment (splinter) parties Franchise (La) Francophonie Free trade Free vote Freedom of information Fulton-Favreau Formula (1964)

72 138 138 139 139 140 140 141 142 142 143

G G-8 countries, meeting of Gay and lesbian rights Gender politics (gap) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT) General amending formula (Constitution Act, 1982) Geographic cleavage

144 144 146 147 147 148

253 133 133

134 134 134 136 137 138

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Gerrymander Globalization (globalism) Goods and Services (ad valorem, value-added) Tax (GST) Government (public) bills Governor general Governor general’s warrants Governor-in-council Green Party of Canada Green (coloured) paper Grit (Clear Grit) Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

151 151 153 153 154 155 156 156 156 157 157

H Hansard Have (have-not) provinces Head of state High Commissioner (Commission) Horizontal agencies House leaders House of Assembly House of Commons House of Commons committees Hunter v. Southam (1984)

157 158 158 158 158 159 159 159 162 164

I Immigration and Refugee Board Imperial conferences Income tax Indexing (de-indexing) Indian Act Indirect tax Information Commissioner Initiative (legislative) Inner cabinet Inter- (intra-)state federalism Interdelegation Reference (Nova Scotia, 1951); …of legislative power Interdepartmental committees Interest groups Intergovernmental committees Interim supply, vote of International Joint Commission (IJC) Intra (ultra) vires J Judicial commission of inquiry. See Commissions of inquiry (judicial) Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive)

165 166 166 167 167 168 169 169 169 170 170 171 171 174 176 176 176

62 177 179

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Judicial system (judiciary) Jurisdiction, constitutional

181 183

K King-Byng Dispute Kitchen cabinet

183 184

L Labour Conventions Reference (Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario, 1937) Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal) Language ombudsman Language rights Law Commission of Canada Leaders’ debates (election campaign) Leadership conventions (selection) Leadership review. See Leadership conventions (selection) League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) Left, political. See Class cleavage Legislation (type; stages of) Legislative Assembly Legislative override. See Notwithstanding (non obstante) clause (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.33) Legislative process Legislature Letters Patent (1947) Liberal party Liberalism Lieutenant-governor Lieutenant-governor-in-council “Living tree” Doctrine (constitution) Lobby (-ist; -ing) Lord Durham’s Report Lower Canada Lower House M MHA/MLA/MNA/MPP MP “Maîtres Chez Nous” Majority government Malapportionment Mandarin(ate) Mandate Manitoba Schools Question (and French language rights, 1890) Maritime union Marketing boards Mass media of communication

185 185 187 187 188 189 190 190 193 55 193 195 250 195 196 174 196 198 199 200 200 201 204 205 205 206 206 206 206 206 208 208 208 209 210 210

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Means test Medicare Meech Lake Accord (1987) Members of parliament (MPs) Merit system (in the public administration) Ministerial responsibility Ministers (of the Crown) Ministry Ministry (minister) of state Minority government Monarchy (constitutional) Monetary policy Money bills Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen (1988) Movement parties Multiculturalism

N National Assembly (Quebec) National energy (oil) policy; program (NEP); Board (NEB) National Housing Act (NHA) National Policy (NP) National Security Certificate (NSC) Nationalistes, the Nationalization Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements Natural resources New Deal (R.B. Bennett’s) New Democratic party (NDP) Nomination Non-confidence motion. See Vote of confidence (want-of-confidence motion) Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Northwest (Riel) Rebellions Notwithstanding (non obstante) clause (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.33) Nunavut (“Our land”) O Oakes test (Oakes [1986]) Occupational (functional) representation October (FLQ) Crisis (1970) Official agent (party; candidate) Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969; 1988) Official opposition

212 212 214 217 218 219 220 221 221 222 224 224 224 225 226 229 231 231 233 234 234 235 236 236 240 242 242 244 402 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 253 254 254 255

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Official-party (recognized party) status Official Secrets Act. See Security of Information Act (Canada) Ombudsman One-party (single-party) dominance. Opening of Parliament (of the legislature) Operation Dismantle v. The Queen (1985) Opposition days Opposition parties Opting-out formula. See Contracting (opting) out Order of Canada Order (Notice) Paper Order-in-council Organic law Organization of American States (OAS)

P Pairing Parachuting (candidates) Parliament of Canada Parliamentary-cabinet system Parliamentary indemnity (salaries, allowances, and budgetary allocations) Parliamentary privilege (immunities) Parliamentary secretaries Parti Québécois (PQ) Party discipline Party system Passage of legislation Patriation of the constitution Patronage “Peace, Order, and good Government” Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada). See Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner Persons Case (Edwards v. A.-G. for Canada [1930]) Petition Platform Plebiscite. See Referendum Plurality Policy (-making; analysis; communities; instruments; public) Political culture Polling (election day) Polling (public opinion) Popular vote. See Electoral system Populism Pork barrel

255 353 256 256 257 257 258 258 85 258 259 259 260 260 261 261 262 263 264 264 266 266 268 269 271 271 273 274

292 275 276 277 325 277 277 278 279 280 117 282 284

Contents

Portfolio 284 Postmaterialism 285 Premier 285 Prerogative power 286 President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada 286 President of the Treasury Board 286 Press, the. See Mass media of communication; and Press gallery 210; 286 Press gallery 286 Pressure groups. See Interest groups 171 Prime minister 288 Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) 291 Principal secretary. See Chief of staff (principal secretary) 52 Priorities and Planning Committee (“P and P”) See Inner cabinet 169 Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner 292 Private bills 294 Private member 294 Private members’ legislation (bills) 294 Privatization 294 Privy Council for Canada (the Queen’s) 295 Privy Council Office (PCO) 296 Progressive Conservative party 297 Progressive movement (party) 299 “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” 301 Proportional representation 302 Prorogation of parliament 304 Provincial autonomy (rights) 304 Provincial (territorial) governments (legislatures) 305 Public Accounts Committee 307 Public administration (civil service) 307 Public bills 309 Public opinion 309 Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004) 310 Public Service Commission of Canada 311

Q Quasi-judicial decisions (power) Quebec Act, 1774 (U.K.) Quebec Conference (Resolutions) (1864) Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.-G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984) Quebec sign law. Queen, the. See Crown; Sovereign, the Question period Quiet Revolution Quorum

311 312 313 313 314 92; 367 314 315 316

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R Racism Radio-Canada Radio Reference Case (1932). See Treaty power Ralliement des créditistes Ratification Readings Recall Reciprocity Reconstruction party Recorded (standing) vote Red Tory (-ism) Redistribution (electoral…of seats) Redistributive policy Reference case (constitutional) Referendum Reform party Regina Manifesto Regional disparities Regional government Regionalism Regulation 17 (Ontario, 1913) Regulatory agencies (regulations) Remedial decree (litigation) Remedial legislation Renewed / Restructured federalism Representation by population Representative government Representative (trustee) theory of representation Reservation (of legislation) Residual power Resolution (of the house) (Motion) Responsible government Returning Officer (RO); Deputy Returning Officers (DROs) Riding Right, political. See Class cleavage Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937–1940) Royal assent Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Royal commission Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963) Royal Proclamation (1763) Rule of law Russell v. The Queen (1882)

316 318 393 318 319 320 320 321 321 322 322 323 324 324 325 326 327 328 329 329 330 330 331 331 332 332 333 334 335 335 336 336 337 337 55 337 338 338 341 342 343 344 344

Contents

S Safe seat Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship) Scrum Scrutineer Secession Reference Secrecy Secretariat Secretaries of state Secretary to the Cabinet. See Clerk of the Privy Council Sections 91 and 92 (Constitution Act, 1867) Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) Security of Information Act (Canada) Senate Senior civil servants Separate schools (parochial, dissentient) Separation of powers Separatism Shadow cabinet Shared-cost programs Singh Case (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1985) Single-member plurality electoral system Social Credit party Social movement organizations Social Union Framework Agreement (1999) Socialism Sovereign, the Sovereignty-association Speaker (of the legislature) Special Operating Agencies (SOAs) Special status Speech from the Throne Spending power Standing (select, special, joint) committees (of the House of Commons and Senate) Standing Orders Stare decisis State, the Statistics Canada Statute (Act) Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931) Statutory instrument Subordinate legislation Sunset clause Supplementary estimates Supply bill

345 345 348 349 349 350 351 351 58 351 352 353 353 357 358 358 359 360 360 361 362 362 364 365 365 367 368 369 370 370 370 371 371 373 373 373 374 374 374 375 375 375 376 376

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Supply period (allotted days; Opposition days) Supremacy of parliament Supreme Court of Canada Surveillance (function of Parliament) Suspensive veto

376 377 378 382 382

T Tariff (non-tariff barriers) Task force Tax abatement and tax points Tax expenditures Tax rental agreements (payments) Territorial governments Third parties; third-party campaign advertising Third parties (political) Throne Speech (Debate on the…) Tory “Trade and Commerce” power Transfer payment Transferable vote (preferential ballot) Treasury Board Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) Treaty power Triple-E Senate Two nations (deux nations) Two-party system

383 384 385 385 386 386 386 387 389 389 390 391 391 391 392 393 395 395 396

U Ultra (intra) vires Unconditional grants (general-purpose transfer payments) Unicameral legislature Union Act, 1840 (U.K.) Union government Unitary state (legislative union) United Farmers of… (Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario) Upper Canada Upper chamber (house) Urgent business (emergency debate)

397 397 397 397 398 399 399 399 400 400

V Veto Victoria Charter (1971) Vote of confidence (want-of-confidence motion) Voters list. See Enumeration (of voters)

401 402 402 124

W War Measures Act (Canada; emergency powers) War-crimes legislation (trials)

403 404

Contents

War-time Elections Act and Military Voters Act (Canada, 1917) Wartime Tax Agreements (1941) “Water-tight compartments” Doctrine (constitution) Westminster Whig (interpretation of Canadian history) Whip (party) White paper White paper on employment and income (1945) World Trade Organization (WTO) Writs (election)

405 406 406 406 406 407 407 407 408 408

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note to readers

Purpose and design This is the fourth edition of The Language of Canadian Politics, and while the contents have changed significantly since the first publication in 1980, and even since the third edition in 2001, the purpose and design of the book remains fundamentally the same. People interested in Canadian government and politics— whether students, professionals, or the general public in Canada or elsewhere— have been well served by members of the Canadian political science community who have produced many comprehensive introductory and specialized books on Canadian politics. What distinguishes The Language of Canadian Politics from other books is its unique format: brief, cross-referenced essays on more than 500 subjects, written directly and concisely, and presented alphabetically, which provide the reader with essential information about the subjects.

The language of Canadian political discourse Canadian politics and the language of political discourse is sufficiently distinctive that The Language of Canadian Politics can help orient you to various subjects. The Table of Contents displays the variety of topics addressed: institutions, ideas, concepts, programs, processes, laws, events, and so forth, both historical and contemporary, which inform current political discussion, debate, and conflict in Canadian politics. The familiar, yet somewhat mysterious Some subjects are rather arcane: Established Program Financing has been replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer; the Supreme Court has “read in” words to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; provinces can dissent from amendments to the constitution; the Crown retains certain prerogative powers. Other elements of Canadian political discourse are familiar, but perhaps not entirely clear: patriation of the constitution; federal spending power; sovereigntyassociation; triple-e Senate; parachuted candidates; the Charter’s notwithstanding clause; responsible government.

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The contemporary As mentioned above, the essays here deal with historical as well as contemporary subjects and recent events of significance. Almost every entry has been revised, but in context with the recent past, and new entries have been added. For example, commissions of inquiry, the cabinet, and the mass media of communication are discussed here as in the past. But events since the third edition involving those and other subjects have been brought up to date. Discussion of significant events since the third edition will be found here, such as the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties to form the Conservative party, changes to federal electoral law, and the results of federal elections. However, the earlier manifestation of the Alliance, the Reform party, and the Progressive Conservative party still warrant separate entries to provide a fuller appreciation of the implications of the merger. Indeed, Social Credit, both the intellectual and political precursor of Reform, is also listed here. Among other new entries are those dealing with the enactment of the federal Anti-Terrorist Act in 2001, the Public Safety Act in 2002 and notoriety surrounding National Security Certificates. There is an entry on the recently established provincial-territorial Council of the Federation. Athough scandals are not new in Canadian politics, the scandal involving the federal sponsorship program that led to a judicial inquiry and no doubt contributed to the defeat of the federal government in 2006 dictated a need for an entry on several noteworthy scandals in federal politics. The two reports of the judicial inquiry of Justice John Gomery—finding the facts and making recommendations—are mentioned in numerous entries. The historical You will find here succinct essays on topics not just from the recent past but events from the distant past that continue to frame and inform contemporary discourse: for example, constitutional measures reaching back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Quebec Act of 1774, and other constitutional arrangements up to the Constitution Act of 1867, and the significant amendments of 1982, to which, importantly, Quebec has not assented. Early events in the twentieth century, such as military conscription, the Union government of the teens and the Progressive party of the 1920s, the imperial Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that ceased to be a court of appeal in 1949, but whose decisions unquestionably influenced the course of Canadian federalism and constitutional development, and later events such as the October Crisis of 1970 and the National Energy Program of the 1970s are also included here because of their continued relevance to political attitudes and behaviour in Canada.

References and the Internet The Internet has become a useful tool for obtaining information, though not without problems such as the cumbersome design of some sites, the perhaps studied obscurity of some “information,” and even the obsolescence of some URLs. And it is important to realize that the possession of “information” still requires the application of your own native intelligence to filter, assess, and apply the information selectively and wisely to become knowledgeable.

Note to Readers

Many relevant Internet sites are indicated here because they are rich in information, but—I am fond of saying to students—the study of politics is an unusual social science as it involves a close investigation of “negative space,” that which you cannot see; for often what you can readily see—“positive space”—is what you are intended to see. And understatement can be expected: When, for instance, the site of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives tells you that “We engage in an active program of public policy research, consultation and advocacy,” you can only imagine the influence of the CEOs of Canada’s largest private-sector corporations on public decision-makers; but information provided on the site of the federal Lobbyist Registry will provide you with more information about the group’s direct government contacts and broad range of interests. Thus, the entries here are intended to provide “background” or context with which to assess information to be found in some sites noted in the text. Take care, as you can easily lose your way in a sea of information especially when navigating government sites. Also, by the time you read this, some sites may no longer exist or have a different URL. Finally, various rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada that are discussed here are available at www.lexum.umontreal.ca. Finally, the cross-references at the end of many entries permit you to “exploit” the book for your own particular purposes. You might want to follow a route through the book that explains the nature of the party system and the electoral process, or follow routes that explain developments in Canadian federalism, the role of the courts, French-English relations, the legislative process, and so forth. The Language of Canadian Politics then, is not so much a creation of mine, but rather I hope it will be a useful tool for you in comprehending Canadian government and politics.

Select bibliography In addition to this book and Internet sites, there are many comprehensive works about Canadian government and politics, as well as collections of individually authored chapters, each approaching the subject differently and each revised over the years. Here are just a few of them: Archer, Keith, Roger Gibbins, Rainer Knopff, Heather McIvor, and Leslie A. Pal. Parameters of Power: Canada’s Political Institutions. Toronto: Nelson. Bickerton, James, and Alain-G. Gagnon. Canadian Politics. Peterborough: Broadview Press. Brooks, Stephen. Canadian Democracy: An Introduction. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Dyck, Rand. Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches. Toronto: Nelson. Gibbins, Roger. Conflict and Unity: An Introduction to Canadian Political Life. Toronto: Nelson. Guy, James John. People, Politics, Government: Political Science: A Canadian Perspective. Toronto: Prentice Hall. Jackson, Robert J.,and Doreen Jackson. Politics in Canada: Culture, Institutions, Behaviour and Public Policy. Toronto: Prentice Hall. Whittington, Michael, and Glen Williams. Canadian Politics in the 21st Century. Toronto: Nelson.

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Academic links Whether you have a professional or a general interest in Canadian government and politics, you might consider information available about current academic research on the subject. For such information, access the Internet sites of Canada’s political science associations, for example, the Canadian Political Science Association (www.cpsa-acsp.ca) and La Société québécoise de science politique (www.unites .uqam.ca/sqsp). Each of these academic associations publishes journals that include articles, research notes, and book reviews on subjects in all fields of political science, including Canadian government and politics: the Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, with which I was pleased to be associated as administrative editor for twenty-five years, and the Revue québécoise de science politique.

acknowledgements I thank those who have commented on earlier editions. Many of these readers were students; others were anonymous reviewers who, as instructors, had used the earlier editions in their courses. Because of them, each revision has been an improvement, and I look forward to comments on this edition as well to further improve the next. Thanks are due the staff of Wilfrid Laurier University Press, with whom I have worked closely over the years on this and other projects.

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A Aboriginal rights See Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal); and Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements. Access to Information Act (Canada) See Freedom of information. Accountability The requirement that an individual or group explain and accept responsibility before another individual or group for actions taken by them and by those under their supervision. In the Canadian parliamentary system, the constitutional convention of responsible government requires the political executive (that is, the prime minister or provincial premier and cabinet) to respond to criticism in the legislature and to retain the “confidence” of the House of Commons or provincial legislature, in order to remain in office. Executive accountability is both collective and individual. Not only is the cabinet collectively responsible to the legislature, but each minister is personally accountable for administrative behaviour in their area of designated responsibility. However, because of the complexity and number of administrative decisions within a department or agency for which a minister is responsible, as well as the growth of the political staff of ministers, it is difficult to distinguish among ministerial, departmental, and staff responsibilities. In 2005, however, the federal ethics commissioner ruled in one case that a minister, who had already resigned from cabinet during the commissioner’s investigation, bore major responsibility for misdeeds of ministerial staff involving administrative decisions on behalf of party workers. While accountability is a central feature of responsible government in the Canadian constitution, legislatures seldom defeat governments or precipitate the resignation of ministers. The disciplined party system and the secrecy that has traditionally enveloped the cabinet and public administration usually enable governments and ministers to survive opposition criticism. Nonetheless, the principle of accountability is sufficiently strong to allow the opposition to make a public case, which the voters will assess and hold the government party accountable in a subsequent election campaign. 1

2

Act

Administrative accountability, as well as collective and individual ministerial responsibility was the focus of the judicial committee of inquiry established in 2003 to investigate fraudulent financial abuses in a $300-million federal sponsorship program in the late-1990s. In his final report in 2006, Justice John Gomery made 19 recommendations “to rebalance the relationship between Parliament and Government and to assign clearer accountability to both politicians and public servant [to] enable the House of Commons to hold the Government, individual Ministers and their departments to account [and] reduce the risk of mismanagement and scandals” (Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Restoring Accountability—Recommendations [Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2006], 198–99; www.gomery.ca). See Collective responsibility; Ethics commissioner (Senate ethics officer); Ministerial responsibility; Responsible government; Secrecy. Act (statute) A bill that has passed three readings in the legislature—in the case of the bicameral parliament, both the House of Commons and the Senate—and received royal assent. When royal assent is given, bills become acts; they are given chapter numbers, with the name of the sovereign and the year, and are published. Acts become effective statutory law when proclaimed, but in some cases not until invoked by the governor-in-council (that is, the cabinet) through an order-in-council, which is also published—in the case of the federal government, in the Canada Gazette. Some acts delegate authority to particular government bodies to make regulations that have the force of law. These regulations, or statutory instruments, are also published. Periodically statutes are published, bringing legislation amended since their original passage up to date. For example, federal legislation is periodically updated as the Revised Statutes of Canada (R.S.C.). Activists (party) People who, in terms of political participation, are involved with party activity beyond simply voting for a party, but few of whom actually make important decisions in party councils that pertain to election campaigns or parliamentary conduct between elections. Specifically, an activist is a person who engages in a “gladiatorial” rather than simply a “spectator” role: for example, holding membership in a party, contributing money to a party, serving as an officer of a party, attending local party meetings or party conventions, working for a candidate during an election campaign, or being a party’s candidate. It is debatable whether some backbench legislators are best described as activists or elites; they might best be described collectively as “leading” or “high-level” activists. Especially in increasingly gladiatorial roles, activists of all parties tend to be of higher social rank than the passive supporters of their respective parties in terms of education, occupation and income. For instance, among the ranks of party activists, lawyers and business managers are disproportionate to their numbers in the public, especially in the Liberal and Conservative parties. Likewise, trade union officials are much more numerous among New Democrats than among activists in other parties. Not unexpectedly, activists tend to be proportionately more numerous in regions where their respective party currently receives substantial electoral support. Thus, for example, Liberal activists have been predominantly from

Administrator

central Canada, while Conservative party activists, since the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties, have been predominantly from western Canada rather than from Atlantic Canada. See Elites. Administration (public) The instruments and processes by which government policies are formulated, implemented, and reviewed. Study of the administration of state policy traditionally focused on organization, human resources, finance, and accountability within the public bureaucracy. Early studies of public administration in Canada frequently commented on the coherence and collegiality of the “bureaucratic elite,” especially given the expansion of state activity in society and the economy throughout the twentieth century, but especially so following the Second World War, with recruitment to and career advancement within the public administration based on merit. However, that growth in the public administration, followed by administrative restructuring begun at the end of the century to control public spending, resulted in increasing internal competitiveness. Scholars also study the independent policy-making role inherent in public administration, irrespective of the government-of-the-day, as part of a larger “subgovernment” linked to a wider and distinct set of “policy communities.” See Policy (-making; analysis; communities; instruments; public…); and Public administration (civil service). Administrative (executive) federalism A term frequently used to describe Canada’s federal system in which federal-provincial and territorial relations are characterized by a high level of interdependence, emphasizing multilateral and bilateral ministerial and administrative consultation, negotiation and administration of public policy. The term is also used pejoratively, in criticism of a secretive and exclusive, as opposed to a public and inclusive, policy-making process. See Federalism. Administrative law A branch of legal studies dealing with the establishment of public agencies—particularly regulatory agencies and crown corporations—and their procedures and decisions, the rights of persons affected, and oversight by the relevant legislature, executive, and the judiciary. The expansion of state activities in the twentieth century has led to government regulation of virtually every aspect of social and economic behaviour. Consequently, people’s lives have become increasingly affected by subordinate legislation, that is, by specific rules and regulations of administrators acting under enabling legislation passed in legislatures. See Regulatory agencies (regulations). Administrator (of Canada) The designation for the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada when exercising the powers and authority of the governor general in the event of the governor general’s death, incapacity, removal, or absence from Canada. Should the chief justice likewise be unavailable, the designation of “Our [that is, the Crown’s] Administrator” is granted to the senior judge of the Supreme Court present and able to exercise vice-regal powers. This executive succession in Canada is outlined in the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General of Canada (1947). See Governor general; Letters Patent (1947).

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Aeronautics Case

Aeronautics Case (1932) See Treaty power. Affirmative (Positive) action Programs initiated by government to improve the position of people belonging to groups considered subject to systemic discrimination in society and the economy. An early example of affirmative action in the federal government is the recruitment and promotion of French-speaking Canadians—effectively first-language French speakers—within the public administration through language requirements enacted in the 1960s. However, the phrase generally refers to recruitment, promotion, and compensation programs designed later for women, Native Peoples, members of other ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities. Critics of affirmative action refer to such programs as “reverse discrimination.” Affirmative action programs respecting “race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability” are constitutionally sanctioned in the equality rights section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.15:2). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Agence de la francophonie (Agency for the French-Speaking Community) See Community (the Francophone; la Francophonie). Agenda (of meeting; public/private) An enumeration of items to be discussed at a pending meeting; otherwise, an “agenda” might be a person or group’s publicly acknowledged or privately held objectives or purposes in the short or long term, as in “labour’s agenda” or “the prime minister’s agenda.” Ambassador A diplomat, designated by the federal government and accredited by another national government or international organization such as the United Nations, to represent Canada; conversely, a diplomat from elsewhere accredited to represent their national or institutional interests in Canada. Such diplomats representing countries within the Commonwealth are referred to as high commissioners. The governor-in-council, effectively the prime minister, appoints Canada’s ambassadors and high commissioners. See High Commissioner (Commission). Historically, official relations between governments have been maintained through ambassadorial representation. However, since the advent of secure and instantaneous worldwide communication, and high-speed air travel, the scope of ambassadorial activity has been reduced, while the direct involvement in foreign policy of the prime minister, the minister of foreign affairs, and their senior aides in Ottawa has increased. Postings to countries of strategic interest to Canada, notably the United States, are often made on the basis of immediate public policy and political considerations. Appointments to countries of lesser strategic interest might be made for partisan purposes. Public service associations are quick to criticize “political” appointments, especially those that are clearly patronage appointments, which they consider intrusions into their professional domain. Amending formulae (constitutional) See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; and General amending formula (Constitution Act, 1982).

Anti-Terrorism Act

Amendment (legislative; constitutional) The alteration of the wording of a bill or motion before a legislature, or frequently a bill itself to alter current statutes or laws. The principle of the supremacy of parliament implies that any legislature can amend its own statutes; thus amendments to ordinary legislation carry by a majority (at least 50 per cent plus one of those voting). Because of the constitutional convention of responsible government, the adoption of an opposition-sponsored amendment to government bills or motions may be interpreted as want-of-confidence in the government, possibly leading to the formation of a new government or dissolution of the legislature for a general election. Constitutional statutes usually include an amendment procedure more complex than a simple majority. Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982, for example, contains several amending formulae (Part V), in most cases involving provincial legislatures as well as parliament; its provisions are thus said to be “entrenched.” See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; and Entrenchment. Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 In the aftermath of terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, an omnibus federal statute amending legislation, notably the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act, providing stronger investigative powers to law enforcement and national security agencies to identify, disable, dismantle and deter, and successfully prosecute and convict anyone or group associated with terrorist activity. Another statute dealing with air transportation and marine security, the Public Safety Act, 2002 (enacted in 2004), was also part of the federal government’s anti-terrorism policy. To accommodate the Anti-Terrorism Act to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the extraordinary legislation includes “sunset” provisions dealing with preventive arrest and investigative hearing powers that require resolutions of the House of Commons and Senate to continue after five years; there must be annual reports to parliament by provincial attorneys-general and the federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness (formerly the solicitor general) on the use of preventive arrest and investigative hearings; a requirement that parliament undertake a comprehensive review within three years was begun in 2004 by each of the House of Commons and Senate. The federal department of justice also conducted focus groups and produced a report in 2005 on the views of selected academics on the impact of the Act. The Act included a definition of “terrorist activity” in the Criminal Code, as an action inside or outside Canada that offends various United Nations conventions or is taken for political, religious, or ideological purposes to intimidate the public by killing, harming, or endangering a person, causing substantial property damage that is likely to harm people, or seriously interfering with an essential service, facility or system to harm people. The Criminal Code permits the designation of groups as terrorist organizations and makes it criminal knowingly to collect or raise funds, directly or indirectly, to perpetrate terrorist crimes, participate or facilitate the activity of, or instruct anyone to carry out a terrorist activity on behalf of a terrorist organization, or knowingly harbour or conceal a terrorist. Following the federal government’s first biennial review required under the Act, 35 groups remained designated as terrorist organizations.

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Anti-Terrorism Act

The stronger investigative tools for law enforcement and security agencies, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Commission, include the extension of provisions for electronic surveillance from sixty days to one year when investigating a terrorist offence, and notification of surveillance to a “target” after the fact can be delayed for three years. Through an application approved by the attorney-general and a court-approved ex parte order, a power of preventive arrest (“recognizance with conditions”) of suspected terrorists will allow a court to determine whether a terrorist offence has been or will be committed, and impose supervisory conditions. In urgent circumstances, no warrant for arrest need be obtained, though the person arrested on preventive grounds must appear before a judge within 24 hours. If, as a result of an investigative hearing, the judge determines that police have reasonable grounds for their suspicion, the judge can order the person to comply with “recognizance” conditions for up to one year to prevent the suspected terrorist activity. For the purposes of the Official Secrets Act, renamed the Security of Information Act, the Anti-Terrorist Act includes provisions to identify groups other than governments as objects of interest: provisional governments, governments in exile and other forms of foreign power in addition to terrorist organizations. To enhance the operation of the Security of Information Act, new threats include intimidation and threats to ethnocultural communities in Canada, to trade secrets, and to public and private infrastructures. For the purposes of law enforcement and security agencies, including the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, any unauthorized communication or purported communication of operational information constitutes an offence. The Canada Evidence Act is amended to prevent disclosure of information in judicial or other proceedings that would be injurious to international relations, national defence, or security, including harm to another country’s vital interests or intelligence networks. Under an amended National Defence Act, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the highly secret monitoring organization, is exempt from Criminal Code prohibitions on intercepting private communications. Under ministerial direction, the CSE can use and retain private communications when directing attention to foreign entities abroad, and carry out Information Technology security activities that risk intercepting private communications. Other amended federal acts include the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act to detect financial transactions that might pose security-related threats. The country’s DNA data bank’s authority is expanded to include terrorist offences as a designated offence for which DNA samples can be taken and retained. The Anti-Terrorist Act also strengthened the Criminal Code respecting hate crimes and propaganda, including material on computer systems, and mischief directed against a place of religious worship, or associated property such as a school or cemetery, and strengthened the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit hate messages by any telecommunication technology. In addition to the safeguards mentioned above (annual reports to parliament, parliamentary review of the Act, judicial safeguards, and sunset provisions respecting preventive arrests and investigative hearings), certificates by the attorney-general withholding release of information can be appealed to the Federal Court,

Appointment power

which was enlarged in anticipation of cases. The attorney-general’s approval is necessary to prosecute terrorism offences, and the minister of national defence must authorize CSE interception of foreign communications targeted at a non-Canadian abroad who might have a Canadian connection. In the annual reports of the federal minister during the first three years of the Act’s implementation, there were no arrests without warrant. Nor during 2004 were any cases initiated for investigative hearings. Far from concluding that the Act was unnecessary, the federal government holds that law enforcement agencies are careful about exercising the additional powers granted under the Act. In 2004, the House of Commons and Senate began their review of the Act. However, as members of the parliamentary committees are not necessarily privy councillors, nor otherwise have high-level security clearance, their review is limited. Academic experts, who participated in a federal government-sponsored assessment of the Act in 2004, were divided on whether the Act enhanced deterrence and helped disclose information from suspects fearing prosecution. There was concern about the definition of terrorist activity, including political, religious and ideological motives. Many participants felt that the oversight mechanisms respecting law enforcement and security agencies and political executives were inadequate. Views on the impact on civil liberties were very divided, but there was agreement that Canadians who were Muslims and of Arab descent, as well as humanitarian organizations working in the Middle East would be seriously affected. Some participants felt that the listing of proscribed organizations was arbitrary or, at worst, politically motivated. Some felt it useful that allies, notably the United States, might be reassured by the Act that Canada took terrorist threats seriously (http://canada .justice.gc.ca/en/ps/rs/rep/2005/rr05–01/rr05–1.pdf ). Concern over abuse by law enforcement and security agencies was heightened by the case of Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian of Syrian birth. In 2004, the federal government established a judicial inquiry under Justice Dennis O’Connor, to examine the case of Arar who, suspected of being a terrorist, was seized by United States officials while en route from Syria to Canada. The US sent Maher Arar to Syria without legal procedures (“extraordinary rendition”) where, according to a fact-finding report to the inquiry in 2005, he was tortured before being released and returned to Canada without charges (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar; www.ararcommission.ca). Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin said the O’Connor commission was sufficient to deal with the case of two other people arrested in Syria and tortured there and in Egypt. See Public Safety Act, 2004 and entries on various organizations and legislation mentioned. Appointment power The power of the political executive (the prime minister and provincial premiers), under the authority of the Crown, to fill certain public offices. While this includes cabinet membership, the power usually refers to senior appointments in the public administration, including boards and commissions, and the judiciary. Discussions of constitutional reform have included proposals to circumscribe this power at the federal level by establishing a limited, advisory role for the Senate or the House of Commons and possibly provincial governments in certain appointments. See Senate; Supreme Court of Canada.

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Aspect Doctrine Aspect Doctrine (constitution) A ruling by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that “subjects which in one aspect and for one purpose” come within provincial jurisdiction under a section of the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act) “may in another aspect and for another purpose” come within federal jurisdiction under another section of the Act. In Hodge v. The Queen (1883), the appellant argued that a conviction under an Ontario statute that regulated liquor trade in the province was invalid, despite clear enumeration of tavern licences in section 92 of the Act. The appeal was based on Russell v. The Queen (1882) in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upheld a federal statute that provided for local prohibition under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause of section 91, as the question of prohibition was not specifically enumerated under provincial jurisdiction in section 92. The two statutes dealt with different aspects of the same thing—the liquor trade—and the use of the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause in the Russell case was not allowed to deny a province’s jurisdictional competence in licensing saloons and taverns (s.92:9). See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Russell v. The Queen (1882). Associate / Assistant deputy minister Senior ranks of permanent executive officials in the public administration. A department may be administered by several associate and assistant deputy ministers (ADMs) responsible to a deputy minister (DM), who in turn is responsible for overall management of the department, and for providing advice and support to the minister. See Deputy minister. Asymmetrical federalism A federal political system that, in addition to the differences in jurisdictional competence, hence political autonomy, between national and subnational legislatures that is the essence of federalism, also admits differences in competence among the subnational legislatures relative to each other. Asymmetrical federalism would exist de jure in Canada if one province had entrenched constitutional powers not held by the others, or “special” and “distinct” status. Supporters of the Social Union Framework Agreement of 1999, which established rules for joint federal-provincial relations on social policy, argued that it represented administrative, as opposed to constitutional, asymmetrical federalism, preferably styled “collaborative” federalism. In a federal-provincial health accord in 2004, Quebec was not required to account for additional federal funding as expected from other provinces, though other provinces could negotiate their own side agreements. Quebec has had separate immigration and state pension arrangements with the federal government since the 1960s. Also, federalprovincial tax-sharing agreements determine eligibility of each province for unconditional equalization grants from the federal government. Critics argue that such separate bilateral or selectively multilateral federal-provincial agreements in major social policy fields will lead to “checkerboard” federalism. Adherents to a more flexible federal arrangement argue that constitutional asymmetry already exists, for example regarding the use of both French and English in Quebec’s courts and legislature. It is fundamentally the matter of Quebec’s constitutional status in Confederation, as well as the application of federal spending power, that generates debate on the nature of Canadian federalism. Variation in constitutionally enshrined jurisdictional competence among provinces

Auditor General of Canada

would raise numerous questions, for example, about the proper role of senators and members of parliament in debating and voting on matters that fell within the legislative competence of parliament for parts of Canada other than the province and constituency they represented. See Distinct society clause; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Federalism; Social Union Framework Agreement (1999); Spending power; Sovereignty- association. Auditor General of Canada (oag-bvg.gc.ca) The federal officer who audits public accounts and investigates the financial affairs of most agencies of the federal government, including accounting practices, financial management and reporting, and the verification of expenditures for authorized purposes. The auditor general is also designated commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. The governor-in-council (effectively the prime minister) appoints the auditor general with the rank of deputy minister for a 10-year renewable term (until the age of 65), removable within-term only by a resolution of both houses of parliament. In accordance with the Auditor General Act, the auditor general has considerable independence in reporting annually on the public accounts of the federal government, many crown corporations, agencies, and funds, to determine value for money spent. The auditor general can also make special reports. In examining and reporting on government accounts and expenditures, the auditor general’s staff is to have access to all records relating to the accounts of the government and is to receive any information and explanations from public officials that the auditor general deems necessary. However, the cabinet may deny access to material it deems confidential, thus creating the possibility of a court challenge from the auditor general and political controversy in parliament. The staff is appointed under the Public Service Employment Act, but the auditor general is responsible for personnel management within the office and may also contract for professional services from outside the public administration. The auditor general’s report is transmitted to the House of Commons and its public accounts committee, chaired by an opposition member of parliament. The Senate’s committee on national finance may also examine the report, but it is the report itself and its examination by the house committee that attracts the most public attention. The auditor general’s staff assists the committee during its examination of the report. Because of this, and because the Office of the Auditor General is itself audited by a committee of cabinet—the Treasury Board—political tension is inherent in the relationship between the government and the Office of Auditor General. Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s reviews—the most extensive of her reports released in 2004—of government accounts in an advertising sponsorship program intended to heighten the federal government’s profile in Quebec eventually charged non-compliance with rules involving financial transfers of more than $100-million over several years in the $300-million expenditure program. The questionable transfers involved several major government agencies and crown corporations, various communication firms, and the Quebec section of the governing Liberal party. She referred files to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for investigation. Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had created the so-called sponsorship program following the federal government’s near loss in Quebec’s sovereignty referendum in 1995. His successor as prime minister in 2003, Paul Mar-

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Backbencher

tin, terminated the program and established a judicial inquiry in 2004. The evidence heard before Justice John Gomery, and his interim report in 2005, contributed to the government’s defeat in 2006. See Budget and budgetary process; Comptroller General of Canada; Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship); Treasury Board; Treasury Board Secretariat.

B Backbencher A member of a legislature who is neither a member of the cabinet, nor on the opposition’s side, a party leader, or designated party critic. The term “back benches” derives from the tier of seats in the British House of Commons at the back of the opposing sides of the chamber, as distinct from the “front benches” that are occupied by respective party leaders. The public role of backbenchers in the house is basically to engage in parliamentary activity that complements their party’s policy and political strategy. The main public outlets for parliamentary activity by backbenchers are the committee system and private members’ legislation. However, the strictures of party discipline invoked by the party whip still apply in committee. Backbenchers themselves frequently cite the in-camera sessions of the party caucus as their major forum of independent activity. Proposals for parliamentary reform usually include the loosening of party discipline, to allow a more visibly independent role for backbenchers. See Caucus; Members of parliament (MPs). Balance of power (legislative) Influence, if not power, held by one or more “third” parties in a legislature where no party has a majority of seats. In order to remain in office then, the governing party must obtain sufficient support of opposition parties (or opposition members voting)—usually from a party other than the official opposition—to win a vote in the House. In Canada such support is usually based on informal understandings. See Minority government. Ballot A specially prepared paper voters use to designate their choice in secret for candidates in an election or for an option in a referendum. The ballots are carefully guarded before, during, and, for a period of time, after an election in the event that an election result is contested. In provincial and federal elections, unofficial counts are tabulated on election night and official counts declared later. As an act of protest, electors may refuse a ballot presented to them at a polling station and have the ballot officially recorded as “rejected.” Otherwise, ballots cast are tabulated as valid, or declared “spoiled” if the elector’s preference is unclear or the ballot is not marked in a way designated as acceptable. Elections have been increasingly organized and portrayed in the mass media as a “horse race” among party leaders. However, in Canada’s parliamentary system, voters choose one among several local candidates nominated to represent their particular constituency. In each constituency then, the ballot contains the names of the candidates for that constituency, listed alphabetically, along with the name of the registered political party to which each candidate belongs. Parties may designate a scrutineer in each polling station in a constituency to oversee the count, which is conducted by the deputy returning officer, the person in charge of the

Bank of Canada

polling station. See Electoral system and Returning Officer (RO); Deputy Returning Officers (DROs). Bandwagon effect The assumed tendency of some people to subscribe to a cause or vote for a party only because it is expected to prevail. Some argue that this behaviour is encouraged during election campaigns by the publication of public opinion polls. Others argue that, in the absence of convincing evidence, one can equally assert the existence of a countervailing effect, as voters support an “underdog” in order to decrease the expected margin of victory of the prevailing candidate or party. Bank of Canada (central bank) (bankofcanada.ca) A crown corporation established by parliament in 1934, responsible for monetary policy and for protecting the external value of the currency, and in general “the economic and financial well-being of Canada.” The Bank of Canada can achieve these objectives because it is the final source of payment in the Canadian economy through its issuance of authentic bank notes, and control over the amount of money in circulation. The Bank also achieves a particular monetary policy by altering the bank rate, that is, the top end of a band of overnight lending rates at which it, or other financial institutions, will make loans or advances to major financial institutions. The credit policies (interest rates and terms of borrowing) of financial institutions exert great influence on saving and spending decisions in the economy; thus, the bank rate of the central bank leads to changes in the “prime rate” at which financial institutions will lend money to borrowers and the interest they will pay on various forms of deposit. The central bank does not engage in commercial banking. If the Bank perceives an economy growing faster than desired, it will dampen inflationary trends by fostering a rise in interest rates. Otherwise, the Bank will seek lower interest rates when it feels that spending should be encouraged to avoid economic recession. The Bank also serves the Canadian government as banker and advisor on fiscal matters and the management of the public debt. On the international level, the central bank protects the value of the currency by entering into transactions, for example, to buy and sell foreign exchange. It opens accounts in, and accepts deposits from, other central banks and international monetary agencies. Thus, when there is a “run on the dollar,” the Bank may “prop up” the dollar’s value on foreign exchange markets through purchases of Canadian dollars with foreign, notably United States, exchange, and by raising the bank rate. The Bank advises the government on international financial issues and participates in international meetings such as those sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Group of Eight “leading” industrial countries. The Bank is managed, and its monetary policy determined, by a governing council comprising the governor, senior deputy, and deputy governors. A board of directors, chaired by the governor, and including the senior deputy governor, 12 outside directors and the (non-voting) minister of finance, reviews the Bank’s policies. The minister of finance recommends to cabinet the appointment of the outside directors to three-year terms. The federal government also appoints the governor and senior deputy governor, but for seven-year terms.

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Bar

Until 1967, there was some uncertainty over the relationship on monetary policy between the minister of finance and the governor of the Bank, its chief executive officer. The central bank began as a privately owned corporation in 1935 but, since 1938, as a crown corporation, the federal minister of finance has held all share capital issued by the Bank. Since its decennial review by parliament in 1967, the Bank of Canada Act grants the Bank responsibility for formulating monetary policy but, in the event of a disagreement between the government and the Bank, the minister of finance may give the governor a specific, written directive on monetary policy to be made public, “and the Bank shall comply with such directive” (s.14). However, governments are reluctant to engage in public debate with the Bank, let alone issue a directive that would likely result in the governor’s resignation and a crisis of confidence in the government’s management of the economy. Since the 1990s, the Bank and the government jointly declare the objectives of monetary policy. Nonetheless, public debate occurs occasionally over the general objectives of monetary policy and the appropriateness of that policy at a given time. For example, on general objectives, from 1984 to 1993, the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney and the governor were agreed that, between the two objectives of maintaining price stability to control inflation and achieving full employment, the former was the pre-eminent goal of monetary policy. Critics argued that such monetary policy exacerbated recessionary effects such as unemployment. Also, some critics suggest that indivisible “national” monetary policy is designed to deal with the problems of the dominant central Canadian segment of the economy, which may be different from those of other regional economies in the country. The federal government also uses information from the Bank of Canada to determine fiscal, that is taxation and expenditure, policy. See Monetary policy; Fiscal policy. Bar (of the House) A barrier at the entrance to a legislative chamber, beyond which no “stranger,” or non-member other than chamber staff, is normally admitted. At the formal opening of a session of parliament, members of the House of Commons are summoned to the bar of the Senate to hear the Speech from the Throne, which outlines the government’s legislative intentions for the session. Also, persons may be “summoned to appear before the bar of the House” to answer charges that they have slighted the dignity of the legislature or violated the privileges of members. Bellwether riding A constituency that in general elections has repeatedly elected a candidate whose party subsequently formed the government. Some people therefore cite results in those constituencies as possible indicators of the eventual election outcome. The phrase itself is an allusion to the practice of attaching a bell to a sheep to lead the flock. A more reliable designation of bellwether ridings would involve applying the most current regional public opinion data on voter intentions to the last election results, with some allowance for possible candidate and other local effects, and boundary changes since the last election. Bicameral An adjective denoting two chambers in the legislature as opposed to only one chamber (unicameral). Canada’s federal parliament is bicameral by

Bicultural cleavage

virtue of having a lower house—the House of Commons—and an upper house— the Senate, while all provincial and territorial legislatures are unicameral. Bicultural cleavage A deep-seated social division in Canada based on ethnic, religious, and linguistic factors, reflected in constitutional statutes, political conventions, and ongoing constitutional and policy debates. The bicultural cleavage is historically expressed in terms of the minority Frenchspeaking and predominantly Roman Catholic community on one side and the majority English-speaking and predominantly Protestant community on the other side. Over time the religious factor has diminished in importance and the linguistic factor and the question of the jurisdictional competence of Quebec—the only autonomous, majority French-speaking political jurisdiction in North America—have become the dominant issues between the communities. Also, the definition of each community has been complicated by the increasing numbers of Canadians of neither French (francophone) nor British (anglophone) origin, usually referred to in Quebec as “allophones.” The bicultural cleavage is generally considered the most powerful of social cleavages in federal politics because of the cohesive political force of francophones, especially in Quebec. Certainly it is an historic cleavage, originating in the final conquest of New France by the British in 1759–60, and being expressed in the subsequent, at times uneasy, cohabitation of the two communities. Following disturbances in 1837 in Lower Canada (designated Canada East in 1840 and Quebec since 1867), the governor of British North America, Lord Durham, recommended to the British government a policy of assimilation. However, the political cohesion of French Canadians and the achievement of responsible government in the Province of Canada in the 1840s resulted in a pattern of bicultural accommodation, which became the model for post-Confederation Canada. Since Confederation in 1867, each cultural community—notably francophones throughout the country and minority-group anglophones, and more recently other ethnic communities in Quebec, including First Nations—has been sensitive to changes that might put it at a disadvantage in relation to the other group, and many issues have arisen to create anxiety and to heighten tension on the bicultural cleavage. The earliest of such issues in post-Confederation Canada were the hanging of Métis leader and rebel Louis Riel in Regina in 1885 and the passage of the Jesuit Estates Act in Quebec in 1888, and later, the conscription crises during the First and Second World Wars. More recent issues include the provisions enacted under the federal Official Languages Act, 1969, and the language and constitutional policies of successive federal and Quebec governments, notably those of the sovereignist Parti Québécois, since the 1960s. At the federal level, the formula of political accommodation developed in the nineteenth century still holds. Historically, either the Conservative or Liberal party generally had the support of the French-speaking community if its leadership in Quebec was integrated in the mainstream of that society and its leadership in English-speaking Canada was sympathetic to the cultural aspirations of French Canadians. Judging by the success of the Conservative party in the late nineteenth century and of the Liberal party in the twentieth century, electoral success with respect to this cleavage tended to be reinforced in subsequent elections. The party of French-Canadian favour was usually in office and able therefore to reward that

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Big M Drug Mart Case

favour in concrete terms. The “other” party that did not have the support of French Canadians (and was consistently “shut out” in Quebec) might, by contrast, harbour or appear to harbour unfavourable attitudes toward French Canada. The leadership of the successful party naturally magnifies and exaggerates these perceptions in order to maintain the electoral allegiance of French Canadians and thus style itself “the party of national unity.” When, however, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals seem to satisfy French Quebeckers, support has developed for a “third party,” for example, the Nationalistes in the early 1900s, the Bloc populaire in the early 1940s, the Ralliement des créditistes in the 1960s, and the Bloc Québécois, which rose to prominence in the 1990s. See various entries on subjects mentioned above. Big M Drug Mart Case (1985) A decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that declared the federal Lord’s Day Act to be a violation of section 2 (“Fundamental Freedoms”) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This early Charter decision, among others, illustrated the Supreme Court’s broad purposive interpretation of the Charter to ensure the “full benefit” of its protection to Canadians—in this case, freedom of conscience and religion—as traditions evolve. The purpose of the legislation was to enforce a common day of pause from commercial activity, but was related to the Christian Sabbath and thus discriminated against other religions. That Big M Drug Mart could successfully raise the issue of religious freedom on behalf of “others,” while having no religious conscience or point of view itself, is an example of the broad non-interpretive approach to judicial review adopted by the court. By contrast, legislation in Ontario with a similar purpose, but without a religious connotation (Retail Business Holidays Act), was sustained in a Supreme Court challenge (Edwards Books and Art Ltd., 1986). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court. Bilingualism and biculturalism Initially the title of a federal royal commission in the 1960s, a phrase describing the federal French-English language policies based on provisions of the Official Languages Act, 1969 (and amended in 1988). The Act declared French and English to be the official languages of Canada, with equal “status…rights and privileges as to their use in all the institutions of Parliament and the Government of Canada.” To achieve equal status for both languages, the Act required that federal departments and agencies provide service in both languages in designated bilingual districts. The Act also provided for a commissioner of official languages to oversee the enforcement of the Act. The most obvious impact of the Act was probably the extension of French-language radio and television service across Canada in the 1970s and regulations respecting the use of both languages in commerce. A contentious aspect of the Act involved recruitment to, and promotion within, the federal public administration to create a functionally bilingual service. The modification of the merit system—by the introduction of language requirements and the creation of single-language units within the civil service—was also designed to increase French-Canadian representation in middle- and upper-level positions where, historically, French Canadians had been under represented.

Bloc Québécois

Opposition to “official bilingualism” includes criticism of successive federal governments thought to be too solicitous of francophone support. Supporters view constitutionally entrenched “B and B” as part of a citizen-rights, or “personality,” approach to Canadian nationality as distinct from a territorial-rights approach that would likely lead to variations in language rights across provinces and territories. See Commissioner of Official Languages; Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969; 1988); Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963). Bill See Act (statute). Bill 63; 22; 101; 178; 86 (Quebec) Various statutes in Quebec enacted since the 1960s, dealing with the use of the French language in government, the courts, education, and commerce in Quebec. See Charter of the French Language (Quebec). Bill of Rights (Recognition and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Act, Canada, 1960) A federal statute, introduced by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative government, that enumerated the “human rights and fundamental freedoms” of Canadians. As an Act of parliament, the Bill of Rights, which was superseded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, applied to federal jurisdiction only. Unlike the 1982 Charter, the Bill was not entrenched in the constitution. Thus, as an “ordinary” parliamentary statute, it could be amended, made inoperative with respect to some legislation, or repealed by a parliamentary majority. Its application and judicial enforcement was inconsistent, but nonetheless it focused attention in subsequent constitutional discussions and negotiations that resulted in the constitutional entrenchment of the Charter. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Civil liberties; Supreme Court. Bloc Québécois (blocquebecois.org) A federal party, formed in 1990, dedicated to the sovereignty of Quebec. With the second-largest number of seats in the House of Commons, it formed the official opposition from 1993 to 1997. Since then, it has become a “third party” in federal politics, while the provincial Parti Québécois remained the primary political force promoting sovereignty for the province. The Bloc originated with five members of parliament elected earlier as Progressive Conservatives and Liberals and one MP elected in a by-election under the party label. It was the most popular party in Quebec in the 1993 election, winning 49 per cent of the provincial vote and 54 seats. The party’s leader, Lucien Bouchard, had been recruited to federal politics and the Progressive Conservative party by his personal friend, party leader Brian Mulroney. When Bouchard was elected in 1988 as a Conservative MP, Prime Minister Mulroney made him the leading francophone member of the cabinet. Bouchard resigned from the cabinet in 1990 following the defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord, which he felt was, in any event, an inadequate response to Quebec’s needs. The Bloc Québécois also opposed the Charlottetown Accord of 1992 as “less than Meech.” Soon after its formation, the Bloc represented a clear threat to the Conservative government. Indeed, the

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Block payments

Bloc’s success in 1993 occurred at the devastating electoral expense of the Conservative government. In addition to losing its Quebec base, the government party also lost support in western Canada and was reduced to unofficial standing in the House of Commons with only two MPs, while the Liberal party formed the government. Following Bouchard’s departure from the Bloc to lead the Parti Québécois and to become the premier of Quebec, the federal Bloc’s role in the sovereignist movement varied dramatically. Initially, it continued to receive considerable support from francophone Quebeckers, but was reduced to “third-party” status in legislative strength with the Liberals maintaining dominance. In the election of 2000, the Liberals under Jean Chrétien won the largest share of the popular vote in Quebec over the BQ, led by Giles Duceppe (44 and 39.9%, respectively), gaining seats at the BQ’s expense. In 2004, however, the party’s fortunes reversed. It won 54 seats to the Liberal’s 21 in Quebec, with 48.9 per cent of the provincial popular support to the Liberal’s 33.9 per cent, contributing significantly to the Liberal government’s minority status. In that election however, the BQ campaign focused more on the sponsorship scandal involving the federal Liberal party in Quebec than on sovereignty. In 2006, the party lost three seats, given a resurgent Conservative party in the province, but remained the most popular party in Quebec (42%). In any event, Bloc supporters intend the party to be short-lived, for its raison d’être would be eliminated with the achievement of its objective of Quebec sovereignty. Meanwhile, it remained the chief opposition to the Liberal party in federal politics in Quebec, but might be challenged in the future by the Conservatives as a federalist alternative to the Liberals. Comparisons could be made with the origins and the impact on Liberal and Conservative fortunes of Henri Bourassa’s Nationalistes early in the twentieth century and of Réal Caouette’s Créditistes in the 1960s. See Fragment party; Nationalistes, the; Parti Québécois (PQ); Ralliement des créditistes. Block payments (grants) Unconditional federal transfer payments to the provinces for social programs, notably post-secondary education and health care, introduced in the late 1970s, in contrast to earlier conditional transfers on a federal-dollar-for-provincial-dollar expenditure basis. From the federal government’s perspective, periodically negotiated block payments were preferable to the blank cheque of “fifty-cent dollars” with which it had earlier supported provincial expenditures in approved social programs. From the viewpoint of some provinces, block payments “disentangled” the federal government from provincial policy-determination in allocating funds for certain programs, though federal standards would still have to be met. Critics objected to the unconditional aspect of the block transfers, which would not prevent provincial governments from “underfunding” such programs as post-secondary education and medical health insurance, and thus detract from the quality of programs and accessibility. In 1996, the federal Liberal government combined transfers of funds and the shifting of tax points for post-secondary education and health insurance, through Established Program Funding, and for social assistance and welfare services under the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) into one block grant designated the Canada

British connection

Health and Social Transfer. In addition to the criticism of block funding noted above, this change was also criticized for not continuing federal conditions for social assistance under CAP, except for prohibiting minimum residence requirement for recipients, and also because tax points would generate different levels of provincial revenue across provinces. In 1999, the federal government and the provinces, except Quebec, agreed to notice in advance of any federal funding changes in the future, but also that the federal government, with the agreement of six provinces, could introduce and fund new social policy programs with national objectives, while allowing the provinces to determine the details of implementation to meet the declared objectives and qualify for federal funding. See Canada Assistance Plan (CAP, 1966); Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Established Program Funding (EPF); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Borrowing power The ability of federal and provincial governments and some crown corporations to incur indebtedness in order to finance expenditures, subject to approval by the legislature. Provincial governments restrict he borrowing power of municipal governments. Borrowing by the senior governments is constrained by interest rates, which in turn are affected by a government’s or crown corporation’s credit rating, and by the public’s sensitivity to the extent of current indebtedness and the cost of servicing the debt. British connection A reference to the political and sentimental ties between Canada and the United Kingdom, epitomized by the continued role of the British monarch as Canada’s monarch and head of state, and by Canada’s membership in the Commonwealth of Nations, which includes most of Britain’s former colonies. Increasingly, the British connection meant less in Canadian politics and sentiment throughout the twentieth century. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Britain had been the dominant foreign model of domestic behaviour, and development of Canada’s economy was dependent on British capital. But, as the glory of Empire receded and the United States replaced Britain as the main external source of capital and political influence, the US became the predominant source of models of cultural and social values, and the British connection was relegated to largely symbolic importance. Britain’s membership in the European Union and the increasingly heterogeneous nature of the Canadian population also contributed to the decline of British influence in Canada. The last occasion on which the British connection led to domestic partisan conflict was during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, when the Egyptian government nationalized the canal. The Liberal government then refused to support AngloFrench and Israeli military intervention in Egypt. The Progressive Conservatives objected particularly to Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent’s reference to the “supermen of Europe” no longer being able to dominate the world. However, when the Conservatives were in power from 1956 to 1963, relations between Canada and Britain worsened, especially when Canada actively opposed the British Conservative government’s intention to enter the European Economic Community (Common Market). Also, Canadian initiatives in the Commonwealth in opposition the apartheid regime in South Africa, including expulsion from the Commonwealth of which Britain was the nominal lead government, did not always receive British

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British North America Act

support. The Conservative-sponsored Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989, soon followed by the North American Free Trade Agreement including Mexico, should have dispelled any remaining thoughts that the British connection had much continuing practical significance either in domestic party politics or in foreign and international trade policies. At the same time however, there is little public sentiment to abolish the monarchy that is derived from Britain, but which has been effectively domiciled in the office and role of the governor general. The provincial counterparts, the lieutenant-governors, are the responsibility of the federal government under the Constitution Act, 1867. See Governor general; Lieutenant-governor. British North America Act See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended. Brokerage politics Political behaviour based on practical actions best suited to achieving and maintaining power. Brokerage politics is justified as the proper management of social tensions in a heterogeneous society through pragmatic decision-making to maintain social harmony. Critics of the concept ask who benefits most from brokerage politics, suggesting that in framing and managing the political discourse, brokerage politicians deliberately magnify the importance of traditional social cleavages involving ethnicity, religion, language, and geography, and discourage the public from developing a class perspective on society and demanding redistributive public policies. Such a development presumably would not favour the wealthy and powerful interests in society, which have historically financed the two most “practical” brokerage parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. Budget and budgetary process The establishment of the government’s priorities for spending among existing and proposed programs, by the public administration and the cabinet and its committees, with parliamentary scrutiny and approval—an expenditure management system. The process is complicated, and varies in detail among jurisdictions. Constitutionally, the prerogative of introducing money or supply bills (appropriation acts) belongs to the cabinet alone as ministers of the Crown (Constitution Act, 1867, s.54). The legislature’s role is to examine and vote on departmental estimates and the government’s budget. Legislative approval of the budget and money bills is a fundamental element of “confidence” required by the constitutional convention of responsible government for the government to remain in office. Although there is a wider federal pre-budget consultative process than in the past, the final decisions in the budgetary process still take place in a highly competitive environment within the largely private confines of the administration and cabinet. The focus of financial administration and control in the federal government is a statutory cabinet committee on the expenditure budget (the Treasury Board and its Secretariat), the Department of Finance, and the cabinet secretariat (the Privy Council Office). However, the process begins in the complex pattern of demands made on the government from groups in society as well as the public administration itself. These demands are accommodated in cabinet committees

Budget and budgetary process

that receive and evaluate policy priorities from the departments and government agencies. The Department of Finance submits to the cabinet its proposals for fiscal, or taxation, policy for the budgetary year, based on the department’s evaluation of likely revenues and expenditures. This evaluation occurs well before the relevant fiscal year. Within this fiscal framework, the Treasury Board develops an annual expenditure plan and coordinates the estimates process. In the yearly cycle of the expenditure management system, federal government departments submit their plans to the Treasury Board Secretariat each spring, indicating proposed spending for authorized programs. Departmental reviews are also examined by cabinet committees and standing committees of the House of Commons. In the autumn, the government releases budget consultation papers that are then examined by the House of Commons standing committee on finance. In recent years, pre-budget consultation has become more widespread throughout the country. The cabinet, Finance, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Privy Council Office then review the government’s budget strategy and, in January-February, the cabinet—but notably the prime minister and the minister of finance—decide upon the budget. The minister of finance presents the government’s annual budget in an address to the House of Commons usually in February, after the main expenditure estimates have been introduced. The budget address reviews the state of the economy from the government’s point of view, the operation of the government in the previous fiscal year, and the forecast for the next year—the economic “outlook.” The minister will also announce revenue measures, changes in the existing tax rates, rules, and tariffs (announcements of resolutions to changes in taxation are effective immediately and legislative approval is retroactive). The budget speech is delivered within the context of a motion approving the government’s budgetary policy, which then leads to a wide-ranging “budget debate” in the house touching on the government’s overall performance. When the motion is passed, budget resolutions and tax bills are introduced. The final stage of the budgetary process is parliamentary scrutiny and approval, although tax changes announced in the budget address are immediately in effect. All federal money bills are introduced first in the House of Commons (Constitution Act, 1867, s. 53). The appointed Senate cannot amend money bills to increase appropriations, and some people argue that the Senate’s role is limited to voting money bills from the house either “up” or “down.” Main estimates and supplementary estimates are referred to committees of the House of Commons. Standing orders of the House address the scheduling of consideration of both main and supplementary estimates with respect to the current and the upcoming fiscal years. There are three supply periods in which the government’s supply motions, or appropriation acts, are debated. On allotted days, motions made by the opposition take precedence and motions of non-confidence are debated. On the last allotted day in each supply period, the Speaker interrupts debate and asks for a vote on all supply business then before the house. Following parliamentary approval of expenditures, provisions of the Financial Administration Act regulate the expenditure process and an annual report by the auditor general on the government’s financial statements is tabled in the parliament for examination and debate.

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Bureaucracy

The governor general’s warrant is an important exception to parliamentary examination of government expenditures prior to actual disbursement of money. On the report of the Treasury Board that there is no appropriation for an expenditure that, according to a report by the relevant minister, is urgently required, the governor-in-council (that is, the cabinet) may order a warrant authorizing the expenditure. Warrants must be reported in the Canada Gazette and reported to parliament, when debate can then take place. See Auditor General of Canada; Estimates; Treasury Board; Treasury Board Secretariat. Bureaucracy For social scientists, an administrative system associated with large social organizations characterized by hierarchy and status, specialized training, clear lines of supervision and accountability, objective judgmental criteria for career advancement, and the maintenance of records. In popular usage, bureaucracy is a pejorative word, usually with reference to the public sector and signifying excessive size, formality and inflexibility, jurisdictional self-interest, specialized vocabulary or jargon, and a tendency to self-perpetuation—traits described collectively as involving “empire building” and “red tape.” See Public administration (civil service). By-election An election held to fill a legislative seat that has become vacant since the last general election. The timing of federal by-elections is left to the prime minister, who, within six months of formal notification to the Speaker that a vacancy has occurred, may name any date. Thus, a by-election may occur within a short time of the notification of the vacancy or may be postponed so that it is not held, due to an eventual issuance of writs for a general election. A by-election may be called quickly if, for example, the prime minister or provincial premier has engineered the vacancy for political purposes, for example to recruit a new and popular person to the caucus and even the cabinet in an election to a “safe” seat, or otherwise sees advantage in a by-election. Vacancies usually arise voluntarily or as the result of death, but occasionally are arranged by a newly chosen party leader who lacks a seat in the legislature. By-elections may be important if the government party does not have a comfortable majority in the legislature. Otherwise, by-elections are exercises that test in a limited way the government’s popularity without threatening its existence.

C CPAC (Cable Public Affairs Channel) (cpac.ca) Styled “Canada’s political channel,” a non-commercial public affairs channel, providing programming 24 hours daily in English and French through cable and satellite television suppliers, and online through its Internet site. The service includes live, unedited proceedings from the House of Commons, selective coverage of parliamentary committees, and “scrums,” hearings and rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as public affairs events such as political party conventions, conferences, interview programs, hearings of committees of inquiry, and special events. Occasionally,

Cabinet

programming from provincial legislatures and counterparts in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States is also transmitted by CPAC. Coverage of parliamentary proceedings began under the sponsorship of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1977. Since the 1990s, a consortium of cable companies has provided the service, regulated, as are all aspects of telecommunications, by the federal Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In 1992, the CRTC mandated that, with some minor exceptions, the service be provided as part of the compulsory basic service of cable and satellite providers. See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio-Canada; CBC); Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC); Mass media of communication; Scrum. Cabinet The political executive—the government-of-the-day—that formulates government priorities and policies and is responsible for the introduction and passage of public legislation embodying those policies, for the execution and administration of the policies, and for the finances of government. The federal cabinet is the active part of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada; provincial cabinets are known formally as Executive Councils. The following describes the federal cabinet, a model that is followed in the provinces except in the specific examples of power of appointment. The cabinet comprises the prime minister and ministers who have a relationship on one side with the governor general and on another with the House of Commons. A person becomes prime minister after an invitation from the governor general to form a ministry or government. The prime minister dominates the cabinet, selecting people for the cabinet and “advising” the governor general on their appointment, later on their re-assignment to different portfolios or on their removal altogether from cabinet. In this “advisory” role to the governor general, the prime minister also effectively determines, within the five-year constitutional limit for Parliaments, the date of the dissolution of a Parliament and the issuance of writs for the next general election. The government remains in office as long as it has the support or “confidence” of the House of Commons. When parliament is dissolved for an election, the cabinet remains in place throughout the election campaign and may remain in office afterwards to seek the confidence of the new house. Only when the prime minister—and not any individual or group of ministers—resigns, does the government cease to exist. The organization and operation of the cabinet, or political executive, is also largely the prerogative of the prime minister, assisted by the cabinet secretariat, the Privy Council Office. As mentioned above, the principle of responsible government requires that the government retain the support of the House of Commons in order to stay in power. The house, however, is organized on the basis of a disciplined party system. Thus, the member of parliament whom the governor general invites to be prime minister is the party-selected leader of the party that holds a majority of seats in the house or, lacking a majority, is able to win the support of a majority of members of parliament on confidence votes. Custom, usage, and convention restrict a prime minister’s choice of ministers. Federal cabinet ministers must have seats in parliament: either as elected members to the House of Commons where they can be questioned and held accountable by the opposition, or, less desirably, in the appointed upper house, the Senate. A

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Cabinet

minister who, upon appointment, does not have a seat in either chamber, must either be appointed to the Senate, or a vacancy must be created in the House of Commons for the minister to stand in a by-election. In 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Michael Fortier, the co-chair of the party’s election campaign organization in 2004 and 2006, to an important portfolio in the cabinet of the minority government, through an appointment to the Senate. The appointment was accompanied by a promise that Fortier would stand for election in the next general election. The MPs selected by the prime minister to be cabinet colleagues are always from the same party, unless, with only minority representation in the legislature, the prime minister forms a coalition government with another party. The prime minister will also attempt to have a cabinet that is recognizably representative of important regional, ethnic, religious, occupational, gender, and social interests. Since the 1990s, the representative character of cabinets, both in terms of Canadian society and the government’s base of political support, has been facilitated through the appointment of two types of ministers: full cabinet ministers and ministers of state to assist full cabinet ministers. As ministers of state attend cabinet meetings only when requested, one can distinguish the full cabinet ministers as the cabinet and both types collectively as the ministry. Nonetheless, both types of ministers are sworn as members of the privy council for life and thus bound by the rules of collective responsibility and secrecy. Collective responsibility and secrecy are important conventions of cabinet government in Canada. Not having any legal status other than as part of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, the federal cabinet acts formally as the advisory Privy Council. Thus, the governor-in-council is the governor general acting on the advice of the cabinet through an order, or minute, of council, which has the force of law. Not only does the government then speak with one voice, but members are bound for life by the Privy Council oath of secrecy to “keep close and secret all such matters as shall be treated, debated, and resolved on in Privy Council, without publishing or disclosing the same or any part thereof, by Word, Writing or any otherwise to any Person out of the same Council, but to be such only as be of the Council.” A former member of a cabinet still remains a member of the Privy Council. Thus, opinions that a current minister expresses publicly are those of the cabinet. A minister may disagree publicly with the cabinet’s view only after first resigning from it, and even then may not disclose details of cabinet discussions or documents. The disciplined party system in the House of Commons, along with the custom of collective ministerial responsibility based on a formal relationship to the Crown, gives the government-of-the-day an outward appearance of strength, efficiency, and single-mindedness with which to fend off the opposition. Political patronage associated with government (for example, the prospects for judicial, administrative, diplomatic, and senatorial appointments, as well as the possibility of a private post-political career assisted by government patronage) also ensures the cohesion of the cabinet. Perhaps the most notorious potential use of the historic, but largely formal, relationship between cabinet and Crown to protect the government is evident in provisions of the Security of Information Act (earlier styled the Official Secrets Act). This Act enjoins all Canadians from possessing, distributing and publicizing information deemed to be injurious to the state. Its

Cabinet organization

application, or threat of application, could be made against those (for example, public officials and journalists) whose actions might embarrass the government, but hardly threaten the state. The cabinet is also protected by parliamentary custom. For example, ministers need not answer questions about activities in portfolios no longer held by them. Thus, opposition MPs may be questioning a current cabinet minister on the behaviour of a predecessor while the alleged miscreant sits mutely as a minister holding another portfolio. Basically then, the government and individual ministers remain in office as long as they have the support of the majority of MPs, especially so if the opposition fails to rally public support for its criticism. Prime ministers in Canada are well known for defending their ministers; rarely does a ministerial resignation result from opposition party criticism. As for the prime minister, other than in the case of defeat in the House of Commons on a vote of confidence, the governor general is not likely to ask for a prime minister’s (that is, a government’s) resignation, except in a clear case of malfeasance, and when there is another MP available who would have the support of the house, or when public opinion—as expressed in a subsequent election—would likely support the forced resignation. See Accountability; Cabinet organization; Governor general; Inner cabinet; King-Byng Dispute; Prime minister; Security of Information Act (Canada). Cabinet organization The organization of cabinet is the prime minister’s and provincial premiers’ prerogative in heading the political executive of their respective jurisdictions, and frequently reflects their government’s political agenda and their personal leadership style. The following describes the federal cabinet, but generally applies to provincial cabinets. Until the 1960s, the federal cabinet was a small body operating informally with little assistance required from its secretariat, the Privy Council Office (PCO). However, the contemporary federal cabinet, usually with from 25 to 40 members, has an elaborate committee system and secretariat. Prime ministers organize cabinets—the committees, their membership, and terms of reference—to suit their purposes, and the rules of cabinet secrecy and collective responsibility apply to all aspects of cabinet business. The Treasury Board, however, is an important exception to the foregoing comment on prime ministerial prerogative in the organization of the political executive. The Treasury Board is a statutory committee of cabinet, that is, it exists by an Act of parliament and is formally a committee of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. The Treasury Board is chaired by a cabinet minister, styled the president, and includes the minister of finance and four other ministers. With its own secretariat, and including the Office of the Comptroller General, it is responsible for examining and making recommendations on proposed government expenditures, for reviewing expenditures and financial controls, and for personnel management in the public administration. Federal cabinets comprise several committees and levels of committees, from senior-level coordinating committees to lower-level policy committees. Since 1968, cabinets have grown in size and their role has become largely to ratify most recommendations from “below” and to debate only the most pressing political issues as defined by the prime minister. Aside from the exception of the Treasury

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Cadre parties

Board, prime ministers are not required to disclose the committee structure and membership. However, a federal cabinet might include an important committee, frequently called the committee on priorities and planning, constituting an influential “inner cabinet,” and several tiered cabinet committees reflecting economic and social policy fields, intergovernmental relations and day-to-day operations. Cabinet committees might also reflect important issues of the day, for example, following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, Canada-United States relations and domestic security concerns. In 2004, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin created a department of public safety and emergency preparedness was created, with responsibilities for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, border security, and crime-related agencies and related review bodies, especially as they operated under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 and the Public Safety Act, 2002, enacted in 2004. The deputy prime minister was designated minister of the new department and a cabinet committee on security, public health, and security was established. In organizing his minority government in 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper created a cabinet of 27 members, with a relatively “flat” rather than hierarchical structure—fewer committees than the larger, previous Liberal cabinet, but with two senior committees (planning and priorities chaired by Harper, and an operations committee), and three policy committees (social affairs; economic affairs; foreign affairs and national security)—no deputy prime minister and no junior ministers. The cabinet secretariat, or Privy Council Office (PCO), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and interdepartmental committees of senior civil servants are major influences in cabinet policy-making. In 1940, an order-in-council designated the clerk of the Privy Council as secretary to the cabinet; since then, the clerk has also been designated the prime minister’s deputy minister, the PCO thus clearly becoming the “administrative arm” of the prime minister, as well as providing staff support and records for all cabinet business. The PMO is the prime minister’s personal staff, the “political arm” headed by the chief of staff (sometimes called “principal secretary”). The PMO advises and supports the prime minister and, under the “authority” of the prime minister, also counsels cabinet ministers. Interdepartmental committees may be established informally or by order-in-council to coordinate advice from the administration to relevant cabinet committees. Consisting of deputy ministers or associate and assistant deputies, these committees are often the site of interdepartmental rivalries and bargaining over competing interests within the public bureaucracy. See Budget and budgetary process; Cabinet; Inner cabinet; Prime minister; Ministers (of the Crown); Prime Minister’s Office; Privy Council Office; Regulatory agencies (regulations); Secretaries of state; Super-ministries; Treasury Board; Treasury Board Secretariat. Cadre parties Parties whose origins were in the legislative environment in the nineteenth century, specifically the federal Liberal and Conservative parties, managed by a small elite and centred around and possessing the confidence of the leader, including senior parliamentarians, selected extra-parliamentary officials, policy specialists, fundraisers, media consultants, market survey analysts, and organizers. The merger of the Progressive Conservative party with the populist Canadian Alliance in 2003 to form the Conservative party inevitably led to the need

Calgary Declaration

to accommodate the culture of a pragmatic cadre party with that of a mass-movement, grassroots-oriented populist party. While cadre parties developed an extra-parliamentary organization among the public in the twentieth century, they remained traditionally elite-dominated in terms of policy-making and campaign decisions. Decision-making in parliamentary, or cadre parties can be characterized as pragmatic and flexible, as these parties are focused on the achievement and retention of elective office and political power. The policy positions of parliamentary or cadre parties are difficult to predict except that the leadership usually seeks to maximize popularity by brokering support from as many interests as possible. Their extra-parliamentary organizations do not determine policy, but only offer advice to the leader who determines policy in the context of electoral requirements. Party policy is therefore subject to unexpected reversal. By contrast, movement parties, such as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and Social Credit parties, and later the New Democratic and the Reform/ Canadian Alliance parties, originated in the twentieth century, outside the established political elite. As grassroots movements, they possessed a membershipbased, extra-parliamentary organization whose behaviour and policy positions had to be respected by the leader and the parliamentary caucus of the party. See Brokerage politics; Progressive Conservative party; Liberal party; Movement parties. Calgary Declaration (Framework; 1997) Following the second referendum in Quebec on sovereignty-association in 1995 when the Yes option was only narrowly defeated, a statement on Canadian unity forged by nine of ten provincial premiers—excluding Quebec’s sovereignist Premier Lucien Bouchard—and the territorial leaders of Yukon and Northwest Territories. Both the constitutional Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords of 1987 and 1992 failed to be adopted in large part because of their declaration of Quebec as a “distinct society,” which, in the critics’ view, would have given Quebec legislative powers not held by the other provinces. Considering, however, the narrow defeat of the sovereignty option and an imminent election in Quebec, the provincial premiers attempted, in a meeting in Calgary, Alberta, to compose a statement that might satisfy Quebeckers, yet maintain the principle of the equality of provinces. The seven-point statement spoke of the rights of individual Canadians, diversity, tolerance, and compassion, Native Peoples, the French and English languages, multiculturalism, and mutual respect among their governments. On the key points, however, “All provinces, while diverse in their characteristics, have equality of status” (2), and “unique character of Quebec society” was substituted for “distinct society”: “In Canada’s federal system, where respect for diversity and equality underlies unity, the unique character of Quebec society, including its French speaking majority, its culture and its tradition of civil law, is fundamental to the well-being of Canada. Consequently, the legislature and Government of Quebec have a role to protect and develop the unique character of Quebec society within Canada” (5). It appeared, however, that francophone Quebeckers were largely unimpressed, if at all aware, of the premiers’ statement. In 1998, the sovereignist Parti Québécois government was re-elected with a majority, though with a slightly smaller

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Campaign (election)

share of the popular vote than the Liberal party. Premier Bouchard promised a third referendum when, in his view, a victory was likely. For its part, the federal Liberal government developed a two-pronged post-referendum strategy: on the one hand having parliament recognize Quebec as a distinct society and enacting the non-entrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996, by which no amendment using the general amending formula would be introduced in parliament without the approval of legislatures in designated regions, with Quebec constituting a region; on the other hand, having parliament enact the so-called Clarity bill on future referendums on secession that followed a ruling by the Supreme Court on a federal reference on the legality of a unilateral declaration of independence. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Clarity bill; Meech Lake Accord (1987); Parti Québécois; Secession Reference; Sovereignty-association. Campaign (election) An organized and competitive effort under law by political parties and individual candidates in local constituencies to mobilize public support to win legislative office and thereby gain executive political power. In liberal democratic theory, competitive elections are an opportunity for citizens to review the past performance of the government party, assess the alternatives and influence the composition and policy direction of the government. Federal and provincial election campaigns begin formally when parliament or the provincial legislature is dissolved and writs are issued for a general election. However, government parties often stage “pre-writ campaigns” involving political market research and advertising, with an advantage for the government party if the expenses are borne by the public as a government, rather than as a party, expense. Electoral success for a candidate involves winning more votes than any other candidate in a constituency, while success for a party is having its official candidates win the most seats—preferably a majority—in the next House of Commons or provincial legislature. Organization and finance are crucial aspects of federal and provincial campaigns which have focused increasingly on television for party advertising, coverage of the leaders’ tours and leadership debates. Mass marketing techniques used in business, such as omnibus and segmented research through public opinion surveys as well as focus groups, have been adopted by parties to test and improve “messages” designed to bond an increasingly volatile electorate with their “product”: party label, leader, team, or platform. These messages are then transmitted by television or by the use of computer-assisted telephone communication, direct mail, and the Internet, and directed at specific groups in the electorate thought to be strategically important to the parties’ electoral fortunes. The use of sophisticated marketing instruments and skills has caused some commentators to describe election campaigns as essentially opportunities for parties to manipulate rather than inform public opinion. Election campaigns are centrally directed party campaigns. Little attention is given to the local candidates except in marginal seats where a local-candidate effect might be crucial to the outcome. The candidate selection process is subject largely to party regulation which, though formally centralized, is usually very localized. Occasionally party leaders “parachute” candidates into a riding if there is no organization “on the ground,” or when they want to find a “safe” seat for a high-profile candidate who has no connection with the constituency. After the fact,

Canada Act

a leader of virtually every party has had occasion to exercise a veto over some candidate’s successful nomination when embarrassing information about the candidate later became widely known. Various laws on donations to, and expenditures by, officially registered parties and candidates, as well as tax credits to contributors have been enacted to counteract the inequities of party finance and to introduce greater probity in party politics generally—at the federal level, for example, the Elections Expenses Act of 1974, and subsequently amended, that involved amendments to the Canada Elections Act, the Broadcasting Act, and the Income Tax Act. The chief electoral officer administers the Canada Elections Act under which federal political parties register and must submit annually an audited statement disclosing contributions and expenses. Candidates must also submit detailed returns following an election. Contributions to a candidate from outside Canada are prohibited. Limits on the amounts that a political party and its candidates can spend in a federal election and on a public subsidy received following an election are fixed by law. Contributions by corporations and trade unions to registered party associations, nomination contestants, and candidates of a particular registered party are permitted, but are very restricted. Individuals are also limited to an annual amount that they can contribute to parties, constituency party organizations, candidates for nomination, and nominated candidates, and receive a limited income tax credit. Finally, the audited returns of parties and candidates are public documents, including the names of contributors above a certain level of donation. Campaign advertising, by so-called “third parties,” that is, individuals or political action groups, either on behalf of or in opposition to political parties and local candidates has been a contentious matter in Canadian elections. Several legislative attempts to control third-party advertising in federal elections were successfully challenged in the courts as violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. During the federal election of 2000, however, “pending complete constitutional review,” the Supreme Court of Canada lifted an injunction granted in Alberta against recent amendments to the Canada Elections Act that regulated third-parties regarding contributors, advertising expenditures, and audited statements. The amendments had been made in the expectation—realized in 2004— that the Supreme Court of Canada would uphold the law as a reasonable limitation of rights, as allowed under section 1 of the Charter. The law on third-party advertising also applies to referendum campaigns. See Chief Electoral Officer (Elections Canada); Electoral law (controls; subsidies); Leaders’ debates; Platform. Canada Act, 1982 (U.K.) An Act of the British parliament “to Give Effect to a Request by the Senate and House of Commons of Canada,” effectively patriating the Canadian constitution. Until 1982, amendments to Canada’s basic constitutional document, Britain’s British North America Act, required a joint address from the Canadian parliament to the British parliament. The joint address by the Canadian parliament on patriating the constitution was supported by all provinces except Quebec, the only predominantly francophone jurisdiction in Canada. The opposition of all parties in Quebec—federalist and sovereignist—led to years of ultimately abortive constitutional negotiations, against the backdrop of Quebec’s possible secession from Confederation.

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Canada Assistance Plan

Britain’s Canada Act enacted Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982 and declared that no British Act would subsequently extend to Canada as part of its law. The Constitution Act included several amending procedures that involved only Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures (Part V), as well as the entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Part I) that included provisions respecting minority-language education rights and federal official-languages policy, statements respecting Aboriginal rights (Part II) and equalization and regional disparities (Part III). (Part IV concerns constitutional conferences to be convened in the 1980s subsequent to patriation.) The British North America Act was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867 and also amended to include a section on federal and provincial powers respecting non-renewable natural resources, forestry and electrical energy (s.92A). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charlottetown Accord (1992); Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Meech Lake Accord (1987); Natural resources; Patriation of the constitution; Sovereignty-association. Canada Assistance Plan (CAP, 1966–1995) A comprehensive, shared-cost program between the federal and provincial governments to support various provincial needs-based social assistance programs. In 1996, CAP was replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer, a block grant that also comprised federal assistance for such provincial services as post-secondary education and health insurance. Under CHST, federal funding was actually reduced and the only condition with respect to social assistance programs was that there be no minimum residence requirement. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST). Canada Clause (Preamble, Charlottetown Accord, 1992) A preamble to the Constitution Act proposed in the failed Charlottetown Accord of 1992 that “would [have] guide[d] the courts in their future interpretation of the constitution, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The clause defined Canada’s “fundamental characteristics,” including parliamentary democracy, federalism, and the rule of law; Aboriginal governments as “one of three orders of government in Canada”; a definition of Quebec as a distinct society; the “vitality and development” of French- and English-language minority communities; racial and ethnic diversity and equality; individual and collective rights; gender equality; and equality of the provinces. The clause would also have affirmed the role of the government and legislature of Quebec “to preserve and promote the distinct society of Quebec,” while declaring that nothing in the clause derogated from the powers of parliament, the provincial legislatures, or Aboriginal governments. Critics of the Canada Clause in the Charlottetown Accord included opponents of the distinct society clause as it related to the role of the Quebec legislature and government. Some opponents also argued that the Canada Clause created a hierarchy of rights under the Charter and excluded those mentioned in the Charter but not specifically mentioned in the Canada Clause, such as the physically or mentally disabled. Some objected to the wording by which “Canadians and their governments” were committed to some characteristics such as minority-language communities, while only “Canadians” were committed to others, for example racial, ethnic, gender, and provincial equality.

Canada Health and Social Transfer

Canada Council (canadacouncil.ca) A federal agency created in 1957 to fund the arts in Canada—the projects of Canadian artists and the activities of Canadian art organizations, including orchestras, dance, theatre and opera companies, art galleries, publishers, and film and video organizations. The creation of the Council was a major recommendation of the (Vincent Massey) Royal Commission on National Development of the Arts, Letters and Sciences. The Council administers funding programs, but the grants are awarded competitively on the recommendation of advisory committees of artists and arts professionals. From time to time, funded activities result in public controversies, but the Canada Council remains one of several well-established federal institutions that fosters a distinctive cultural identity among Canadians. Most provinces have similar arts councils. Canada Gazette (canadagazette.gc.ca) A federal government publication that contains all proclamations issued under the authority of the governor-in-council and government notices such as orders-in-council, regulations, advertisements, or parliamentary matters requiring publication. Similar publications exist in the provinces. The Gazette comprises three parts. Part I, published weekly, contains information required by federal statute or regulation to be published, including privatesector information, other than material designated for Parts II or III. Part I includes proposed government regulations, certain orders-in-council, and notices of hearings, decisions, and proposed regulations. Part II, published biweekly, includes regulations and classes of statutory instruments and documents of government departments and agencies as defined by the Statutory Instruments Act. Part III contains Acts of parliament and their proclamations, published as soon as possible after Royal Assent. See entries on various items mentioned here. Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) A block payment since 1996 in the form of cash transfers and the transfer of tax points from the federal government to the provinces to fund post-secondary education, health insurance (medicare), and social assistance programs in the provinces. The CHST replaced Established Programs Funding for post-secondary education and health insurance, and the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) for social assistance. It was instituted by the Liberal government in the face of continued opposition of some provincial governments over federal “entanglement” in areas of provincial jurisdiction; it was also part of the federal government’s “off- loading” of costs of public services to the provincial governments in order to eliminate its budget deficits and reduce the federal debt. However, requirements under the federal Canada Health Act for universal, comprehensive, single-payer (the provincial governments), and portability of health care insurance were maintained as well as a prohibition on minimum provincial residency requirements under the CAP. The inclusion of tax points in the program had consequences especially for those provinces whose economies did not include a high tax yield. There were concerns that some provinces might not spend even the smaller dollar amount on social services. In 2004, the CHST was divided into two payments, separating health insurance from other social programs. The federal government agreed to increase federal grants for health insur-

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Canada Labour Code

ance in return for provincial agreement on measures of accountability See Block payments; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Medicare. Canada Labour Code (http://laws.justice.ca/en/L-2) A federal law that regulates employment practices and standards in the federal public administration and private-sector industries under federal jurisdiction, such as the transportation industries. Part I deals with industrial relations; Part II, occupational health and safety; Part III, standard hours of work, wages, vacations and holidays. Because labour legislation involves conditions applied to the rights of employers and employees, and therefore to local works and property and civil rights, the courts have affirmed that otherwise, labour legislation comes under the authority of provincial legislatures (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:10, :13). The Canada Labour Code also applies to works that parliament declares to be for “the general Advantage of Canada or…Two or more of the Provinces” (s.92:10[c]). The Code is administered, in different sections, by the Canada Industrial Relations Board and by the Public Service Staff Relations Board. See Labour Conventions Reference (1937). Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) (cmhc-schl.gc.ca) A federal crown corporation established in 1946 to administer the National Housing Act (NHA): that is, to facilitate the flow of capital into mortgages at favourable interest rates for new and existing owner-occupied, rented, or co-operative housing. However, the CMHC, and its regional offices in particular, are involved through federal-provincial agreements in a variety of endeavours that have had a dramatic impact on urban Canada. The CMHC is essentially a financial institution servicing communities by aiding public land assembly and the expansion of municipal sewerage and water supply systems; assisting in the construction and financing of new housing; and in improving established urban neighbourhoods through planning and residential rehabilitation. The Corporation is also involved in the construction and administration of housing in areas of special need, for example, in the construction of housing for senior citizens and housing projects for Native Peoples. CMHC also supports and conducts research and sets construction standards for the private sector, focusing beyond basic standards to measures such as the achievement of energy conservation and sustainable communities. Its policy and research section advises CMHC on its policies, analyzes the housing market, and evaluates relations among the three levels of government (federal, provincial, and municipal) on housing and related policies. The scope of activity by this federal corporation has extended considerably beyond the government’s original legislation enacted during the economic depression of the 1930s to facilitate the flow of money in the economy, first for new home construction and later for residential rehabilitation and municipal infrastructure improvements. CMHC policy was largely responsible for the sprawling, lowdensity suburbs of single-family dwellings and the “bulldozer” urban renewal projects in city centres during the 1950s and 1960s, which replaced low-income housing and old central retail business districts with high-income housing, national chain stores, and new public buildings such as city halls, art galleries, and concert

Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement

halls. Since the 1970s, CMHC policy has focused on inner-city renovation and rehabilitation. CMHC has been a target of provincial criticism because of federal involvement in an area of provincial jurisdiction (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:8: Municipal Institutions in the Province). The legal instrument for federal involvement through CMHC in municipal-related programs is, therefore, a series of federalprovincial umbrella agreements on policies and cost-sharing. The federal government’s role in the growth and development of many of Canada’s cities is also facilitated by its constitutional responsibilities, and hence land ownership, in matters such as harbours, and rail and air transportation. Canada (Quebec) Pension Plan (CPP, QPP, 1966) A compulsory, earnings-related employee and employer contributory pension plan that covers most of the Canadian work force, and includes survivor benefits. The federal government introduced the income insurance plan at a time when the provinces were increasingly critical of the centralization of fiscal and social policy. Considerable opposition from Quebec, which already had a provincial plan, resulted in the separate, but basically similar, Quebec Pension Plan. Pension credits accumulated under the CPP or the QPP may be transferred to the other. Concerned that the CPP would provide insufficient income for prospective pensioners, the federal government introduced the Registered Retirement Savings Program, which allows Canadians to defer taxation on income invested for retirement years. Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989) A comprehensive agreement between Canada and the United States to facilitate trade between the two countries, notably by reducing protectionist barriers, but also creating a dispute settlement mechanism as each country may levy countervailing duties or other restrictive measures, alleging unfair trade practices on the part of the other country. The Agreement (FTA), negotiated by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in 1988, went largely unnoticed by the US public, but was subjected to considerable debate in Canada, including opposition by both the Liberal and New Democratic parties in the House of Commons and obstruction by Liberals in the Senate. Parliament was dissolved and the FTA featured prominently in the subsequent general election when the government was reelected and passage of the FTA thus ensured. Organized forces for and against the FTA agreed only that it was of profound importance to the future of Canada. Those supporting the FTA argued that, in an era of increased economic globalization and the formation of large trade blocs, Canada’s future would be assured in a close relationship with the United States in competition with the blocs based on the European Union and Japanese economies. Supporters argued that the dispute settlement mechanism could be used to defend Canadian interests against US protectionism, while opponents held that the US was not really committed to the principles of the FTA when its interests were adversely affected and its congressionally controlled domestic trade laws would prevail. Opponents argued that further integration of the small Canadian economy with the large US economy would result in a rationalization that would eliminate jobs, companies, and even whole industries—including cultural industries—and

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Canadian Alliance party

threaten distinctive government social policies such as medicare and regional development programs. Nonetheless, the Conservative government held firm and in the 1990s joined with the US and Mexico in talks to achieve a North American Free Trade Agreement, if only to protect Canadian interests under the Canada-US FTA. See Dispute settlement mechanism (Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, 1989); North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992); Reciprocity. Canadian Alliance party Formally the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party, the populist, social conservative successor to the western-based federal Reform party, established in 2000, which merged with the federal Progressive Conservative party in 2003 to form the Conservative party. Reform party leader Preston Manning engineered the transformation of Reform to the Alliance in his long-term objective to “unite the right” in federal politics. Although Reform became the official opposition in the House of Commons following the election of 1997, it failed in its basic objective to create a solid base of electoral support in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Thus began Manning’s attempt to create a merger with the Progressive Conservative party, whose western electoral base Reform had captured in 1993 and retained in 1997, but which remained an electoral force in the East. When the Conservative leadership rejected Manning’s overtures, Alliance strategy shifted to undercutting the Conservative leadership by winning over the party’s members and supporters. Manning lost the leadership to Stockwell Day, a former Conservative cabinet minister in Alberta, but in the general election of 2000, the Alliance surpassed Reform’s popular vote in 1997 by only 6 per cent, winning 26 per cent of the vote. The party maintained its status as official opposition with an increase of six seats, but failed again to achieve a significant electoral breakthrough east of Manitoba, winning only two seats in rural Ontario. The Progressive Conservatives lost eight seats, winning 13 and managing barely to retain official party status in the House of Commons. Stephen Harper, a former Conservative activist, but later a spokesperson for the right-wing National Citizens Coalition, replaced Day as the Alliance leader. The eventual merger with the Progressive Conservative party, as the Conservative party, under Harper’s leadership was based on a mutual realization that neither party could recast itself as a country-wide electoral force. Traditionally, the Progressive Conservative party had been a voice of the moderate political right, including a view that public policy, including social policy, entailed a role for the federal government in the interest of social cohesion and order. Though desiring to displace the Conservatives as the voice of the political right, the Alliance program remained radically right wing in its social conservatism and “provincialist” orientation”: a single rate of taxation; the rate of government growth linked to inflation and population growth; stricter prosecution, sentencing and parole provisions in the criminal justice system; potential twotier, private and public, provincial health care systems with no national standards for federal funding; elimination of funding for multiculturalism and various other federal programs including those for regional development; federal government withdrawal from a variety of policy fields, while retaining responsibility essentially for foreign affairs and an enhanced defence establishment, monetary policy, banking, trade, and criminal law. The Alliance also retained the traditional populist element of western-Canadian politics: party discipline would be relaxed as members

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

of parliament would be obliged to vote according to a consensus of their constituents and citizens would be able to launch initiatives, including referendums whose outcomes would be binding on the federal government. Thus, short of an Alliance government amending the Criminal Code itself, social conservatives might use public initiatives, for example, to reinstate capital punishment and legal restrictions on access to therapeutic abortions. In the election of 2004, the “new” Conservative party’s share of the popular vote—29.6 per cent—was less than the combined Alliance and Progressive Conservative shares in the 2000 election—37.7 per cent, though the percentage of seats won rose from a combined 25.9 per cent in 2000 to 32.1 per cent. The party retained official party status, while the Liberals were returned as a minority government with 36.7 per cent of the vote and 43.8 per cent of the seats. Various interpretations of the Conservative defeat include Conservative gaffes that resurrected negative feelings about the social conservatism of the Canadian Alliance. Following the merger, there remained difficulties in creating a cohesive party involving the social conservatism of the Alliance and the more pragmatic conservatism of the Progressive Conservative party. In the first post-merger policy convention in 2005, populist direct-democracy measures of the Alliance, such as legislative initiative and recall were rejected, and Progressive Conservative support for federal government bilingualism and the manner of leadership review were approved. Social conservatism was still evident, though, in parliamentary debate, for example, on defining the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservative party formed a minority government, following a campaign when considerable care was taken to moderate the party’s image. The party garnered 40.3 per cent of the seats (augmented by one Liberal defection shortly after the election) with 36.2 per cent of the vote, achieving electoral gains in Ontario and Quebec, though largely in rural areas of those provinces, and also in the context of an incumbent Liberal party beset by charges of corruption. See Conservative Party (2003–); Progressive Conservative party; Populism; Reform party. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio-Canada; CBC) (cbc.radio-canada .ca) A federal crown corporation that provides country-wide radio and television services in English and in French, in some Native languages in selective parts of the country, notably in its Northern Service, and in various languages in its International Service. The CBC’s parliamentary mandate requires a “balanced service” of information, entertainment, and enlightenment to encourage the expression of a Canadian identity, enhancing national unity while reflecting Canada’s multicultural diversity. Parliament funds the CBC through annual appropriations and the CBC generates advertising revenue in its television services and commercial revenue through sales of program-related products. The CBC’s centre for English-language services is in Toronto, for French-language, Northern Canada, and International services in Montreal, and for administration in Ottawa. The governor-in-council, that is, the federal government, appoints the CBC president and the board of directors, and the Corporation is subject to the regulatory powers of the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

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Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Because of its public funding and its “nationalizing” political mandate, the CBC is subject to considerable parliamentary, governmental, and public scrutiny and criticism. Apart from occasional charges of broadcasting immoral dramatic performances and biased public affairs programs, the Corporation has been subject to complaints that its French-language news and public affairs programming was consistently framed within a Quebec nationaliste perspective, effectively promoting the sovereignist cause. There has also been dissatisfaction in the western and eastern areas of the country with central-Canada-based news and information programming, the lack of region-based programming, and cutbacks in local news and public affairs programming. The CBC’s English- and French-language all-news television services, “Newsworld” and “Réseau de l’Information” (RDI), available through cable and satellite service providers, cover many political events “live” and emphasize programming from different regions of the country. The corporation has additional specialty channels available through digital television providers and participates in a digital satellite-based radio service. Increasingly, the English-language CBC television schedule has included Canadian programs and fewer American programs. This task is complicated, however, by underfunding by the federal government and increased competition from private-sector broadcasters and specialty cable channels, especially those whose profits are based on programs from networks in the United States. Radio-Canada, which produces more French-language programming than any other national broadcaster, produces very popular programming for a primarily Quebec-based audience. Occasionally, there are co-productions for both networks, notably a popular series in the 1990s on Canadian history, but generally the two languagebased networks operate separately. See Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC); Mass media of Communication; Press Gallery. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, that guarantees Canadians protection of individual and certain collective rights against all levels and institutions of government, subject to interpretation by the courts, the invoking of a legislative override clause, or amendment through the general procedure for amending the constitution. The Charter guarantees freedoms already enjoyed by Canadians and formulates new rights. For example, the Charter contains the traditional liberal freedoms of conscience and religion, thought and speech, and common law protection with respect to search and seizure, arrest or detention, and fair judicial procedures. The Charter also includes established democratic rights respecting the franchise and the requirement for periodic elections and regular sittings of legislatures. The Charter reaffirms English and French as the official languages of Canada (parliament, government, and the courts) and confirms New Brunswick as an officially bilingual province. The Charter broke new constitutional ground respecting mobility rights, equality rights, minority-language educational rights, gender equality, and multiculturalism. The sections on mobility (s.6) and legal equality (s.15) rights declare individual rights subject to affirmative action programs to combat social and economic disadvantage on the basis of unemployment rates, as well as disadvantage because of “race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

physical disability.” The Charter guarantees public education rights to English or French linguistic provincial minorities where numbers warrant (s.23). Section 28 guarantees the Charter’s rights and freedoms “equally to male and female persons” and section 27 requires the courts to interpret the Charter “in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” Section 24.1 grants the courts power to enforce remedies to the denial or infringement of Charter rights and freedoms “as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.” However, if in such enforcement proceedings a court concludes that “evidence was obtained in a manner that infringed or denied any rights or freedoms guaranteed by the Charter, the evidence shall be excluded if it is established that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute” (s.24.2). The Charter can be amended by a resolution of the House of Commons and Senate, and of two-thirds of the legislatures in provinces having together at least 50 per cent of the population of all the provinces. Otherwise the guarantees in the Charter may be limited in two ways: a Charter violation may be “saved” by section 1, which subjects the guarantees “only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” Also, section 33, the non obstante or notwithstanding clause, permits legislatures to enact laws that violate sections dealing with fundamental freedoms (s.2), legal rights (ss.7–14), and equality rights (s.15), for five-year renewable periods. In 1986, the Supreme Court of Canada established a test by which legislation or administrative regulation or procedure could violate guaranteed rights and freedoms, and thus be “saved” by section 1. Known as the Oakes Test, the successful application of section 1 requires demonstration that the objective of the law or rule is “pressing and substantial,” that the means involve a minimal violation or restriction and are “rationally connected to the objective,” and that the benefit will outweigh the cost of the limitation. Thus lawyers for a government will frequently argue that a disputed matter before a court is not a violation of the Charter, but, if deemed to be a violation, nonetheless passes the Oakes test and is saved by section 1. The inclusion of the controversial section 33, known as the “legislative override,” was a concession to supporters of the principle of parliamentary supremacy within the context of the federal-provincial division of powers. The section has been little used, and when used has generated controversy. From 1982 to 1984, the Parti Québécois government invoked section 33 in each new bill as standard practice, reflecting its opposition to the constitutional changes in 1982. In 1984, the successor Liberal government in Quebec discontinued the practice, but invoked section 33 in one very controversial case. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Quebec’s language law, the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101, 1977), violated the federal Charter respecting minority-language education (s.23—outside the scope of s.33, the notwithstanding clause) (A.G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards). Four years later, the court dealt another blow to the language law, declaring its prohibition of commercial signs in languages other than French a violation of freedom of expression (s.2) (Ford). The provincial Liberal government responded by amending the law (Bill 178), but invoking sec-

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Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

tion 33 of the Charter to allow revised restrictions on commercial signage (French language only on the exterior of commercial buildings) to operate notwithstanding the Charter. However, the court having ruled the objective of preserving a “French visage” in Quebec was acceptable, the Liberal government further amended the law in 1993, without reference to section 33, to allow for bilingual outdoor signs as long as French was predominant. An earlier use of section 33 occurred in Saskatchewan in 1986, when, fearing a successful challenge under section 1 (“freedom of association”), the Progressive Conservative government employed the override in legislation compelling striking public employees to return to work. The Progressive Conservative government in Alberta considered invoking section 33 with respect to its human rights legislation, to counter a Supreme Court decision (Vriend, 1998) that effectively read “sexual orientation” into the provincial legislation as a prohibited basis of discrimination. While there was probably considerable public support for the government, it decided against invoking section 33. Successive federal Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments indicated their unwillingness to use section 33. However, following the merger of the Progressive Conservative and the social conservative Canadian Alliance parties, the position of the Conservative party on the use of section 33 was unclear, as seen for example in the debate over the right of same-sex couples to marry, and court decisions supporting that right. Since 1982, courts at all levels have dealt with literally thousands of Charter cases, with significant consequences for public-policy-making. In their broad exercise of judicial review, the courts have been concerned not to usurp the legislative function of parliament and the provincial legislatures, especially regarding remedial decree litigation under section 24.1. Inevitably, however, the courts have become perceived at least as quasi-political institutions, partly because of their decisions, but also because some governments have preferred to have controversial issues resolved by judicial decision rather than their legislative action. Other consequences of the entrenchment of Charter rights include more public attention to the judicial appointment process and reviews by academics and journalists of decisions by individual justices, especially those on the Supreme Court; the proliferation of so-called Charter interests and groups—frequently referred to as the court party—whose political strategies focus on achieving favourable court decisions compelling governments to alter legislation or regulations; concomitantly, less attention to the legislative process and politicians as policy-makers; on the one hand less incentive to achieve political accommodation, but on the other a heightened regard among politicians and public administrators for potentially adverse judicial rulings. A number of Supreme Court judgments have defined a broad non-interpretive or purposive approach to judicial review under the Charter. For example, on judicial review, the Court ruled that, contrary to the intent of the framers of the Charter, “the principles of fundamental justice” (s.7) would involve where necessary the review of legislation on substantive grounds (Motor Vehicle Reference, 1985); that both the purpose and effect of legislation would be examined to provide Canadians with the “full benefit” of the Charter’s protection (Big M Drug Mart Ltd., 1985); that protection would extend to organizations such as businesses as well as individuals, involving section 8, “unreasonable search and seizure” in anti-

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

combines investigations (Hunter v. Southam, Inc., 1984) ; that the concept of “fundamental justice” and “security of the person” (s.7) would involve court-defined standards of procedures rather than administrative procedures established under enabling legislation. For example, administrative convenience (efficiency and cost) was rejected as reason sufficient to limit a Charter right (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration, 1985). The court also established that executive decisions (cabinet orders-in-council) in matters such as foreign affairs and defence would be subject to review under the Charter (Operation Dismantle v. The Queen, 1985). Some early Charter decisions had considerable impact on public policy debate. Thus it could be said that the court has performed an indirect legislative function. In the past, the court would decide cases on the basis of “legal facts.” However, the court as a whole must now entertain “social facts” in order to establish whether there has been a violation of the Charter and then to decide on the application of section 1. Some justices appear to be more open to consideration of substantive issues of rights under the Charter (a non-interpretive approach to judicial review), while others, less willing to engage in “judicial policy-making,” focus on legal analysis and precedent (an interpretive approach to judicial review). For example, in Operation Dismantle, the court decided that it would hear the case against the government’s executive agreement to allow the United States to test unarmed cruise missiles over Canadian territory as a contributory factor to the deprivation of “the right to life, liberty and security of the person” (s.7). In ruling against the claim that missile-testing would enhance the likelihood of nuclear war with Canada as a target, Chief Justice Dickson and the majority said that with the best evidence available it could only speculate about the likely outcome of the cabinet’s agreement. In Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen (1988), the court was presented with “social facts” that were relevant in determining that conditions set out in the Criminal Code to procure abortions were a violation of women’s security of the person (ss.7, 28). In this case, data from Statistics Canada and a government-sponsored report that found access to abortion across the country to be uneven and delayed, and that associated the current law with increased health risks to women, constituted relevant evidence and were used variously by the justices to come to their respective decisions. Although all but one justice sustained parliament’s right to legislate in the matter of abortion, parliament was subsequently unable to agree upon substitute legislation (given a tie vote in the Senate). Later, on other “right to life” issues, the court refused to rule on “right to life and security of the person” respecting a foetus (Borowski, 1989], but did rule that a women could not be sued for harming her foetus during pregnancy (Dobson, 1999). The court ruled that the Charter could not be invoked respecting a paternal interest in the matter of abortion (Daigle, 1989]—consequently, nothing in Quebec legislation or case law sustained a paternal interest—and also ruled against voluntary, doctor-assisted suicide (Rodriguez, 1993). In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled against the extradition of Canadians who might face execution in legal proceedings abroad (Burns). Earlier, the court had ruled in 1992 that immigration law that permitted deportation following the issuance of national security certificates and ex parte and in camera hearings on evidence provided by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service did not violate section 7 rights. The case involved a

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Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

criminal conviction concerning organized crime (Chiarelli), but the prolonged detention of suspected terrorists several years later, subject to deportation and the risk of torture, raised public concerns about the process. In 2005, the court overturned the prohibition on private health care insurance for medically necessary operations as a violation of Quebec’s charter of rights given the evidence of lengthy waiting lists for government-insured operations (Chaouilli). Supporters of the single-payer system under the Canada Health Act were concerned that a similarly successful challenge with country-wide implications might be had using section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When interpreting equality rights, the Supreme Court has followed the reasoning in Andrews (1989), first determining if an equality in law or practice involved a prohibition listed in section 15 or an inequality on a basis similar to those listed, followed by a determination of harm. Subsequent equality cases have benefited women, gays and lesbians, and the hearing disabled. The most politically sensitive cases have involved “sexual orientation,” which, in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled to be a prohibited basis of discrimination under the Charter (Egan)—though the specific case involving pension rights for same-sex couples was lost. In 1998, the court effectively read “sexual orientation”—deemed a legislative “omission”— into Alberta’s Individual Rights Protection Act as a prohibited basis of discrimination (Vriend). In 1999, the court found support payments under Ontario’s Family Law Act similarly wanting in discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation (M. v. H.). A series of provincial and territorial court rulings beginning in 2002 ruled the federal law restricting the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples to be a violation of equality rights. Responding to a reference from the federal government, the Supreme Court held that defining marriage in law to include same-sex couples was constitutional, but churches could discriminate in their solemnization of marriage under section 2 rights (freedom of religion). Parliament has amended legislation to deal with Charter decisions of the Supreme Court. Sexual assault cases, for example, have come before the court involving presumption of innocence and the admission of evidence of a complainant’s previous sexual activity (Daviault, 1994; Seaboyer, 1991; Ewanchuk, 1999). However, parliament has also amended the Criminal Code to overcome some aspects of Supreme Court rulings, notably with respect to the admission of medical records in sexual assault cases, and the court has partially reversed itself with respect to the admission of confidential counselling records of complainants in such cases. Parliament has also amended legislation to counter the court’s decisions in other matters such as “unreasonable search and seizure” (s.8): to make it easier to obtain a warrant to enter a building in order to pursue a suspect in flight (Feeney, 1997), and to obtain samples for DNA analysis (Stillman, 1997). The Supreme Court has issued remedial decrees with respect to minority-language education rights. In the first such ruling (Mahé v. Alberta, 1990), the court compelled the Alberta government to create a minority-language school board in Edmonton to allow francophones administrative control over buildings and instruction. Unintended consequences can result from the court’s decisions, as in its attempt in 1990 to define “a reasonable time” for a person charged with an offence to be tried (s.11). Having accepted evidence respecting delays in various courts in sev-

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

eral provinces, the court ruled that delays of six to eight months “might be…the outside limit of what is reasonable” (Askov, 1990). Subsequently, hundreds of charges, including serious criminal charges, were dismissed, withdrawn, or stayed in Ontario courts. One justice attempted an unprecedented off-the-bench clarification of its policy making in Askov, and the court reversed itself later, leaving “reasonable time” to be determined by provincial courts of appeal and placing the onus on an accused to demonstrate harm from the delay (Morin, 1992). The Charter has been cited in cases involving common-law freedoms impugned by statute, and to clarify precedence when elements of common law are in conflict. Legislation restricting commercial activities on particular religious grounds has been declared unconstitutional (Big M Drug Mart Ltd., 1985), but valid if based on non-religious grounds (Edwards Books and Art Ltd., 1986). Film censorship is acceptable under section 1 when the criteria are “prescribed by law” (Re Ontario Film and Video Appreciation Society and Ontario Board of Censors, 1984). The Criminal Code’s prohibition on the dissemination of hate literature, and pornography that is violent and degrading, have also been upheld as “reasonable limits” on the freedom of expression (Keegstra, 1990; Butler, 1992); however, the dissemination of views that are deliberate falsehoods does not violate the Charter (Zundel, 1992). Quebec legislation restricting television advertising directed to children was ruled constitutional (Irwin Toy Ltd., 1989). Federal legislation prohibiting public servants from working for a political party or candidate was deemed unconstitutional (Osborne, 1991). Freedom of association was interpreted as an individual rather than a collective right. Thus, the right of organized labour to strike is defined by ordinary legislation rather than being a right guaranteed under section 2 of the Charter (Re Public Service Employees Relations Act [Alberta], 1987). However, the Supreme Court upheld the Rand Formula whereby unions collect dues from both members and non-members and represent all workers in a bargaining unit, and sanctioned unions’ use of non-members’ dues for political purposes not related to negotiating and implementing a contract (Lavigne, 1991). In the absence of a statute respecting secondary picketing in British Columbia, a union unsuccessfully appealed its conviction based on common law as a violation of Charter rights (s.2). The Supreme Court rested its decision not on section 1 (“reasonable limit”), but on the absence of any statute impugning Charter rights, thus making the case one of private litigation to which the Charter did not apply (Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, Local 580 et al. v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd., 1986). Courts in Canada have generally allowed the common law freedom of an accused person to presumed innocence in a fair trial (s.11) to take precedence over freedom of the press (s.2). There have been several freedom of the press (s.2) rulings. Ruling in 1994 on an appeal of a publication ban imposed on a television program that dealt with matters that were subject to criminal proceedings (The Boys of St. Vincent), the Supreme Court held that Charter rights are in principle equal; publication bans can be imposed only “to prevent a real and substantial risk to the fairness of the trial [and when] the salutary effects of the publication ban outweigh the deleterious effects to the free expression of those affected by the ban.” A decision in 1998 (Thompson Newspaper Co.) led to current federal legislation regarding the publication of public opinion polls, especially during election campaigns.

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Canadian Human Rights Commission

There have been important lower-court decisions involving the Charter. Until a Supreme Court decision in 2000, courts in Alberta consistently held that provisions of the federal Canada Elections Act that restricted so-called “third-party” advertising in federal elections were a violation of fundamental freedoms (s.2) that could not be reasonably “justified in a free and democratic society” (s.1) (National Citizens’ Coalition Inc., 1984 et sq.). Remedial decrees were issued by courts in several provinces respecting minority-language educational rights of francophones. For example, the Ontario government referred its Education Act to the provincial Supreme Court, certain that it would be declared unconstitutional, thus obtaining a judicial imprimatur for extending French-language education services in the province (Reference Re Education Act of Ontario and Minority Language Education Rights, 1984). The Ontario courts declared the powers of the province’s Board of Censors violated the Charter, and the Ontario Supreme Court read “sexual orientation” into the Canadian Human Rights Code as a prohibited basis for discrimination. Although this applied to federally regulated workplaces only in Ontario, the Canadian Human Rights Commission said it would apply the ruling in federal areas of jurisdiction throughout Canada. Academics and journalists have focused attention on the consequences for the larger political system of the sharing of legislative and executive/administrative policy-making with the courts. Some have noted the enhanced positioning on the public agenda of those interests designated in the Charter, especially in section 15, and the more prominent role for the leadership of social movement organizations promoting those interests. Some commentators have suggested that the Charter has contributed to the rise and prominence of single-issue interest groups and social movements that are less deferential to political elites and ill-disposed to the traditional processes of political bargaining, accommodation, and to a diminution of public identification with political parties and leaders, the traditional brokers of interests and conflict managers in the Canadian political system. See Judicial Review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada. Canadian Human Rights Commission (Act; Chief Commissioner) (chrcccdp.ca) A federal commission established in 1977 under the Human Rights Act and headed by the chief commissioner to investigate and report on cases of alleged discrimination in the workplace or in services offered by federally regulated companies. Discrimination is prohibited on the grounds of gender, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, age, religion, sex, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, physical disability, or pardoned criminal offence. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (acdi-cida.gc.ca) The federal agency responsible for administering most of Canada’s bilateral and multilateral official development assistance (foreign aid) programs, including assistance to voluntary non-governmental organizations and incentives to the private sector for projects abroad. The CIDA program encourages environmentally sound, sustainable economic and social development, health and nutrition, basic education, human rights, child protection, and prevention of HIV/AIDS. However, funds devoted to Canada’s

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

international aid program as a percentage of gross domestic product is among the lowest of countries in the developed world. Originally held by a branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce, it was transferred to External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs) in 1960. Originally the External Aid Office, it was renamed CIDA in 1968. Canadian Judicial Council (cjc-ccm.gc.ca) A body established by parliament in 1971, chaired by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and including all chief justices and associate chief justices of courts appointed by the federal government. There are provincial counterparts involving the provincially appointed judiciary. The judicial councils are responsible for the quality of judicial governance. They are sites for the exchange of views on the education of judges and on court administration in general. However, the most sensitive aspect of their mandate is the investigation of complaints respecting judges’ behaviour that can result in reprimands or removal from the bench. The judicial councils reinforce the important constitutional principle of the independence of the judiciary, as such complaints would otherwise be investigated and resolved solely under the aegis of politicians. Canadian Parliamentary Guide An annual publication since Confederation by a private firm that currently includes “thumbnail” biographies of current federal members of parliament and senators, names of officials of the parliament of Canada, the membership of the cabinet, and the electoral history of federal constituencies. The Guide also contains information about provincial and territorial governments. Information about parliament is available at: parl.gc.ca. Canadian Press / Broadcast News (www.cp.org) A private-sector, French- and English-language news-gathering and disseminating co-operative “wire service,” whose members include newspapers and radio and television stations across Canada. Each member submits stories from their location to CP/BN, which rewrites, translates, and distributes them to other members. CP/BN also has employee-reporters who file stories for distribution to all members. CP also has an exchange program with other agencies outside Canada, notably its counterpart in the United States, the Associated Press (AP). As local mass media outlets have been subsumed within a few corporate chains, especially since the 1960s, they also have access to their chain’s own news services. At the same time, the large media corporations can influence the operation of CP/BN. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (crtc-gc.ca) A federal agency that regulates broadcasting in Canada and certain telecommunications carriers under federal jurisdiction, for example, on ownership, content, competition, and rates. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, itself a major part of the national broadcasting system, regulated broadcasting until the Board of Broadcast Governors assumed the role in 1958 and was in turn succeeded by the CRTC. Authorized to regulate all aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system, the commission sets

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Canadian Security Intelligence Service

standards of broadcast behaviour and considers requests for new licences or renewal of licences in the context of the commission’s policies, in turn reflecting government objectives in, for example, the Broadcasting Act. The commission’s powers extend, with opposition from some provinces, to satellite-based service providers and cable systems that intercept over-the-air radio and television signals and deliver them by land-line (sometimes involving microwave relay transmitters) to subscribers. The cable industry also operates the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) that broadcasts debates of the House of Commons, proceedings of some parliamentary committees and events that have significance for public policy, and discussions of public policy and politics. The CRTC also hears requests for new cable and satellite service providers’ licences or renewal of licences, and sets performance standards for these companies. For broadcasters, the most publicly contentious regulations of the commission pertain to Canadian ownership and corporate mergers, and to requirements for Canadian content in programming. For cable and satellite service companies, in addition to policy on ownership, contentious regulations involve priority ranking of broadcast stations and community programming on allocated channels. In recent years, attention has focused on the issue of direct satellite-to- home transmission, the development of Canadian speciality channels, pay-per-view television channels and satellite radio, and services in the far North. Since its inception, the CRTC has been an important forum for public debate on the “nationalizing” role of Canadian broadcasting in all aspects of the CRTC’s supervision of the broadcasting system. It widely advertises its hearings on matters of significance to encourage public participation. Similarly, it requires regulated companies to advertise their particular applications to the CRTC, for example, for licence renewal, rate increases, or change in service. The same public process used to regulate broadcasting is replicated in its supervision of the federally regulated telecommunications industry, especially relevant as some broadcasting, cable and communication companies have merged into large, single corporations. The CRTC’s ability to regulate telecommunications is challenged by rapid technological change, including the widespread use of the Internet. See Delegated power; Regulatory agencies (regulations). Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) (csis-scrs.gc.ca) A federal intelligence-gathering service dealing with espionage, terrorism, and counter-terrorism. CSIS is responsible for security checks on immigrants and refugees and on applications for certain federal civil service positions and security-related private-sector employment. In collecting information, CSIS may enter private premises covertly, eavesdrop electronically, intercept and read mail, and gain access to otherwise confidential data on persons and groups held by federal agencies and, through agreements, to information held by provincial agencies (for example, on employment, income tax, health, marital and other personal information). Approval for the more intrusive activities must be obtained from the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness (formerly the solicitor general) and a warrant from a judge of the Federal Court. The reasons for a warrant, the name of the judge granting it, and its duration remain confidential. Additional authority for CSIS respecting sus-

Canadian Security Intelligence Service

pected terrorist activity, now defined in the Criminal Code, was granted under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 and the Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004). CSIS was formed in 1984 following the exposure of a variety of illegal and politically embarrassing activities involving RCMP Security Services in the 1970s. Long-standing recommendations for a civilian “spy agency” to replace the paramilitary police force were revived in the report of a royal commission investigating RCMP activities. In order to reinforce “civilian control,” a Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), appointed by the federal government, was also created to review CSIS activities. SIRC hears appeals on denial of security clearances, investigates alleged abuses, makes recommendations, and issues an annual report. The House of Commons has only limited access to information about CSIS, notably through the annual appearance of SIRC before the standing committee on justice. As an intelligence service, CSIS reports to the federal government: the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness; the Privy Council Office, that is, the cabinet secretariat that has a section for security and intelligence matters; and government departments that require intelligence information, such as Foreign Affairs and Immigration. CSIS has been seriously criticized on several broad policy- and operationsrelated counts as well as specific operational matters. Examples of the former include its excessive reliance in its early years on RCMP personnel; failure to recruit and operate in French; failure to distinguish between subversive activity and political dissent; adoption of United States’ perspectives on foreign policy even when they conflicted with Canadian foreign policy; and failure to recruit personnel from minority ethnic groups. On operations, it has been charged that, while focusing on trade unions, peace activists, international church organizations, and largely discredited sectarian dissident groups, CSIS failed to apprehend genuine terrorist threats in Canada, such as those, for example, involved in Turkish, South Asian, and Chinese domestic politics. Although SIRC reported that CSIS had warned the government about the danger of violence among Natives before the armed insurrection among Mohawk activists at Oka, Quebec, in 1990, CSIS has otherwise been reproached for insensitivity in dealing with “Native extremism,” for example, Innu opposition to low-level NATO jet training flights over Labrador. It has also been criticized for inattention to international industrial espionage and for continuing disputes with the RCMP that allegedly compromise investigations. In 1994, it appeared that CSIS had mismanaged the use of human sources, that is, informants, respecting its surveillance of white-supremacist organizations and individuals. CSIS has received poor marks respecting government security clearance and for the failure of individual officers to protect highly sensitive files in their possession. The activity of CSIS also became a public issue following acquittals in trials following protracted investigations of the bombing of an Air India plane and the placing of a bomb in another flight in 1985, both originating in Canada and resulting in the largest mass murder in Canadian history. As well, its possible role in the case of Maher Arar. In 2004, the federal government established a commission of inquiry under Justice Dennis O’Connor respecting the arrest in 2002 of Arar, a naturalized Canadian, by United States authorities as a counterterrorist measure and his deportation to Syria without formal legal pro-

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Candidate

cedures (“extraordinary rendition”), where, according to a fact-finder’s report to the inquiry in 2005, he was tortured before his eventual release without charge and returned to Canada (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar; www.ararcommission.ca). At the same time, there were complaints involving others similarly tortured in Syria and Egypt. Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin suggested that the O’Connor inquiry would be sufficient for this case as well. The Arar case has also brought public attention to the role of CSIS in the issuance of national security certificates to detain and deport permanent residents and foreign nationals under extraordinary legislation that permits in camera and ex parte hearings. Like other national security organizations, the failures of CSIS are broadcast more widely than its successes. Nonetheless, there have been repeated calls for more effective scrutiny of CSIS by a parliamentary committee whose oversight might extend to the RCMP, the Department of Defence, and the Communications Security Establishment. In a survey conducted for CSIS in 2005, 69 per cent of Canadians had “clearly” or “vaguely” heard of CSIS, 44 per cent had a “positive” view of CSIS, 21 per cent held a negative view, while 32 per cent were reported to be neutral. Thirty-two per cent said they “trust CSIS to strike the right balance between security and civil liberties,” while 26 per cent disagreed (via CSIS website). See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Communications Security Establishment (CSE); National Security Certificate; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); Security Intelligence Review Committee; Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004). Candidate Usually a reference to someone who may be, or has been, formally nominated for elective office. The term is also used to refer to someone who may be under consideration for an appointive position. With reference to elective public office, see Campaign (election). Canvass Systematic personal contact of electors by party workers during an election campaign. Using telephone, computer-based, or door-to-door contacts, the purpose of the canvass is to identify personal or household voting preferences, to encourage favourable respondents to participate in the campaign, and to provide party workers on election day with lists of likely party supporters to ensure that they have voted. The local, door-to-door canvassing of electors has been especially important for parties with large numbers of committed activists, but with insufficient money to reach voters through indirect, mass marketing techniques. Changes in election financing and increased use of sophisticated public opinion survey and marketing techniques by all parties, however, have made the traditional canvass by constituency party workers a less prominent feature of the campaign. But an intensive local canvass may still be an important technique in highly competitive constituencies or in constituencies where important local effects or conditions are operating irrespective of the national party campaigns. Capital crime and punishment Planned and deliberate murder, or murder in the course of violent acts, punishable by life imprisonment with eligibility for consideration for parole. Parliament eliminated the death penalty for murder in 1976. With the passage of time, the re-introduction of capital punishment became

Caucus

unlikely, especially when several convictions of capital murder were later overturned. Supporters of capital punishment have shifted their focus to other aspects of the judicial system, such as conditions for parole and a stronger concern for “victims’ rights.” Career public (civil) service A public administration in which recruitment and promotion is based on the merit principle (prescribed requirements of the position and qualifications for applicants) and disciplinary action is based on demonstrated cause and proper procedure, to ensure a state administration of professionally qualified personnel. By contrast, many patronage appointments made for partisan purposes or as part of the spoils of victory, especially those without term, will not last longer than the government leader who authorized them. See Public administration (civil service). Carter v. Saskatchewan (A.-G.) (1991) A Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of electoral boundaries legislation requiring consideration of non-population factors as opposed to the principle of representation by population, or voter equality. The principle of representation by population requires that electoral constituencies have approximately the same number of voters. However, non-population factors, or distinct community interests—for example, overrepresentation of voters in sparsely populated areas of the country—have long been tolerated in redistribution of electoral constituencies. Nonetheless, for some people the Charter required voter equality (s.3), thus making even generally accepted forms of malapportionment unconstitutional. The Carter case involved an appeal of the Saskatchewan Supreme Court’s rejection of provincial legislation that required consideration of non-population factors, specifically the overrepresentation of rural voters and consequently the under-representation of urban voters. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 6–3 to uphold Saskatchewan’s legislation mandating the consideration of non-population factors. No justice, including the dissenters, opposed the consideration of non-population factors. However, the dissenting justices objected to the statutory requirement of malapportionment. For them, voter equality should have been mandated by law, allowing for a reasonable balancing of non-population, or community, interests by the independent electoral boundary commission. See Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats); Redistribution (electoral). Caucus Legislators of a particular political party who meet privately and regularly during sessions of the legislature to discuss policy and parliamentary strategy and tactics. The federal “women’s caucus,” is a rare example of a cross-party caucus and is given some credit for sensitizing male colleagues in respective party caucuses on some policy issues as well as on parliamentary behaviour and services. Traditionally, a party caucus does not vote on issues before it; instead, discussion proceeds until the party leader articulates a consensus. Theoretically at least, because members of parliament and senators are bound by party discipline not to express dissenting views in public, in camera discussions may be frank. However, members of caucus do “leak” information afterward for their own purposes.

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When the House of Commons is sitting, party caucuses meet at least once a week. In addition, particularly in large party caucuses, there will be separate meetings of party members from particular regions and major urban areas of the country. During parliamentary recesses, party caucuses are held in different parts of the country. In the government party’s caucus, private members (that is MPs and senators not in the cabinet) are particularly sensitive about the role of caucus. They lack the resources to contest ministerial positions in caucus and cannot openly criticize the government in the legislature or in committees without risking political sanctions. A wise government might therefore use the caucus to consult its members before a decision is made in cabinet and discuss proposed legislation in caucus before introducing a bill in the legislature. While this consultation might not often result in major changes to the proposed measures, backbench “revolts” do occasionally bring about changes and possibly delay a bill’s introduction. In recent years, the federal government caucus has had influence over government legislation regarding gun control, bank mergers and regulations, immigration, endangered species, terrorism, and even the budget. Prime ministers in the closing stages of their political careers will find caucus more difficult to manage, especially as likely successors each have supporters in the caucus. When government caucuses are large, a committee system based on region and policy areas might be established to provide backbench advice more routinely. Government backbenchers, sensitive to public opinion in their constituencies, are usually upset if the government appears to be paying more attention to advice from the public administration or non-elected ministerial political staff than to advice from caucus. Because opposition parties do not have responsibility for introducing and defending legislative proposals, their caucuses are basically designed to devise effective parliamentary strategy and tactics to criticize the government. At least theoretically, decision-making in opposition caucuses can be more collegial, and parliamentary responsibilities more equitably distributed. Opposition party leaders in Canada manage their caucuses in part through the designation of “critics,” thus giving these members a degree of responsibility in caucus, visibility in house debate, and the hope of cabinet appointment should the party win the next election. Much depends on the context of party fortunes. If, for example, the party has recently suffered electoral defeat, especially when victory was anticipated, the caucus may be consumed by internal intrigue fostered by supporters of the leader and likely successors. Following the 2000 election, a crisis of confidence in Stockwell Day’s leadership of the Canadian Alliance resulted in a dozen members regrouping as members of the self-styled Democratic Representative Caucus and forming a temporary alliance with the Progressive Conservative party until permitted back into the Alliance caucus under Day’s successor Stephen Harper. As parliamentary government in Canada is based on the principle of disciplined parties, in minor cases of maverick behaviour a party leader might deny miscreant members of parliament various perquisites. In extreme cases, party leaders might expel members from caucus, forcing them to sit as independents. Maverick behaviour usually involves voting against the party’s position on a major issue, but can also involve embarrassing the party with impolitic remarks in public. On

Census

occasion, members may not just leave their party and sit as independents, but “cross the floor of the house” and be accepted into another party caucus. A standard ploy of government parties is to lure important but disgruntled opposition members (and indirectly their supporters among the public) with the promise of a particular policy change or even an appointment to cabinet. In 2005, Conservative MP Belinda Stronach, earlier the party’s runner-up leadership candidate, unexpectedly abandoned her opposition front-bench seat to accept a ministerial appointment and a seat on the minority Liberal government’s front bench, thus bolstering its numerically weak position in the House of Commons. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appointments to his minority government following victory in 2006 included David Emerson, a Liberal cabinet minister who had been re-elected as a Liberal only two weeks earlier in a constituency in which the Conservative candidate came third. See Crossing the floor. Censure An expression of strong disapproval or condemnation. Frequently, an opposition move to censure a minister is part of normal partisan debate. In formal usage, though, a legislature may discipline anyone, including its own members, in order to maintain its integrity or independence. When invoked in Canadian legislatures, censure usually involves a legislator’s use of unparliamentary language or lack of decorum. Members “named” by the Speaker are required to apologize or leave the chamber for the remainder of the day. In extreme cases, legislators have been expelled or refused admission when faced with, or found guilty on, criminal charges. Canadian parliamentary institutions have not suffered serious external threats, and an alleged threat to a legislature’s independence is more likely to be dealt with in the courts as a potentially criminal act than before the legislature itself. Census (www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/home/index.cfm) Decennial (since 1871) and quinquennial (since 1956) inventories of Canada’s human resources conducted by the federal government. The fundamental constitutional reason for the decennial census is to redistribute seats in the House of Commons as required in the Constitution Act, 1867 (s.8). However, the census, which compels Canadians by law to respond fully and honestly to the census questionnaire, provides information on numerous demographic variables for private and public purposes. The data are used as social indicators to measure socio-economic well-being and to detect needs such as improved education facilities, housing, or minority-language service in certain areas of the country. Comparing data across several censuses, observers can plot demographic changes such as urbanization, age, ethnic, and regional migration patterns, which can result in the alteration of federal and provincial government programs or the development of new programs to meet projected needs. Census data are also important to decision makers in the private sector of the economy and to scholarly researchers. Census data include detailed information, for example, on age, sex, marital status, language, tenure of shelter, level of education, labour force activity, income, migration, urban-rural location, ethnicity, religion, and family size of the population. The census also provides data on household facilities, as well as manufacturing and agricultural statistics. The private sector can

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Central agency

obviously use such information to develop products and services. Social scientists can use the data as standards by which to observe, describe, and explain human behaviour. The census questionnaire is regularly revised to reflect new social realities in the Canadian population. For example, the term “head of family” has not been used since the 1970s, and in the 2001 census, data were collected on the numbers of both opposite- and same-sex common-law couples. Central agency An informal designation of key executive/administrative organizations in government. The phrase may specifically refer to important agencies in government finance and administration—at the federal level, the Department of Finance, Privy Council Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Public Service Commission. The term may refer more generally to any group whose terms of reference extend its influence horizontally across all policy areas. This broader definition would include the Prime Minister’s Office. Such agencies are “central” because they assist the political executive in policy-making, coordinate and oversee policy implementation across the administration. Because of the close relationship with the political executive, indeed their physical proximity to the prime minister, the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister’s Office are frequently considered to have more ongoing political influence than most cabinet ministers. See entries on each of these offices. Central bank The national agency responsible for the country’s monetary policy: that is, the regulation of credit and currency. See Bank of Canada (central bank). Centralization (decentralization) Usually a reference to the increasing (or decreasing) power of the central or federal government vis-à-vis the provinces; also, a reference to the location of political power at the centre with attendant antagonism towards the regional centre or core from the alienated population of the periphery, or hinterland. In urban politics, the phrase often refers to the debate over metropolitan or regional forms of government that involve the creation of a superior tier of government and the elimination or weakening of long-established area municipalities within the defined region. On national politics, see Division (distribution) of powers; Federalism. Centrist An individual or group advocating moderate responses to political demands, or only incremental changes to public policy. The term figures prominently in debate over the role of the state in economic and social life. People to the left of centre view the equitable redistribution of wealth and power to be a primary role of the state, to ensure a fundamentally egalitarian social structure; those to the right of centre view economic development and implicitly the private accumulation of wealth to be the state’s primary role, with distribution of wealth in society left largely to individuals’ decisions and the marketplace. Prolonged electoral success in Canada appears to accrue to a “centrist” political party that can manage to satisfy moderate opinion on both sides of centre. See Class cleavage.

Charlottetown Accord

Charlottetown Accord (1992) An agreement on major constitutional changes reached by the federal, provincial and territorial governments, and Native groups two years after the defeat in 1990 of the Meech Lake Accord of 1987 and following extensive public consultations, but which was subsequently rejected in a country-wide referendum, 55 to 44 per cent. Earlier, the Meech Lake Accord had issued from the so-called Quebec round of constitutional negotiations designed to accommodate Quebec to the Constitution Act, 1982. The negotiations leading to the wide-ranging Charlotte town Accord involved not only Quebec’s five demands from the Meech negotiations, including distinct-society status, but the demands of several provinces for fundamental reform of the Senate, restrictions on federal spending power and review of the division of powers, territorial demands concerning the process to achieve provincial status, demands from Native Peoples for recognition of their inherent right of self-government, federal proposals regarding the economic union of Canada, the demands of private groups for a social charter, and revision of the constitution respecting regional disparities, equalization and regional development. Unlike the Meech Lake Accord, which resulted from exclusive and private federal-provincial government negotiations, the Charlottetown Accord was negotiated following extensive public consultations and was submitted to Canadians for approval in a referendum. The Accord received popular approval in Prince Edward Island (74%), Newfoundland (63%), New Brunswick (61%) and the territories (61%). Voters in Ontario were equally divided (49.8% “Yes”), but opposed elsewhere (in descending order of support, Nova Scotia, 49% “Yes”; Saskatchewan, 45%; Quebec, 42%; Alberta, 39%; Manitoba, 38%; British Columbia, 31%). There were various explanations for the rejection of the Accord and its consequences. Notably, the Accord was a comprehensive package of compromise proposals, and critics in the referendum campaign could selectively criticize elements of the Accord without presenting positive alternatives. For example, there was opposition among both sovereignist and federalist francophones in Quebec, who felt that the proposals regarding the powers of Quebec were inadequate, indeed “less than Meech,” while others thought Quebec was still granted too much. The Accord also contained very complicated and far-reaching institutional changes to parliament that too easily drew ire. Some supporters of a proposed elected Senate opposed the Accord because it would have allowed provincial legislatures to determine whether the senatorial elections in their province would be direct or indirect. Groups on the political left opposed the platitudes expressed on the “social and economic union” and objected that future shared-cost federal programs would require provincial programs to meet only national objectives rather than standards. There were reasons to oppose even the introductory Canada Clause. Some observers interpreted the rejection of the Accord as a general repudiation of the political elite by a normally deferential public, heralding a fundamental change in Canada’s political culture. Others noted that it would be harder in the future for political leaders to engage in accommodative bargaining on the constitution. While federal and provincial governments subsequently focused their attention on economic and financial matters, agreements were negotiated on some elements of the Accord that did not require formal constitutional amend-

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Charter groups; interests

ment, notably respecting Aboriginal interests and the exercise of federal spending power. See Canada Clause (Charlottetown Accord, 1992); Distinct society clause; Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Division (distribution) of powers; Economic union of Canada; Indian Act; Meech Lake Accord (1987); Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements; Referendum; Senate; Social Charter; Social Union Framework Agreement; Spending power; Supreme Court of Canada; Territorial governments. Charter groups; interests Private organizations that support interests that are specifically recognized in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or have interests that may be addressed implicitly in various sections of the Charter. As a result of the constitutional entrenchment of the Charter in 1982, some organized interests in society have claimed to have constitutional “protection” and therefore preferred status with respect to public policy. Others have used sections of the Charter to advance their views on public policy. The leadership of organizations representing these mass-based interests—sometimes referred to as social movement organizations—reflect a new style of public participation in policy-making in post-Charter Canadian politics. On the one hand, they demand a more consultative decision-making process (as distinct from the operation of executive/administrative federalism, which focuses on collegiality, confidentiality, and compromise for mutual benefit), but are prepared to be more confrontational than many traditional interests, to forgo a collegial relationship with government actors and seek remedy through litigation in the courts to achieve the “full benefit” of the Charter. Active Charter interests notably include women, the elderly, the mentally and physically disabled, various ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and environmentalists. Some commentators who are critical of Charter litigation as a means to achieve legislative ends have described such groups and interests collectively as the Court Party. However, studies have purported to show that corporate interests have engaged in Charter litigation more often than Charter-designated group interests. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Social movement organizations; Supreme Court of Canada. Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canada, 1982) See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Charter of the French Language (Quebec) Quebec legislation originally enacted in 1977 (Bill 101) that, embodying the language policy of the Parti Québécois government, made French the official language of government, courts, schools, and the economy of Quebec. The Charter was the culmination of debate in Quebec on language policy involving three party governments: earlier, Bill 63 of the Union Nationale government in 1969 (the conservative nationaliste party displaced later by the social democratic and sovereignist Parti Québécois) and Bill 22 of the Liberal government in 1974. In 1979, the Supreme Court declared sections relating to the legislature (that is, government) and to the courts to be a violation of the Constitution Act, 1867 (s.133). Following successful challenges in 1988 to the provincial language Charter following enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

Charter of the French Language

Quebec’s Liberal government amended the language legislation (Bill 178) and invoked s.33 of the Charter to eliminate its further application to the language Charter. As the five-year limit on the use of s.33 was shortly to expire, the government revised the legislation (Bill 86) such that the use of the notwithstanding clause was unnecessary. As mentioned already, provisions of Bill 101, declared unconstitutional in 1979, had provided that only French versions of legislature debates, government documents, and court proceedings were to be official. Two years after the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the Supreme Court struck down the provisions of the provincial language Charter respecting education as violations of s.23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Minority Language Educational Rights) (A.G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards). The language law had restricted primary and secondary school instruction in English to children who had siblings in English-language schools in the province when the Bill was enacted, or who had one parent who had studied in an English-language school in Quebec. Exceptions had been made for temporary residents of the province and Native Peoples. In 1988, the Supreme Court further declared unconstitutional certain provisions of the language Charter dealing with the “francization” of business (Ford). Since 1977, the language Charter had been an important element in the successful conversion to the French language of business hitherto conducted almost entirely in English. One part of the law required that commercial signs outdoors be in French only, to create a visage linguistique. The Supreme Court ruled that the outright banning of signs in languages other than French was a violation of a fundamental freedom (s.2), but not the objective of a “marked predominance” of one language over others. Following heated debate in Quebec, the Liberal government amended the language law, allowing a predominance of French over other languages on indoor commercial signs, but maintaining the monopoly of French outdoors, and invoking the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.33) to preclude further court challenges. In 1993, the Liberal government amended the law (Bill 86) without reference to section 33 of the Charter, to permit other languages on outdoor signs as long as French was the predominant language. For both linguistic communities the debate was politically potent because of its symbolism. For many francophones in Quebec, only that jurisdiction in all of North America can effectively secure a place for the French language, and the “external” application of a constitutional statute to which Quebec’s National Assembly had not given consent—the Constitution Act, 1982—should not be allowed to restrict Quebec’s attempts to ensure the survival of French. For others, notably anglophones in Quebec, the government’s persistence reflected intolerance, as the law, though designed to enhance the French language, discriminated against others. While the Quebec Liberal party remains largely satisfied with its reformulation of the language legislation, many activists in the Parti Québécois continue to encourage their leadership to adopt more restrictive measures. However, the debate over the language of education also includes a body of opinion among francophone Quebeckers who would like to have their majority-language children taught in English, a benefit guaranteed by the Charter only to minority-language

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Chief Electoral Officer

anglophones and sustained by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005 (Gosselin v. Quebec [Attorney General]). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Chief Electoral Officer (Elections Canada) (elections.ca) The officer of parliament and office responsible for the conduct of all federal general and by-elections under the Canada Elections Act as well as referendums. Each province has a similar office to supervise its elections. The federal chief electoral officer, who heads Elections Canada, is appointed by a resolution of the House of Commons. Traditionally, the office has been responsible for the administration of fair and impartial elections, including the training and appointment of returning officers, the national register of voters and the confirmation of registration, the preparation and distribution of ballots, and the actual conduct of the poll and post-election reporting. Elections Canada is also responsible for administering provisions of the Act regarding the registration of political parties, subsidies to candidates and the expenditures of both parties and candidates, and of “third parties,” that is, interest groups and private individuals, and the investigation of alleged violations of the Act and the prosecution of offenders. The chief electoral officer also assists the electoral boundaries commissions in the periodic redrawing of the boundaries of federal constituencies. Chief Justice The designated leader of a provincial supreme court or of the Supreme Court of Canada (scc-css.gc.ca). While appointments to the superior courts are those of the governor-in-council, effectively the responsibility of the federal minister of justice and the prime minister, the designation of a chief justice rests with the prime minister. The chief justice of the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada is sworn into the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada prior to taking the oath as chief justice. When present, the chief justice presides at sittings of the court; otherwise the most senior puisne (“ranking after”) justice on the panel presides. The chief justice allocates the court’s workload, establishing panels of justices to hear cases. The chief justice is expected to be exceptionally learned and intellectually influential with respect to the other justices. The decisions of all justices are published, but the reasoning of the chief justice may receive particular attention, especially if it is part of the majority, to sense the “direction” of the court in the post-Charter era of judicial review. In the extended absence or incapacity of the governor general, or if that office is vacant, the chief justice exercises the functions of the office as the Administrator of Canada. As ex-officio chair of the Canadian Judicial Council, comprising all chief justices and associate chief justices of superior courts, the chief justice may conduct investigations into the conduct of federally appointed judges. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Canadian Judicial Council; Supreme Court of Canada. Chief of staff (principal secretary) The administrative head of the support staff for an executive office such as that of prime minister, provincial premier, or minister, and usually thus a key political advisor. At the federal level, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office was designated principal secretary under Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, but chief of staff

Civil law

under later prime ministers. Personally selected by the relevant prime minister, premier, or minister, and retained without security of tenure, the chief of staff is the principal source of daily political counsel, who manages the office to satisfy personal partisan needs. The attributes of the chief of staff usually reflect the officeholder’s assessment of those needs. In the case of a prime minister or provincial premier, this may reflect policy development after an election, but electoral strategy as time for the next election approaches. Consequently, the chief of staff of a head of government is politically closer to the prime minister or premier than many cabinet ministers and speaks—usually privately only—with considerable authority. See Prime Minister’s Office. Chief of the Defence Staff (Vice-Chief; Deputy Chief) Senior military advisors to the minister of national defence, appointed by the governor-in-council, that is, the federal cabinet, effectively the prime minister. Civilian advisors in the Department of National Defence also assist the minister of national defence who is responsible for the Canadian Forces, national defence policy and emergency preparedness. The chief of the defence staff has overall responsibility for administration of Canadian Forces, the vice-chief is chief of staff of headquarters, and the deputy chief is responsible for operations. On the civilian side of National Defence, a deputy minister is the senior advisor responsible for ensuring that government policy is reflected in administration, plans, and operations. Citizen A person who is a native-born or naturalized member of a nation-state, with rights and obligations in that state. The concept of Canadian citizenship as distinct from being a British subject was established in law in 1947. The federal Citizenship Act establishes the conditions for those not born in Canada for acquisition of citizenship, and also deals with the loss or resumption of citizenship. The federal Immigration Act embodies the federal government’s immigration policy, including refugee resettlement and the processing of claims by visitors for refugee status, and the granting of permanent residence, which may lead to the acquisition of citizenship. Civil law (Civil Code; Code civil) Comprehensive codified law practised in Quebec, rooted in the French Napoleonic Code and Roman law, as distinct from the uncodified English-based common law based on legal precedents, which is practised in the other provinces. The legal system of the former French colony was reaffirmed following the Conquest, in the British parliament’s Quebec Act, 1774, and finally in the Constitution Act, 1867. The Civil Code, which constitutes the civil law, governs personal, family and property relations in Quebec. While cases are decided on the basis of principles contained in the Code, earlier cases decided on the Code are relevant. The Code, however, is necessarily revised from time to time to deal with contemporary matters such as new reproductive and medical technology and current social values (for example, rights respecting surrogate motherhood and paternity, adoptive children, guardianship, and access of teenagers to medical counsel and therapeutic abortions). Three of the nine justices of the Supreme Court of Canada are from the Quebec bar or courts, thus ensuring that a panel of the

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Civil liberties

Supreme Court includes justices legally trained and experienced in civil law when such cases come before the court. Civil liberties The phrase traditionally refers to the freedom of individuals to act without legal restrictions, for example, freedom of assembly and of speech, of religion, of the right to petition; freedom from detention and from arbitrary arrest, and the right to a fair and public trial with legal representation and the presumption of innocence. In recent years, discourse on civil liberties has included freedom from hunger, illness, and illiteracy, and from discrimination for reasons of sex, age, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and physical or mental disability. Until 1982, Canadian legislatures were supreme in their areas of jurisdictional competence and therefore able to modify the common-law liberties of individuals by statute. This applied particularly at the provincial level, where responsibility rests for “Property and Civil Rights” (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:13), although federal responsibility for Criminal Law (s.91:27) was often cited, and also the Preamble to the Act (“…a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom”) to deny validity to some restrictive provincial statutes. Nonetheless, Canada’s record especially regarding the treatment of ethnic minorities such as First Nations, Chinese, and Japanese, is hardly without blemish. In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was entrenched in the constitution and now represents Canada’s basic law respecting civil liberties to which all levels of government are subject. Federal and provincial legislation regarding privacy, access to personal information held by government agencies and human rights legislation also deal with the civil liberties of Canadians. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Canadian Human Rights Commission; Duff Doctrine; Privacy legislation (Canada); Social charter; Supreme Court of Canada. Civil service A collective reference to government employees who constitute the administration of government. See Career public (civil) service; Public administration (civil service); Senior civil service. Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation) (search: clarity bill) Federal legislation enacted in 2000 that sets the conditions under which the House of Commons would respond to a provincial referendum on Quebec’s secession from Confederation. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien introduced the legislation following the narrow defeat in 1995 of the second referendum in Quebec on sovereignty-association and in the context of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in 1998 on the government’s constitutional reference on secession. The sovereignty-association option had been defeated in 1995 by less than 1 per cent of the vote. The Supreme Court ruled that on a “clear” question supported by a “clear” majority, the secessionist movement would have to be acknowledged with “principled negotiation with other participants in Confederation within the existing constitutional framework,” citing specifically the rule of law, federalism, the rights of individuals and minorities, and democratic operations. Under the legislation, within 30 days of the tabling of a referendum question, the House of Commons (the Senate is pointedly excluded) would determine if the question was clear. In doing so, the house would take into account the views of all

Class cleavage

political parties in Quebec’s legislature as well as the views of representatives of Native Peoples in Quebec and other views it considered appropriate. Then following the referendum, the house would consider whether there had been a “clear expression of a will by a clear majority of the population” on secession from Canada. Consideration would include the proportion of eligible voters who participated, as well as the size of the majority supporting secession and any other relevant criteria. Otherwise, the federal government would not enter negotiations on the terms of secession. The Clarity bill was introduced despite divisions within the federal cabinet and the opposition of the federalist Quebec Liberal party, as well as the governing sovereignist Parti Québécois. The measure split the federal Progressive Conservative party, whose leader, Joe Clark, described it as “a roadmap to secession”; it deprived the Reform party of a major criticism of the Liberal government; the New Democratic party supported the measure, while the federal Bloc Québécois, like the PQ, opposed it as a denial of Quebeckers’ right to self-determination. In Quebec, the PQ government responded with the enactment of Bill 99 (“An Act Respecting the Exercise of the Fundamental Rights and Prerogatives of the Quebec People and the Quebec State”), asserting the province’s right of self-determination, to determine alone the legal status of Quebec. The Clarity Act is not entrenched and parliament could amend or repeal it. Under the Constitution Act, 1982, secession would require resolutions of parliament and all provincial legislatures. See Secession Reference; Sovereignty-association. Class cleavage A social division delineating communities of interest based on the distribution of wealth, and implicitly of political influence. Class may be defined in subjective terms (that is, self-perception of class) or according to such objective indices as level of education, income, and occupation. Class issues involving the distribution of wealth include such matters as the tax system and business law, or generally the role of government in regulating activities in the private sector of the economy. Public policies that would redistribute wealth either directly through individual transfers or indirectly through programs such as health care and education, infringe upon rights of capital or private-sector managers, or result in more public disclosure and regulation of company activities (for example, in labour relations or consumer protection) are said to be “left-wing” policies; policies to the contrary, which emphasize the operations of the market, minimally regulated by government, as the chief site of decision-making for the increase in national prosperity, and would be more tolerant of a hierarchy of wealth and power, are described as “right-wing.” Unlike other Western industrial societies, the class cleavage in Canada does not appear to generate independently as much political debate as do traditional ethno-cultural and regional identities. When left-wing class attitudes are expressed, they are often filtered through cultural, regional, and other perspectives. Thus, a francophone worker in Quebec might inveigh against “English business,” a hardpressed westerner against “Eastern business,” or a feminist against the attitudes of “businessmen.” The two historically important political parties, the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, have focused public attention on regional, cultural, and other

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Class cleavage

issues, hoping to project a public image of mild social reformism without alienating the business community and thereby retain its “confidence.” This strategy is usually referred to as brokerage politics (see Brokerage politics). The only major political party in Canada with a decided left-wing image, the social democratic New Democratic party, has not been a strong electoral force in federal politics, but it has made an impression in certain provinces, where class consciousness is possibly strengthened by other traditional communities of interest. The fact that labour law is, in large part, a matter of provincial jurisdiction, also helps to explain apparently stronger class voting in some provinces than in the country as a whole. The Parti Québécois, whose primary goal is the sovereignty of Quebec, is also a social democratic party. Nonetheless, redistributive questions have not been entirely ignored by federal governments, especially when the NDP or its predecessors in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and Independent Labour or Progressive members of parliament held the balance of power in the House of Commons. In the 1960s, for example, the minority Liberal government enacted important redistributive legislation, including federal medicare, social assistance, and pension legislation. While the tax reform legislation of that decade did not result in the dramatic reforms recommended earlier by a royal commission on taxation. Procedures to review foreign capital investment and the National Energy Policy were enacted in the 1970s by a minority Liberal government supported in the house by the NDP. Bargaining between a minority Liberal government and the NDP also featured in the budget debate following the 2004 election. In 1982, the constitution was amended to entrench federal equalization payments to qualified provinces and commit federal and provincial governments to reduce disparities in economic opportunities and to provide “essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians” (Constitution Act, 1982, s.36). This “social charter” was particularly relevant to Atlantic Canadians whose provinces are particularly reliant on equalization payments. (See Equalization grants [unconditional transfer payments].) During the debate in the 1980s and 1990s over the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, major public concern focused on protection for Canada’s “social safety net” and current and future regional development programs. The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement was successfully negotiated in part because the question of defining “subsidy” was set aside. Also, debate on constitutional reform in the 1990s included calls for a social charter to be entrenched, to protect social and regional development programs. In recent years, scholars have focused attention on possible changes to the class-based or left-wing agenda. Increasing public interest in issues dealing with protection of the environment and social and personal identity issues often dealing with questions of morality, such as the rights of women, gays and lesbians, opposition to nuclear power, and community development, has been defined as concerns about “quality of life.” This “postmaterialist” agenda frequently conflicts with traditional materialist left-wing concerns such as economic development to achieve full employment and increased personal income. This materialist-left agenda is associated historically with industrial development in the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the earlier pre-industrial period, the left-

Clawback

right division in Western society signified anti-clerical versus pro-church, and nationalist versus imperialist sentiments. Thus the political left may yet again be in the process of modifying its agenda, now to accommodate postmaterialist concerns (see Postmaterialism). While the historical attitude of the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties has been to play down class issues, neither wished at the same time to be perceived solely as an upper-class or “big business” party. The electoral success of the federal Liberals in the twentieth century and the concomitant weakness of the federal Conservatives was partly based on the more flexible Liberal approach to class questions and the more sharply defined image of the Conservatives as an upper-class or “big business” party. When in office from 1984 to 1993—especially in the later years during an economic recession—Progressive Conservative support for free trade, its introduction of the value-added Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1991, its policy on interest rates, reducing the public debt and government services, and its policy to make Canadian business more “globally competitive” generally reinforced that party’s right-wing image. In the 1993 election, the Conservatives under new leadership failed to distance themselves from those policies, while the Liberal leadership appealed to the public with generalized references to encouraging “hope” and “dignity” among economically hard-pressed citizens. Yet, when in office following the 1993 and 1997 elections, the Liberals essentially adopted a right-wing fiscal and economic agenda popularized by the Reform party, which had electorally surpassed the Conservatives in those elections and formed the official opposition in 1997. But in advance of the election in 2000, and mindful that the social democratic NDP had made electoral inroads against the Liberals in Atlantic Canada in 1997, the Liberals shifted their policy leftward, sensing correctly that public opinion favoured increased public investment in social policy fields and was generally unsupportive of the fiscal and social conservatism of Reform and its successor, the Canadian Alliance. Historically, both the Conservative and Liberal parties have been dependent upon the private and legally unlimited largesse of relatively few Montreal- and Toronto-based businesses. The Canadian Alliance, successor to Reform and its conservative economic and social policies, hoped to increase support from the corporate sector, but eventually merged with the Progressive Conservative party. The NDP received only very modest financial support from corporations as individuals and affiliated trade unions were the major sources of finance. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals have been involved in major fundraising scandals when in office and have always been subject to charges of business favouritism and patronage in public policy proposals, the awarding of government contracts, and various public appointments. Changes to election and party finance legislation since 1974 in Canada made it easier for the parties to diversify their sources of support and, in 2003, donations to federal parties from corporations and trade unions were restricted, but not prohibited as in some provinces. See also various entries on the political parties, election law, and scandals. Clawback Provisions in personal income tax regulations designed to target benefits on the basis of need. Historically, benefits such as child (family) allowances and old age pensions were universal programs, that is, the allowance was granted regardless of income. Such universal benefits avoid the necessity of a qualifying

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Clerk of the House of Commons

means test that necessarily involves the invasion of privacy and considerable administrative costs. In the 1980s, the desire by governments generally to reduce expenditures resulted in the targeting of some social benefits indirectly through income tax “clawbacks”: people with higher taxable incomes progressively lose the dollar value of the particular social benefit. See Indexing / de-indexing. Clerk of the House of Commons (of the Senate) The permanent head of the House of Commons (Senate) staff, holding the rank of deputy minister. The clerk of the House of Commons is responsible for the records of the house, and ensures that the Order Paper is prepared for each parliamentary day’s business. The clerk is the recording officer of the house, maintaining minutes and recording divisions. Operating under the direction of the Speaker, the clerk supervises the staff of the house. The clerk of the Senate is likewise the chief administrative officer of that chamber and performs functions comparable to those of the clerk of the house. However, because the Senate is formally the superior body, its clerk is also the clerk of the Parliaments and is the custodian of the original acts of parliament that have received royal assent. The seal of the clerk of the Parliaments is affixed to the copies of all Acts, including those to be produced in the courts. Clerk of the Privy Council (pco-bcp.gc.ca) An office since Confederation, but formalized since 1940, first as secretary to the federal cabinet and later as deputy minister to the prime minister and head of the civil service. As head of the federal civil service, the clerk/secretary is the highest-ranking federal civil servant and responsible for the administration of government departments and agencies, but influential in particular as head of the cabinet secretariat—the Privy Council Office—that is responsible for coordinating the activities of cabinet and cabinet committees. Also, as the prime minister’s deputy minister, the clerk is a central figure in policy development, involving both operations and personnel. Although usually a professional public administrator, the clerk nonetheless holds the position at the prime minister’s “pleasure” and, especially in the context of constitutional conventions of collective cabinet responsibility and confidentiality, is more influential within the executive than many cabinet ministers. In his final report in 2006, on fraudulent abuses respecting the $300-million federal sponsorship program, Justice John Gomery recommended that the office be named only secretary to the cabinet, with the office-holder’s main role be to represent the public service to the entire cabinet; that the terms clerk of the privy council and deputy minister to the prime minister be abolished; and that the secretary of the treasury board assume the function “head of the public service.” The designation within the cabinet of president of the Privy Council is an honorific title and does not imply influence over the operation of the Privy Council Office and the clerk. See Privy Council Office; Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS). Closure Procedure by which a government can curtail legislative debate on a measure and bring it to a vote. As the legislature’s roles are the conflicting ones of criticizing and enacting government legislation, the government’s strategic objective is to conduct business

Coalition government

expeditiously, while the opposition seeks to diminish public confidence in the government. In order to prevent protracted and possibly politically harmful debate by the opposition—commonly called filibustering—procedural rules of the House of Commons allow the government to impose closure, effectively terminating debate and forcing a vote. Because the imposition of closure in 1956 to end the so-called pipeline debate was partially credited with the federal Liberal government’s electoral defeat in 1957, federal governments were subsequently reluctant to impose closure. In 1969, however, the government used closure to introduce changes in the standing orders (procedural rules) of the House of Commons to revise the rules on closure (S057: time limits for speeches and a scheduled vote), and the allocation of time for debate and a vote at different stages of a bill’s passage (S078). If there is all-party agreement, a government motion to allocate days or hours to debate at any or all stages of a bill’s passage is moved and voted on without debate. Without agreement, the government can move closure on one day’s notice requiring debate on a particular stage to be terminated and a vote held. However, if there is agreement on the allocation of time among a majority of the “several parties” in the house—a qualified agreement between the government and some opposition parties—a minister can move the agreement on allocation of time at committee report stage and on third and final reading without notice or debate. Coalition government A government-of-the-day that includes members from more than one political party. A formal coalition of parties, or informal agreements between parties from issue to issue, are required for executive stability in a parliamentary system when the government party does not hold a majority of the seats in the legislature. While formal coalition governments have been common in provincial politics, there has only been one formal coalition in federal politics: the coalition for Confederation in 1867. The Union government of Prime Minister Robert Borden, from 1917 to 1920, was basically a continuation of the Conservative government elected in 1911, but which now included anglophone Liberals, while Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier and his francophone colleagues remained in opposition to the government. Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden led a Union government to expedite conscription and conduct a wartime election. But it divided Canada deeply between English and French. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal-Unionists appeared to benefit from the experience: by the time of Borden’s retirement and the selection of Conservative Arthur Meighen to succeed him, some LiberalUnionists had returned to their party while others joined the new Progressive party. In the next election in 1921, the Liberals formed a minority government, now led, following Laurier’s death and Canada’s first leadership selection in convention, by William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had not been a member of parliament during this period after his personal defeat in the 1911 election. Since then, minority-government parties and smaller parties in the opposition have preferred to deal with each other on an informal basis, for example the minority Liberal government with the Progressive party in the 1920s, and with the New Democratic party in the 1960s and 1970s. Very limited co-operation was possible following the election of the short-lived minority Liberal government

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Collective responsibility

in 2004, when at least the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois were anxious to defeat the government and the NDP was ambivalent. Co-operation is more likely, as in the case of the minority Conservative government elected in 2006, when, at least initially, no party is anxious to be responsible for an early defeat of the government and another election. In any event, there are inherent difficulties for the junior partner in an informal alliance with the Conservative government, as the senior partner actually in office will likely reap any subsequent electoral benefits, as the Liberals did notably in 1968 and 1974. See Minority government. Collective (cabinet/ministerial) responsibility The principle by convention that the cabinet, though comprising many individuals with possibly as many minds, nonetheless speaks as one and is responsible or accountable as a body to the legislature for all actions and policies of the government. The concept of responsibility, which is individual (that is, ministerial), as well as collective, is central to the accountability of the political executive to the legislature, and thus to central to parliamentary democracy in Canada. The government must retain the “confidence” of the legislature (the House of Commons in the bicameral parliament) to remain in office. The convention of responsible government predates Confederation, having been established in various British North American colonies in the 1840s. See Accountability; Cabinet; Ministerial responsibility; Responsible government. Collectivism A value orientation that esteems group loyalty and individual commitment to a notion of the common good. Some people argue that collectivism is a distinctive feature of Canadian political culture in the North American context: that Canadians place a higher value than do Americans on respect for authority and social order achieved through mutual assistance. The origins of this collectivism may be found in the persistence of a minority French-speaking society through various forms of group accommodation with the majority English-speakers, the historic need for collective action to deal with harsh regional climatic and economic disparities, and possibly even as a cross-generational reaction to events in United States history, including its civil war and “manifest destiny.” Canadians also prefer a multilateral approach in foreign, trade, and defence policies. Canada’s policy on multiculturalism also contributes to collectivism involving accommodation and compromise with “others,” and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has constitutionally entrenched affirmative action programs designed to overcome systemic discrimination. Constitutional phrases are sometimes cited to illustrate this difference in national political cultures: Americans are inspired by the phrase “Life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence), while Canadians honour “Peace, Order, and good Government” (Constitution Act, 1867). For whatever historic or contemporary reasons, collectivism is an important part of Canada’s political culture because of the continued use of government policy or state intervention, not to enshrine collective “group” rights as such, but to ensure individual self-identity and well-being in a diverse population. In recent years, some scholars have detected a weakening of at least the deferential or elitist aspect of collectivism among Canadians.

Commission

Combines (anti-combines legislation; competition policy) Alliances or close associations of private companies that may restrict trade, facilitate price-fixing, or otherwise misuse their dominant position in the economy. Anti-combines legislation prohibits business practices that “unduly” lessen competition at all stages of production, distribution, and retailing in trade and commerce. The federal Department of Industry is responsible for the Competition Act. The Competition Bureau (competitionbureau.gc.ca) is the federal enforcement agency dealing with competition, packaging and labelling, and the marketing of precious metals. The Competition Tribunal (ct-tc.gc.ca) is a quasijudicial agency that adjudicates on possible criminal and civil violations of competition policy such as corporate mergers or marketing agreements, refusing to deal and abuse of dominant position. Some critics charge that the competition policy and its enforcement are designed to give the appearance of government supervision without excessively disturbing large-scale business. Prosecutions can involve costly gathering of admissible evidence and proceedings with the usual provisions for appeals. Furthermore, enforcement of competition policy must conform to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Hunter v. Southam (1984), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that protection afforded by the Charter from “unreasonable search or seizure” (s.8) extended to corporations, in this case the fact-finding activity of government investigators respecting suspected business violations of competition policy: the search and seizure of documents required prior authorization from an impartial person—normally a judge—who had to be convinced on reasonable and probable grounds that an offence had been committed and that evidence was located where the search was to take place. In 2005, parliament considered further changes to the civil and criminal aspects of the Act and the powers of the Competition Tribunal. Commission (board, agency, tribunal) A government-appointed group established by statute or statutory instrument to administer public policy, often possessing through a quasi-judicial regulatory process, legislative, investigative, prosecutorial, and adjudicative powers. The so-called administrative state comprises many such bodies to which the legislature delegates quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial power through enabling legislation to devise and enforce regulations—subordinate legislation—“as may be deemed necessary for giving full effect” to the particular Act. The governor-incouncil, effectively the cabinet and notably the prime minister (or provincial premier), appoints directors who oversee a commission’s staff. The commissions operate at “arm’s length” from the government: they establish and enforce regulations without partisan consideration, though they will be guided by general government policy and will report to the legislature through designated ministers. Prominent examples at the federal level include the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Canadian Transportation Agency, Competition Tribunal, Immigration and Refugee Board, National Energy Board, and National Parole Board. Some federal administrative activity is personalized in a commissioner, such as the Commissioner of Official Languages, Information Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner (the first ensuring the administration follows federal language

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Commission for Environmental Cooperation

law; the last two ensuring some protection against the excesses of the administrative state), and the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Lesser-known federal agencies deal with copyright, federal jurisdiction in labour relations, pensions, patents, employment insurance, and other matters, all reflecting the wide range of government activities. Commissions are also important at the provincial level where the constitution grants jurisdiction, for example, in environmental protection, labour relations, municipal government, and policing. In addition to ordinary statutes requiring such bodies to adopt specific procedures to ensure openness, fairness, and public accountability, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been successfully invoked in the courts to provide protection against administrative power (for example, see Hunter v. Southam, 1984, and Singh Case [Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration, 1985]). Commission for Environmental Cooperation (of North America) (NAEC; NAFTA) (cec.org) A trilateral agency established under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation in the context of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with headquarters in Montreal, to prevent conflicts between trade and the environment, and to investigate and seek enforcement of environmental protection laws by the three NAFTA signatories, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The Commission comprises a council with cabinet-level representation from each country, assisted by a secretariat. The Commission also has a public advisory committee. Under the NAFTA Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, non-governmental organizations or individuals can submit complaints to the commission’s secretariat alleging non-compliance by any of the countries to its own environmental law. If, given the response of the relevant government, the secretariat deems the complaint worthy, it can recommend to the ministerial council that a “factual record” regarding the complaint be prepared, with its publication on a two-thirds vote of the council of national environment ministers. See Environmentalism; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992). Commissions of inquiry (judicial) Investigative bodies to examine allegations of wrongdoing, usually chaired by a judge and comprising one or several persons, established by federal or provincial executive order, with a final report to the government tabled in the legislature. Under the federal Inquiries Act, for example, commissions of inquiry can hire expert counsel and advisers, subpoena and swear in witnesses, hear their testimony, assess evidence and report. Commission chairs will grant intervener status to parties whose lawyers can cross-examine witnesses and raise challenges during the hearings. Commissions of inquiry are fact-finding bodies whose report, including recommendations, can lead to criminal charges. The investigation by a commission of inquiry must be especially sensitive if police investigations are ongoing, and especially if charges have been laid by the Crown and trial dates set during a commission’s hearings. Some commissions are designated “royal commissions.” Though they are usually established as high-profile inquiries into a significant area of public policy, a royal commission might be established to investigate an apparent deficiency in some area of significant public interest.

Commissions of inquiry

The statutes establishing inquiries and the procedures of the commission are themselves subject to judicial review. For example, in 1978, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the powers of a provincial commission of inquiry investigating the administration of justice within a province were constitutionally limited. It supported the federal government’s opposition to the broad inquiry of a Quebec commission investigating the affairs of the RCMP, a federal police force. Declaring one section of the mandate to be unconstitutional, the Court observed: “Inasmuch as these are the regulations and practices of an agency of the federal government, it is clearly not within the proper scope of the authority of provincial government” (Mr. Justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon). Ruling that the provincial inquiry could not force a federal cabinet minister to appear as a witness, the Supreme Court said that in common law a commission of inquiry has no power to compel the attendance of witnesses and to require the production of documents. Any jurisdiction for such purposes depends on statutory authority, the court declared, “and it seems that provincial legislation cannot be effective by itself to confer such jurisdiction as against the Crown in right of Canada.” Commissions of inquiry can also come into conflict with the government that created them. Again in 1978–1979, for example, the federally appointed McDonald royal commission of inquiry into certain RCMP activities sparred with the federal government over access to cabinet documents. In the 1980s, a royal commission in effect investigated the judicial system in Nova Scotia, given a wrongful murder conviction and 11 years of a sentence having been served by an innocent man. It was necessary for the Supreme Court of Canada eventually to decide against the provincial government, accepting the view that, in requiring evidence from a former provincial attorney-general, the commission would achieve “an appropriate balance between cabinet secrecy and the proper administration of justice” (Donald Marshall, Jr., 1989). Inquiries can be compromised if their terms of reference involve civil or criminal responsibility of named persons yet prohibit the commission from findings that would affect legal rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (ss.7–14). The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in 1984 that a particular finding of a commissioner was beyond the inquiry’s jurisdiction as the finding could be perceived by the public to be a determination of law and therefore might be seriously prejudicial were the person named to face further proceedings (Nelles et al. and George et al. concerning Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Deaths at the Hospital for Sick Children and Related Matters). In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the terms of reference for the Ontario Holden inquiry into alleged corruption involving funds funnelled to political parties was in effect a police investigation that fell within the federal government’s criminal law responsibilities. Likewise the Richard inquiry into the Westray Mine Tragedy in Nova Scotia in 1992 was forestalled because of pending criminal investigations, possible charges, and trials. In 2005, the Gomery inquiry into the federal government’s national unity sponsorship advertising scandal had to weigh carefully its own questioning of some witnesses, and determine whether public release of testimony given would prejudice pending court cases against certain witnesses. A commission of inquiry can be a catalyst for the defeat of a government. In 2003, the federal government established a judicial commission of inquiry into the

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Commissions of inquiry

auditor general’s allegations of corruption respecting a $300-million sponsorship program designed to raise the visibility of the federal government in Quebec following the near-success of the sovereignty referendum of 1995. The televised hearings conducted by Justice John Gomery, and his interim report in 2005, confirmed many allegations, and contributed to the defeat of the minority Liberal government in 2006 (Who is Responsible? Fact Finding Report; www.gomery.ca). The commission’s final report in 2006 (Restoring Accountability—Recommendations) focused on the need to rebalance the relationship between parliament and government, and for clearer accountability by politicians and public officials. See Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship). Commissions of inquiry can be made difficult in cases of national security confidentiality. In 2004, a federal inquiry under Justice Dennis O’Connor began an investigation into actions of Canadian officials in the detention and deportation without formal legal procedures of a naturalized Canadian, Maher Arar, by the United States to Syria as a terrorist suspect (“extraordinary rendition”), where, according to a fact-finder’s report to the inquiry in 2005, he was tortured before being released without charges and returned to Canada. Not all evidence could be heard in public because of considerations of national security (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar; ararcommission.ca). Several commissions of inquiry have concerned police behaviour toward Native persons. The case of Donald Marshall in Nova Scotia has been mentioned above. In 1999, the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry reported on the criminal investigation and proceedings respecting the sexual assault and murder of Helen Betty Osborne in The Pas in 1971, and police behaviour and investigation of J. J. Harper’s death by police gunfire in Winnipeg in 1988. In 2004, the Wright inquiry in Saskatchewan reported on the death in winter by hypothermia 14 years earlier of a teenager, Neil Stonechild, who was last seen in police custody. The commission’s final report was a damning indictment of the Saskatoon police force. The Linden commission in Ontario was established in 2003 by a Liberal government to look into the shooting death in 1995 of Dudley George by a provincial police officer, when the previous Progressive Conservative government was in office and had repeatedly refused to establish an inquiry. The Ontario Conservative government did establish the O’Connor commission of inquiry into responsibility for the failure to apprehend and provide public notice of the contamination of the town of Walkerton’s water supply, which resulted in several deaths and serious injuries. As in the cases cited above, there is often a political imperative as well as a policy need to establish judicial inquiries, especially when public opinion is aroused. In the late 1980s, for example, the federal Dubin inquiry into the use of performance-enhancing drugs and banned substances by Canadian athletes was established. Other notable federal judicial inquiries in the 1990s included the Krever inquiry into the contamination of Canada’s blood supply in the 1980s, and the Hughes inquiry into complaints about the behaviour toward peaceful demonstrators of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, allegedly under direction from Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s office, during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vancouver.

Committee of the Whole

The most controversial federal judicial inquiry in the 1990s involved the Liberal government’s refusal to extend the deadline for the Letourneau et al. inquiry into the torture and murder in Somalia of Shidane Arone, a teenager, by Canadian military personnel, and the subsequent behaviour by senior officials, both military and civilian, in the Department of National Defence. In the final report of its attenuated investigation, the Inquiry regretted that “on many occasions, the testimony of witnesses was characterized by inconsistency, improbability, implausibility, evasiveness, selective recollection, half-truths and plain lies…the wall of silence is evidently a strategy of calculated deception. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that many of the witnesses who displayed these shortcomings were officers, non-commissioned officers, and senior civil servants…the decision [by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien] to end the Inquiry prematurely in itself raises new questions concerning responsibility and accountability” (“Executive Summary” via dnd.ca/somalia). (See Royal commission.) Commissioner of Official Languages (language ombudsman) (ocol-clo .gc.ca) The federal officer responsible primarily for ensuring the recognition of equal status for French and English in the operations of the government of Canada, but also to promote the equality of Canada’s two official languages. The commissioner advises the public of the requirements of the Official Languages Act, receives complaints, conducts investigations of alleged violations, and recommends corrective action, if necessary through court action. Most complaints deal with the inadequacy of federal service in French. Parliament must approve the appointment of the commissioner who reports annually to parliament, but who may make special reports dealing with matters that the office considers particularly pressing. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; Official Languages Act (1969; 1988). Committee of the Whole (Supply; Ways and Means) All members of a legislature meeting as a committee chaired by the deputy speaker and operating under committee rules. Until 1969, the House of Commons met as committee of the whole to examine bills clause by clause after second reading. Most bills are now examined by relevant standing committees and legislative committees, though money bills are considered in committee of the whole: appropriation (expenditure; supply) bills following the examination of estimates in standing committees. The committee of the whole considers emergency measures such as back-to-work legislation in the case of industrial action affecting the public welfare and non-controversial measures whose passage can thus be expedited. The purpose of the change from the committee of the whole to legislative and policy area-designated standing committees was to involve more members of parliament in the legislative process and to allow for specialization among members. The change has not been a complete success, especially for members of the opposition, whose criticism of the government is now diffused in committees that do not receive as much attention from the mass media as would a debate in the house. With respect to deliberation on public policy, however, standing committees offer the possibility of a less partisan-charged atmosphere, of increased consultation with private interests seeking to influence policy debate as well as specific

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Common law

legislation, and acceptance by the government of amendments to its bills. See Standing (select, special, legislative) committees (of the House and Senate). Common law Law based on legal precedents (stare decisis), or case law, as opposed to statutory or codified law. Except in Quebec, Canada’s legal system is based on common law derived initially from England. Thus, each side in a case argues from previous legal decisions that best suit its case, and judges determine which precedents are most relevant to the case, in coming to a decision themselves or advising a jury on the law in its determination of the facts. The common law based on legal precedent can be modified by legislative enactments (statutory law). In the development of the Canadian constitution, for example, the discretionary or prerogative powers of the Crown and government derive in part from common law, restricted from time to time by statute. Until 1982, civil liberties in Canada rooted in the common law were subject to the principle of parliamentary supremacy—that federal and provincial legislatures can enact any statutory law within their jurisdictional competence—subject to judicial interpretation of the constitution respecting federal-provincial jurisdiction, for example whether a provincial statute limiting a civil liberty was ultra vires, as effectively a federal Criminal Code responsibility or an offence to the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867 that declared Canada’s constitution to be “similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.” In 1982, the constitutional entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms codified civil rights, profoundly modified the principle of parliamentary supremacy, and enlarged the scope and impact of judicial review. For example, a case before the Supreme Court of Canada in 1994 dealt with conflicting elements of common law now enshrined in the Charter—an accused person’s right to presumed innocence and a fair trial (s.11), and freedom of the press (s.2) (in an appeal of a court-ordered ban on televising The Boys of St. Vincent). Past judicial practice had established a hierarchy of common-law rights, with the former taking precedence over the latter in the form of prohibitions on the publication of information touching on actual or prospective trials. The Supreme Court ruled that Charter-based rights are in principle equal and that a “hierarchical approach to rights, which places some over others, must be avoided, both when interpreting the Charter and when developing the common law. When the protected rights of two individuals come into conflict, as can occur in the case of publication bans, Charter principles require a balance to be achieved that fully respects the importance of both sets of rights.” Such cases have subsequently been decided by the judiciary, for example, in restricting media coverage of the murder trial of a defendant before a co-defendant’s trial on similar charges and evidence (Homolka/Bernardo). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Civil Code (Quebec); Civil liberties. Commonwealth of Nations (thecommonwealth.org) An association of approximately 53 independent nations and some associated states, including Canada, which were former colonies or trusts of the United Kingdom, with its secretariat in London, UK.

Communications Security Establishment

The Commonwealth originated in imperial conferences held in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it dates constitutionally from the Statute of Westminster, 1931. The British monarch, who is also the monarch and head of state of several Commonwealth countries, including Canada, serves as head of the Commonwealth. The main body of the association consists of the heads of government who hold an informal meeting every two years. The Commonwealth has a secretariat in London responsible for conferences pertaining to both governmental and non-governmental programs relating, for example, to trade, technical co-operation, youth, science, and athletics. The Commonwealth’s secretariat has been used in attempts to mediate serious disputes within and between Commonwealth states. Countries have occasionally been expelled (and reinstated in the case of South Africa) or had their membership suspended pending the return to civilian from military rule (as in the case of Nigeria in the 1990s). Such action, however, is not consistently followed (as in the case of Pakistan at the same time), nor is mediation by the Commonwealth necessarily welcomed (as in the case of a political coup in Fiji in 2000 and the increasingly punitive dictatorship in Zimbabwe). See British connection; Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931). Communications Security Establishment (CSE) (cse-cst.gc.ca) A highly secret organization under the Department of National Defence that has the capacity to monitor electronic communications and electro-magnetic transmis sions, thus “acquiring” signals intelligence relevant to foreign, defence, and anti-terrorist policies. It is linked internationally with similar allied national monitoring organizations and resources, most importantly the United States National Security Agency, but also with similar agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. The CSE assists the operations of federal law enforcement and security agencies. Created during the Second World War within the National Research Council, the signals intelligence organization was formally established by the federal cabinet in the context of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It was re-named the CSE and placed in Defence following public disclosure of its existence in an investigative report broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1974. However, it was not acknowledged in legislation until the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001. The legislation provided the CSE with statutory legitimacy to conduct signals intelligence and government communications security roles more aggressively. The CSE is required to operate within the Criminal Code (though, with ministerial approval on advice from Justice, exempted conditionally from provisions regarding interception of private communications), federal human rights and privacy legislation, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, unlike the example of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and its oversight body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, there is no independent oversight body for, and no formalized parliamentary scrutiny, of the CSE. In 1996, the federal government appointed a CSE Commissioner to oversee the legality of CSE activities—in effect, a one-person review agency. In annual reports tabled in parliament by the minister of defence, the commissioner has essentially asserted the lawfulness of CSE activities. Reports to the minister based on classified infor-

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Community (the Francophone; la Francophonie)

mation are not made public. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC). Community (the Francophone; la Francophonie) (francophonie.org) An association, founded in the 1960s, of approximately 40 French-language or partly French-language states and associated states. The term la Francophonie also refers more generally to relations among Frenchspeaking states and non-governmental organizations. The French government was initially ill-disposed to the idea when a spirit of independence took hold in most French colonies in Africa in the early 1960s, but it later came to appreciate the positive foreign policy implications for France of such an association. For its part, the Canadian government sought to demonstrate abroad the bilingual and bicultural aspect of Canadian society by associating itself with la Francophonie. As a member of the Community, Canada is involved in multilateral and bilateral trade, as well as scientific, technical, youth, education, and athletic endeavours through the Agence de la francophonie (originally the Agence de cooperation culturelle et technique) and in various conferences of ministers (for example, education and youth). Because Quebec’s population comprises largely first-language French speakers, the provincial government has consistently sought to strengthen its participation in the international French-language community. Consequently, the federal government, which has constitutional jurisdiction in foreign policy, and promotes official bilingualism domestically, has frequently been at odds with Quebec’s attempts to project an international presence, especially when the sovereignist Parti Québécois formed the provincial government. Generally, the federal government has approved the participation of Quebec in some Agency and conference activities involving provincial areas of jurisdiction. In his successful 2006 election campaign, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to elevate Quebec’s international presence, notably in relation to the United Nations educational and cultural organization, UNESCO. Given their sizeable francophone populations, the federal government has also permitted Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Ontario to participate in Agency-related activities. Quebec, an officially unilingual province, and New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province, have the status of “participating governments” in the Agency. On foreign policy in particular, there have been two consistent concerns of the Canadian government: that France has sought to maintain its central position within the international francophone community, including both high- and lowlevel encouragement of the sovereignist movement in Quebec; that la Francophonie refuses to deal with the notoriously poor human rights record of the regimes of several of its member-states, notably in Central Africa, a particular problem when high-level meetings are held in Canada. Compact theory of Confederation An interpretation of the act of Confederation in 1867 as the outcome of a treaty, or compact, among colonial participants. In one version, the provinces are understood to be the successors of the colonial elites, heirs to a negotiating role in Confederation, whose consent was required for amendments to the constitution. Another version views Confederation as a compact between the political leadership of francophone and anglophone British

Concurrent powers

North America. This version would grant a constitutional veto to the government of Quebec. The theory, however, had no legal foundation, though it provided a handy excuse for government procrastination. Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King managed to take different positions on compact theory within a three-year period. The constitutional “unemployment insurance” amendment of 1940 was postponed until the approval of all provinces was received. King told the House of Commons: “We have avoided a very critical constitutional question…whether…in amending the British North America Act it is absolutely necessary to secure the consent of all provinces…” (Canada, House of Commons, Debates, June 21, 1949, 1117–1118). However, in the postponement of the redistribution of seats in the house in 1943, King did not consult the provinces and refused to relay the Quebec premier’s request that the British parliament reject the federal amendment. It was King’s opinion then that “the [compact] theory…does not appear to be supported either in history or in law” (Montreal Gazette, July 16, 1943). In 1981, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the compact theory when it ruled in a reference that the constitution could be amended with substantial provincial agreement. In 1982, the British North America Act was amended through an address of Canadian parliament to the British parliament, with the support of all provinces except Quebec. The British Canada Act, 1982, and the Constitution Act, 1982 patriated the constitution by establishing a general amending procedure (among others) that required neither unanimous provincial consent nor the necessary consent of Quebec. Competition policy See Combines (anti-combines legislation). Comptroller General of Canada Appointed by the federal government at deputy minister rank, the comptroller general is an administrative officer of the Treasury Board responsible for standards of financial controls, reporting systems and program evaluation of federal departments and agencies. The government appointed the first comptroller general in 1978, in response to criticism in 1976 by the auditor general that the government had in effect lost control of the treasury. In 1993, the Treasury Board Secretariat absorbed the functions of the Office of Comptroller General. Initially, the secretary of the Treasury Board was designated the comptroller general, but in 2003 a separate office was created within the Secretariat. In his final report in 2006 on the sponsorship scandal, Justice John Gomery recommended a formal process involving the comptroller general, to record when ministers overruled their senior officials in instances where the officials had statutory or delegated powers. See Auditor General of Canada; Treasury Board Secretariat. Concurrent majority See Double majority. Concurrent powers Jurisdictional competence held jointly in a federal system by the national and subnational levels of government. In Canada, the Constitution Act, 1867 designates agriculture and immigration as areas of jurisdictional competence held by both parliament and the provincial legislatures (s.95). The Act was amended in 1951 to add old age pensions as

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Conditional grants

an area of concurrent power (and further amended in 1964 [s.94A]). In the case of conflicting legislation, the Act provides for federal paramountcy in agriculture and immigration, but no federal legislation on pensions can “affect the operation” of any provincial legislation on that subject. Section 92A and “The Sixth Schedule” were added in 1982 to clarify federal and provincial jurisdiction in non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources, and electrical energy. Following the Second World War, the federal government became increasingly involved in constitutionally designated areas of provincial competence through its exercise of “spending power,” an increase de facto in legislative concurrence in the Canadian federal system. See Sections 91 and 92 (Constitution Act, 1867); Spending power. Conditional grants (special-purpose transfer payments) Also referred to as grants-in-aid, federal monies transferred to provincial treasuries for agreed upon, shared-cost programs. At the close of the First World War, conditional grants were experimental and involved programs with fixed terms. By the end of the twentieth century, the federal government was systematically reducing its level of financial commitment to expensive shared-cost programs that it had developed since the Second World War in such provincial policy fields as social assistance, health care and post-secondary education. Through the exercise of federal spending power in joint federalprovincial programs, minimum national standards of public service were established despite provincial opposition to federal “entanglement” in their jurisdictional prerogatives. The initial federal response to provincial criticism and rising costs came in 1965. Under the Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act, the provinces were given the option of contracting or opting out of shared-cost programs with compensation. Only Quebec took up the offer to assume all administrative and financial responsibilities for programs in return for a specified percentage of the individual income tax on the income of the province’s residents (tax abatement) and, in certain programs, an associated equalization and operating cost adjustment grant. After 1965, the federal government established limits on federal payments in shared-cost programs. Under the Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act, 1977, the federal government replaced conditional grants for health care and post-secondary education with unconditional grants known as block funding and abatement of tax points. Successive federal governments in the 1980s and 1990s sought to control expenditures partly through reducing the size of their grants. For their part, provinces responded to the decrease in federal assistance and rising costs by increasing their revenue, shifting funds from one program to another, but increasingly by reducing levels of service and accessibility. In 1996, Established Program Funding and the Canada Assistance Plan were replaced by a negotiated block payment and transfer of tax points to the provinces under the Canada Health and Social Transfer. In the federal-provincial Social Union Framework Agreement of 1999, with Quebec dissenting, the federal government agreed to greater consultation with provincial governments on future federal funding, and to introduce new sharedcost social programs based on national objectives only if agreed to by six provinces.

Confederation

Beyond concern over continued deficit financing and a growing public debt, the federal government has also been concerned that its financial assistance to programs delivered by the provincial governments did not result in sufficient public visibility and credit for the federal government. Thus, a combination of provincial concern over federal spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction, the governments’ mutual concerns about public indebtedness and the federal government’s concern for greater public visibility in delivering public services contributed to a lowering of federal funding with fewer conditions attached to federal assistance for provincial programs. See Canada Assistance Plan (CAP, 1996–1995); Canadian Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Social Union Framework Agreement (1999); Spending power. Confederation The formation of Canada as a federal union of the British colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, with a constitution otherwise similar to that of the United Kingdom, through provisions of the British North America Act (U.K.), on July 1, 1867. Confederation was a response of several colonial elites to their domestic selfinterest, especially as sentiment in the United States for expansion north and west was more threatening as the Civil War there was coming to a close, and British imperial interests were increasingly focused on Africa and Asia. The internal impetus came from the United Province of Canada, where political and French/English conflict had immobilized the political forces of Canada East (formerly Lower Canada, later Quebec) and Canada West (formerly Upper Canada, later Ontario). Initially well-disposed to Maritime union because of the smallness and isolation of their colonies, politicians from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island met in Charlottetown in 1864 to discuss their future. Canadian politicians, who had by then formed a grand coalition to pursue the project of a larger union, attended the Maritime conference to advance their proposition. The conference in Charlottetown was followed by one in Quebec City to consider formally a federal union. The Quebec conference adopted 72 resolutions, including one to seek “the sanction of the Imperial and Local Parliaments…for the union.…” Only the Province of Canada, however, had much enthusiasm for the union. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island refused to participate. The government of New Brunswick was defeated in an election on the issue, and the Nova Scotia government simply reaffirmed its support for a Maritime union. The Canadian government then lobbied the British government, which pressured the eastern colonies. In a conference in London held late in 1866, representatives from Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick agreed to 69 resolutions, which became the basis of the British North America Act, enacted by the British parliament without any further reference to, or approval by, the colonial legislatures or electors. Since 1982, the Act and its later amendments are cited as the “Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended.” Under the original Act, Canada was created as a federation with a strong central government and a “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom” (preamble). French and English were made the official languages of parliament, the federal courts, and the legislature and courts of Quebec; established minority Catholic and Protestant rights in education were guaranteed in all

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provinces, which now included Ontario and Quebec as well as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The bicameral parliament comprised a lower house—the House of Commons—elected on a limited franchise, and an upper house—the Senate— appointed on the basis of regional representation. Recognizing the weak financial basis of the provinces, the principle of federal statutory subsidies was established. The western British North American territories known as Rupert’s Land and the Northwest Territory were later annexed to Canada and administered by the Canadian government. In 1870, Manitoba was created by federal statute as a province on the same bilingual basis as Quebec. British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, followed by Prince Edward Island two years later. In 1905, Alberta and Saskatchewan were created out of the western territory by federal statute; in 1949, Newfoundland “joined” Confederation. Yukon territory was created out of the westernmost part of the Northwest Territories in 1898 and the territory of Nunavut, from the easternmost part in 1999. The legislative responsibilities of parliament and the provincial legislatures were outlined in several sections of the Act, notably ss.91–95. The preamble to s.91, which described parliament’s general responsibility for the “Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada” in matters not exclusively assigned to the provinces, illustrates the compromise of the framers of Confederation to have a federal state with a dominant centre, rather than a unitary or decentralized federal system of government. The importance of the federal government was also evident in the specific responsibilities assigned to parliament, including major economic policy fields, unlimited power of taxation, declaratory power over provincial works, and the federal nature of the office of provincial lieutenant-governor, including the powers of reservation and disallowance of provincial legislation. Until 1982, judicial review of the Act in Canada and the United Kingdom (by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until 1949) pertained largely to determining jurisdictional competence between the two levels of government. In 1982, the constitutional basis of Confederation was profoundly altered through an address to the British parliament from the Canadian parliament supported by all provincial legislatures except the National Assembly of Quebec. The British North America Act was patriated as the Constitution Act, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms against which legislation (and executive and administrative orders and procedures) can be tested in the courts. The Act includes a declaration recognizing (though not defining) “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” of Indian, Inuit, and Métis. It also contains a commitment to the promotion of equal opportunities for Canadians and to the principle of federal equalization payments to the provinces to achieve comparable levels of public services across the country. The Act was patriated with the entrenchment of several amending formulae involving, variously, the Canadian parliament and provincial legislatures. See Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Sections 91 and 92 (Constitution Act, 1867), and other entries on subjects mentioned here. Conference of First Ministers Meetings of the heads of governments in Canada, usually held annually. Styled earlier as dominion-provincial and later as federal-provincial conferences of the prime minister and provincial premiers, these meetings have been held regularly, especially since the 1960s, and now also include territorial premiers.

Conference of Provincial First Ministers

The conferences are usually convened in Ottawa and chaired by the prime minister, to establish agreement on policies of federal and provincial concern. The “summits” receive extensive coverage by the mass media, and the formal sessions are usually televised. The public meetings largely involve statements of government views by the heads or relevant ministers, as well as occasional exchanges among the politicians conscious of their “viewing audience back home.” Effective negotiations therefore usually take place in private meetings, based on earlier consultations by ministers and government aides. The Conference of First Ministers is the most visible and formalized aspect of federal-provincial relations. The Conference epitomizes the federal-provincial style known as executive or administrative federalism, whereby the political future of the country is guided by agreements negotiated privately by officials of the 11 federal and provincial political executives, some to be ratified later by usually compliant legislatures. Following the failure of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord in 1990, negotiated in the style of executive federalism, constitutional discussions were enlarged to include consultative forums involving diverse public groups. Afterward, ministerial meetings on the constitution were enlarged to include the territorial governments and representatives of selected Native groups. The Charlottetown Accord of 1992, which was rejected in a national referendum, had included a constitutional requirement for an annual meeting of first ministers, including territorial government leaders, but without entrenching an agenda as had the ill-fated Meech Lake Accord of 1987. Representatives of First Nations people were to be invited when items being discussed directly affected them. The prime minister and premiers can no longer afford to be seen as an elite determining the future of the country behind closed doors. However, the highly integrated nature of government policies and relations in Canadian federalism still requires on-going and high level federal-provincial consultation and agreement. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Dominion-provincial conferences; Executive (administrative) federalism; Intergovernmental committees. Conference of Ministers (of Education, Finance, etc.) Councils of ministers that meet regularly to discuss and coordinate various federal-provincial policies and programs relevant to their portfolios. See Intergovernmental committees. Conference of Provincial First Ministers A meeting of provincial premiers held on an annual basis since the 1960s. The first interprovincial heads-of-government meeting took place in 1887, but did not become a permanent feature of Canadian federalism at that time. The meetings gradually acquired political significance from the 1970s as regular federal-provincial consultation or executive federalism became the framework within which political conflicts, especially on constitutional change, were to be resolved. In 2003, provincial and territorial government leaders established the Council of the Federation to coordinate future inter-provincial and territorial relations, notably to establish agreement among themselves in response to measures and actions of the federal government, or indeed to take the initiative in relations with the federal government. See Council of the Federation; Intergovernmental committees.

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Confidence (of the House; Chamber of…) Support on a money bill or other major legislation by a majority of members of a legislature required for a government to remain in office, thus maintaining the constitutional principle of responsible government. Given the disciplined party system in Canadian legislatures, confidence should be problematic only in the case of minority governments. In the case of the bicameral parliament, the elected House of Commons is a confidence chamber, but not the appointed Senate. As a constitutional convention, legislators define confidence by the observance or modification of precedents. In 1968, the minority Liberal government was defeated on third reading of a money bill in the House of Commons. However, the Liberals argued that the outcome of the vote on third reading—usually a formality—resulted from a tactical error by the government whip and that a winter election would not be in the country’s interest. More to the point, the Liberal party was in the midst of a leadership campaign to replace its leader. Prime Minister Lester Pearson marshalled forces inside and outside government to persuade the Progressive Conservative leader of the opposition, Robert Stanfield, to attend the house, promising that a confidence motion would be introduced, debated, and put to a vote. Stanfield acceded and the government was sustained in the vote. Following the election of his minority Liberal government in 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin designated some non-money bills as matters of confidence and others as “free votes” on which government backbenchers were not obligated to support their government and a defeat on which the government would not resign. See Custom, Convention and Usage; Free vote. Conflict of interest A personal pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, sufficient either to influence or to appear to influence the exercise of a legislator’s or public official’s duties. A real conflict exists when one knows of a personal interest that is sufficient to influence one’s public duty. A potential conflict arises when the known existence of a personal interest could influence a person’s duties, provided that the duties have not been exercised. The notion of impartiality implied in the rule of law and the principle of equality, both enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (preamble and s.15), are the constitutional bases for defining and prohibiting conflict of interest. Apart from the Criminal Code on matters such as bribery and influence peddling, and various legislative acts and rules, until 2004 only guidelines published by prime ministers dealt with conflicts of interest involving federal ministers and senior public office holders. At the federal level, statutory provisions dealing with conflict of interest among parliamentarians have long been acknowledged to be antiquated or ineffective, largely because they dealt with breech of the public trust after the fact and did not apprehend potential conflicts of interest. Also, guidelines published since the 1970s by successive Liberal and Conservative governments for ministers and senior public officials, including variously provisions on confidential disclosure of assets, divestment, the creation of “blind trusts” and time limitations on accepting certain post-career business positions, failed to achieve their goal and attempts to extend legislation to all parliamentarians also failed. The lobby industry in Ottawa, for example, is replete with former members of parliament, including former ministers, former ministerial aides, and former senior public administra-

Conscription

tors. And many such people are often appointed as directors and senior staff of companies that are regulated by, or do business with the government. Though elected in 1984 in a campaign that included criticism of Liberal patronage appointments, Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney only implemented another set of prime ministerial guidelines for ministers and public officials. Consequently, like guidelines of earlier governments, these seemed to be an exercise in public relations rather than a delineation of constitutionally required behaviour. The Mulroney government was later beset by a series of scandals involving violations of the guidelines, which led to a judicial inquiry of one minister and criminal charges in other cases. In 1988, the government introduced legislation that would have applied to all MPs and senators. While it was stronger than the ministerial guidelines, it was weaker than the proposals of a task force that recommended an ethics counsellor to advise on conflicts and a commission to investigate conflicts. The measure died on the Order Paper later that year, but was reintroduced in 1989 and studied by a joint parliamentary committee. This legislation also died on the Order Paper when parliament was dissolved for the 1993 election. The subsequent Liberal government established an ethics counsellor to investigate alleged violations of the government’s ministerial conflict-of-interest guidelines—but responsible to the prime minister rather than to parliament. Various investigations of ministers by the ethics counsellor, including even of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s business affairs and alleged interference with the decision of an arm’s-length government body, concluded that no conflicts existed. Finally, in 2004, under the minority Liberal government of Paul Martin, parliament amended the Parliament of Canada Act creating an ethics commissioner (ethics officer for the Senate) and an Ethics Code for members of parliament. The government appoints the commissioner (officer) on a resolution of the House of Commons (Senate) who is accountable to parliament. Prime Minister Martin also published a Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders. Only a few months after his appointment as ethics commissioner, Bernard Shapiro was obliged in 2005 to investigate alleged abuse of power by a minister during the recent federal election campaign and allegations during debate on the minority government’s budget of vote-buying and bribery involving an opposition backbencher, a minister, and the prime minister’s chief of staff. In 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper published an ethics code dealing with blind trusts, prohibiting his ministers and their political staff, other members of parliament and former ministers from lobbying the government for five years after their departure from public service. His government’s code clarified that all findings of the ethics commissioner would be final and binding. See Ethics Commissioner (Senate Ethics Officer); Lobby (-ist; -ing). Conscription The term commonly used in Canada for compulsory military service. The issue has always been a divisive one in Canada, particularly during the two world wars, dividing the francophone and anglophone communities. In 1917, there was considerable civil strife in Quebec when the Union government headed by Conservative Sir Robert Borden introduced conscription, manipulated the franchise, and won a general election. This was one of the few instances in Canadian history when French Canadians were not represented on the govern-

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ment side of the House of Commons. The issue was raised again in 1940–1944. Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had pledged opposition to conscription in the wartime election of 1940, conducted a referendum in 1942 to release the government from its pledge. King’s ambiguous position on conscription is remembered in his phrase “conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription.” But again, Canadians were sharply divided on French-English grounds, reminding francophones yet again of their minority status in the country. Consensus Agreement without a formal vote among members of a group. The designated head of the group defines the consensus. This approach to conflict resolution may be used in the event that unanimity is not likely, but a resolution is desired with as many members of the group as possible in agreement, thus maintaining collegiality and collective responsibility. Cabinet decisions in Canada are based on consensus. However, as prime ministers and premiers can profoundly influence the political careers of cabinet ministers, their personalities and views are crucial determinants in the development of the consensus. Conservatism Historically, a term used in Canada with reference to British Toryism or to European conservative political thought generally. Since the 1960s, the use of the term has been confused with its contemporary meaning in the United States. In American usage, conservatism is a manifestation of early liberalism in which individualism, self-reliance and antipathy to the state are stressed, and in which progress or the improvement of the human condition is viewed as the inevitable outcome of unrestricted interaction among rational, selfinterested individuals. By contrast, conservatism in the European and British tradition values social order, rank, and security above individual freedom, implying both personal and state responsibility for the welfare of others for the common good. In the 1990s and later, the phrase “social conservatism” characterized the views of the populist right, embodied in particular by the Reform/Canadian Alliance parties and reinforced by an element of the Progressive Conservative party following their merger in 2003. Social conservatives have a contradictory attitude toward the state: on the one hand opposition, for example, to government interference and regulation in the economy and control of gun ownership, but support for government restrictions on other personal matters such as the reinstatement of capital punishment, a woman’s access to therapeutic abortions, and gay and lesbian rights, including same-sex marriage and adoption rights. Conservative party (2003–) (conservative.ca) Known by various names since Confederation, currently styled as a result of the merger in 2003 of the federal Progressive Conservative party of nineteenth-century origin with the Canadian Alliance, successor in 2000 to the Reform party formed in 1987. “Progressive Conservative” parties still exist in most of the provinces and in Yukon. Unsuccessful in the 2004 election, the party formed a minority government in 2006. Barely realized in time to contest the 2004 federal election, the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties was conducted at a convention involving on-the-spot delegates and teleconferencing. The merger was

Consociational democracy

formally supported by large majorities of both parties. However, there remained significant opposition among some Progressive Conservatives, including former leader Joe Clark, especially following the election of Alliance leader Stephen Harper as leader of the merged party. Such Progressive Conservatives were fearful that their moderate and pragmatic party had been taken over by a more right-wing, social conservative populist party with only regional support. Although the merged party won more seats in the election of 2004 than the two parties combined in 2000—99 compared to 78, an increase from 25.9 per cent of seats to 32.1 per cent—its share of the popular vote was significantly less in 2004 than the two parties combined in 2000—29.6 per cent compared to 37.7 per cent. The Conservatives remained the official opposition to a minority Liberal government in the House of Commons. While it was apparent that Conservatives—whether former Alliance or Progressive Conservative activists—were solidly in agreement in their opposition to the Liberals, the electorate seemed uncertain whether the merged party was fundamentally a populist, social conservative party of protest or a moderate and pragmatic party with policies and organizational cohesion that would lead to electoral victory. In the party’s first policy convention in 2005, the latter appeared to prevail. Populist direct democracy proposals for legislative initiative and recall were rejected, official bilingualism was supported, and the less direct Progressive Conservative method of leadership review was approved. Social conservatism was still evident, however, in the party’s strenuous objection in the debate that year to the inclusion of same-sex couples in the legal definition of marriage. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives formed a minority government, following a campaign when considerable care was taken to moderate the party’s image. The party won 40.3 per cent of the seats (supplemented by a Liberal defection two weeks after the election) with 36.2 per cent of the vote, achieving electoral gains in Ontario and Quebec, though largely in rural areas of those provinces, and also in the context of an incumbent Liberal party beset by charges of corruption. See Canadian Alliance party; Progressive Conservative party. Consociational democracy A concept originating with Arend Lijphart, who sought to explain why some countries that possessed fragmented political cultures were nonetheless stable democracies. At the core of a consociational democracy are sets of leaders of important but separated, or segmented, groups who choose to govern in mutually supportive ways rather than through basically competitive and stressful relationships. See his “Cultural Diversity and Theories of Political Integration,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 4 (1971), 1–14. In Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), Lijphart described Canada as a semi-consociational democracy. In Canada, the fragmentation of the political culture on ethnic grounds between English- and French-speaking Canadians is institutionalized in the constitution, notably in the federal system of government. Intergovernmental relations, rather than electoral and legislature-based conflicts among political parties each defined by ethnicity, constitute major consociational activity among the political elite. Lijphart concluded that the Canadian political system would move either “in the direction of greater consociationalism—or in the direction of a more centrifugal regime with a partition of the country as its more likely outcome” (129).

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While the concept has been used to explain tension management on the bicultural cleavage in Canada, the concept is more evident in a purer form in negotiations begun in the late-twentieth century respecting Native rights and constitutional reform, including the recognition of Native self-government. In this case, the leadership of prominent Native groups has negotiated, on behalf of Native populations, with the political leadership of the non-Native population— the federal and various provincial and territorial governments. Consolidated Revenue Fund Money accumulated by the government of Canada that the cabinet allocates to departments and to certain public corporations and agencies with parliamentary approval. See Budget and budgetary process. Constituency (riding) A geographic area defined for legislative representation. In the popularly elected House of Commons, the number and the boundaries of constituencies are determined when redistribution takes place following each decennial census (Constitution Act, ss.8, 51, 51A, 52). Effective for the election of 2004, there were 308 constituencies, from each of which one member of parliament was elected. Provincial and territorial representation in the House was: Ontario 106, Quebec 75, British Columbia 36, Alberta 28, Manitoba 14, Saskatchewan 14, Nova Scotia 11, New Brunswick 10, Newfoundland and Labrador 7, Prince Edward Island 4, Northwest Territories 1, Nunavut 1 and Yukon 1. In the appointed Senate, representation is based on regional divisions initially defined in the Constitution Act (s.22), currently 24 from each of the designated regions (Ontario, Quebec, the West and the Maritimes), but also 6 from Newfoundland and Labrador, and one from each of the territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon). Each senator from Quebec represents one of the 24 Quebec constituencies that existed in the House of Commons at the time of Confederation—at that time effectively representing the minority of regional constituencies whose population was predominantly English-speaking Protestants. Within the Maritime region, there are 10 senators from New Brunswick, 10 from Nova Scotia and 4 from Prince Edward island; in the West region, there are 6 senators each from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Constituency (riding) association Local political party organization in the constituencies of elected legislatures. The purpose of a party constituency association is to encourage membership, raise money, nominate a candidate, and conduct the local election campaign as advised by the central office. Laws pertaining to campaign contributions and expenditures—for example, in federal politics, the Canada Elections Act—require constituency associations and candidates of recognized parties and their designated agents to observe and maintain specific financial procedures and records. Otherwise, constituency organizations operate under party rules when selecting executives, nominating candidates for office, running their campaigns, and conducting any other business. Party rules also designate procedures whereby constituencies may nominate delegates to party leadership and policy conventions. Particularly in large metropolitan areas, executives of several constituency associations of a party may attempt to maintain social and political activities between elections. Not

Constitution

all parties have constituency associations in all ridings and some associations may exist only on paper. This might be the case where a party is virtually without popular support. But it might also be the rare case where a party is so overwhelmingly dominant that a local organization is virtually unnecessary. In such cases, senior party officials advise the leader on the designation of a candidate. By law, the party leader designates all official candidates for the party. Conflict between the leadership at the centre and a local riding association can develop if a candidate is seen to be “imposed” on the riding association rather than selected by local party members in a fair nomination campaign. See Campaign (election). Constituent assembly A group of people with the power to establish or amend a constitution or at least recommend changes to authoritative bodies. In the aftermath of the failed attempts to amend the Canadian constitution through the Meech Lake Accord of 1987 and the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, some people argued for the establishment of a constituent assembly. The Canadian constitution can be amended only by legislatures (Constitution Act, 1982, Part V) and the Meech Lake Accord failed for want of approval of two provincial legislatures among the federal and ten provincial legislatures. There was popular opposition not only to the substance of the agreement, but to the process of behind-the-scenes, federal-provincial government negotiations leading to the agreement that was not to be altered by the legislatures. Consequently, the federalprovincial negotiation of the Charlottetown Accord was preceded by extensive public consultations and followed by a country-wide referendum in which it was rejected. Consequently, neither the process of executive negotiations alone nor negotiations following consultations and leading to a referendum seem workable as a means of amending the constitution. Thus, some people argued for a constituent assembly to be created by the legislatures to negotiate constitutional change with subsequent approval by the legislatures as required by the Constitution Act. However, the precedent of the referendum on the Charlottetown Accord suggested to others that a popular referendum on constitutional change was now an obligation; indeed some provinces enacted legislation requiring a referendum on constitutional changes. Constitution The basic law of a political community that defines rights and obligations of individual members of that community, establishes and describes the functions and relationships among executive, legislative and judicial institutions of that community, and a procedure for its amendment. Constitutions may be “written” documents, and may also include “unwritten” rules based on generally accepted cumulative patterns of behaviour, customs or conventions. The Canadian constitution is drawn from several sources: The British parliament’s British North Act, 1867 America, subsequently amended, and the Canada Act, 1982 that renamed and patriated the BNA Act as the Constitution Act, amended with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and “domestic” amending formulae; certain other British statutes (for example, from the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to the Statute of Westminster, 1931); certain Canadian and provincial statutes that may be said to constitute the country’s “organic law” (for example, Acts dealing with the Supreme Court of Canada, citizenship, the establishment of provinces, the conduct of elections, and national emergencies); cer-

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tain orders-in-council (for example, invoking legislation and enacting regulations under enabling legislation); certain fundamental values and informal practices based on custom, usage and convention (for example, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and responsible government); and judicial interpretation of written and common law aspects of the constitution. See various entries on subjects that are mentioned here. Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended An Act of the British parliament that established Canada as a federal union with originally four and later ten provinces. Titled the British North America Act until renamed in 1982, it describes the components of the federal, or central, government and distributes power between the two levels (federal and provincial) of government. Although it is the major written element of the Canadian constitution, it does not completely and accurately describe the constitution. Unwritten constitutional conventions supplement the Act and, in some cases, more accurately explain the constitution. Thus, a literal reading of the Act gives an inaccurate view of the country’s political regime. The succinct phrase in the preamble declaring Canada to have “a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom” is a better indication of constitutional behaviour than some of what follows in the Act, especially with reference to the executive and its relation to the legislature. Until 1982, with some exceptions, important sections of the Act could only be amended by the British parliament on an address by the Canadian parliament. In 1982, the British parliament amended the Act on an address by the Canadian parliament with the support of all provinces with the notable exception of Quebec. The 1982 amendment included several amending formulae involving only Canadian legislatures, thus patriating the Act. The amendment also included the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, against which all government action, including legislation, orders, regulations, and administrative procedures can be tested in the courts; a statement on the rights of Aboriginal peoples; and a constitutional commitment to the principle of federal equalization payments to ensure sufficient revenues to the provinces to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services. An understanding of the constitution of Canada includes the written Constitution Act, supplemented by unwritten convention and judicial review. For example, according to the Act, the governor general exercises supreme executive authority in Canada on behalf of the sovereign, advised by a Privy Council, members of which the governor general selects, summons and removes “from Time to Time.” On behalf of the sovereign, the governor general is also the commanderin-chief of the military. The governor general appoints the Speaker of the Senate, all senators (who hold office until 75 years of age), and almost all judges. The governor general summons and dissolves the House of Commons and issues writs for general elections. Bills involving the expenditure of money can be introduced in parliament only on the governor general’s recommendation. The governor general may refuse assent to bills passed by parliament and may disallow a provincial Act. Generally, the same powers possessed by the governor general are also possessed by constitutional law at the provincial level by lieutenant-governors, whom the governor general appoints.

Constitution Act

Unwritten constitutional conventions, however, describe the constitution more accurately than the Constitution Act. In fact, the governor general rarely acts according to personal judgment, but instead on the advice of a small component of the Privy Council—the cabinet, which is not mentioned by name in the Act and which, in turn, is selected by the prime minister, who is also not mentioned in the Act. The prime minister and other cabinet members, the government-of-the-day, must retain the support, or confidence, of the House of Commons to remain in office and must themselves have seats in the House of Commons (although some ministers may be in the Senate in addition to the government leader there). Should an election result in another party winning a majority or a significant plurality of constituencies, the prime minister would in all likelihood resign. The governor general would then ask the party-determined leader of the new leading party to form the next government. Because some constitutional conventions and laws have not been exercised in recent years or even decades, does not necessarily mean that they cannot be invoked. Since 1926, no governor general has refused a request of a prime minister to dissolve parliament for an election within the statutory limit of five years. But the power remains as a constitutional safeguard against an opportunistic prime minister—in the 1926 King-Byng dispute, a minority Liberal government trying to avoid defeat in the house over a government scandal only a short time after an election. The law allowing the federal government to disallow provincial legislation has fallen into disuse; by convention, it is not exercised, but by law the power remains. While constitutional conventions can be altered by establishing new forms of practice or by statute, the amendment of the Constitution Act is complicated. Provisions for amendment, which existed prior to 1982 and involved the British parliament, were superseded when the Act was patriated that year, with the inclusion of several “domestic” amending formulae outlined in Part V of the 1982 Act. The general amending formula requires a resolution of the Canadian parliament (with majority support in each of the House of Commons and the Senate— although inaction or dissent by the Senate can be overridden by the house) and the legislatures of two-thirds of the provinces that combined have at least 50 per cent of the population of all the provinces (Constitution Act, 1982, ss.38, 47). A provincial legislature could avoid the effect of an amendment that derogated from its powers, rights, or privileges through an expression of dissent; and if the amendment involved the transfer of education or cultural matters from the provinces to the federal parliament, a province could opt out with compensation (s.40). Consent by majority vote of parliament and all provincial legislatures is required to amend the Constitution Act respecting executive power (the Queen, the governor general, and lieutenant-governors), minimum representation by province in the House of Commons, the use of French and English notably as official languages of Canada, the composition of the Supreme Court of Canada and, crucially, amendments to this Part V of the Act (“Procedure For Amending Constitution of Canada” [s.41]). The consent of parliament and of only the legislatures of affected provinces is required to alter boundaries between provinces and to amend legislation pertaining to the use of English and French within a province (s.43). Parliament may, subject to sections 41 and 42, amend unilaterally certain sections of

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the constitution respecting the executive of Canada, the House of Commons and the Senate (s.44). A provincial legislature may alone, subject to section 41, amend its constitution (s.45). The principle of proportionate representation of provinces in the Commons, as prescribed by the Constitution, Senate reform, the establishment of new provinces, or the extension of provincial boundaries into the territories and aspects of the Supreme Court of Canada other than its composition may be achieved through the general amending formula. Following the referendum in Quebec in 1995 on sovereignty-association, which was only narrowly defeated, the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, unable to pursue successfully a formal amendment that would accommodate Quebec to the constitution, enacted the Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996, that amendments using the constitution’s general amending formula would be introduced in parliament only if they had the support of the legislatures of each of five designated regions, including Quebec, thus giving Quebec a constitutional veto. The other regions were Ontario, British Columbia, the prairie West, and Atlantic Canada. In the case of the last two regions, at least two of the legislatures representing at least 50 per cent of the population in the respective region could forestall introduction of an amendment in parliament (thus effectively granting the legislature of Alberta a veto in its region and the legislatures of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia combined in Atlantic Canada). The arrangement is federal statutory law only, subject to future amendment or repeal, and not entrenched constitutional law. Finally, as mentioned above, the Senate has only a suspensive veto over amendments that require its support (ss.34, 41, 42, 43), including amendments affecting the method of selecting senators, provincial representation, the residence qualifications and powers of the Senate (s.42). If the Senate fails to adopt a resolution within 180 days of the House of Commons doing so, an amendment can proceed if the house adopts the resolution again after that period (s.47). The Constitution Act has always been subject to judicial review. However, judicial review was considerably broadened with the 1982 amendment that included the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Until 1949, the Constitution Act was subject to judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court of Canada and then by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom. Since 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada has been the final court of appeal. Until 1982, judicial review focused almost exclusively on the jurisdictional competence of parliament and provincial legislatures described in the Act; that is, challenges to legislation, including challenges based on common law rights and civil liberties, were tested largely against the distribution of legislative powers between the two levels of government. Judicial interpretation defined the limits of the federal government’s paramountcy, especially on the question of residual power. Generally, judicial rulings from London reduced federal power asserted in the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause of section 91 (preamble) in favour of provincial power asserted in the “Property and Civil Rights” clause in section 92:13, while the Supreme Court later tended to reaffirm federal paramountcy either through the “Peace, Order and good Government” clause or through federal Trade and Commerce power (s.91:2).

“Consultative mechanisms”

Since 1982, however, the role of judicial review has been expanded. While each level of government remains, strictly speaking, supreme within its area of legislative competence, all government action, including executive agreements and administrative procedures, and regulations of federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, may be tested against the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Confederation; Sections 91 and 92 (Constitution Act, 1867), and various entries on subjects that are mentioned here. Constitutional Act, 1791 (U.K.) The Act that superseded the Quebec Act, 1774, and by which Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada (geographic designations related to the St. Lawrence River and its watershed), each colony having a British-appointed governor, advised by an appointed Executive Council, with an elected Legislative Assembly (lower house) and an appointed Legislative Council (upper house). Several factors were involved in dividing Quebec and introducing representative government. One was the influx of Loyalists—predominantly British and Protestant—following the American Revolution, who demanded political and legal rights such as they had enjoyed in the American colonies, including representative government, English common law, habeas corpus, and trial by jury. But the Constitutional Act also enhanced the prospects for the survival of French culture through the establishment of Lower Canada where French-speakers would continue to comprise the majority of the population. One of the earliest acts of Upper Canada was the replacement of French civil law imposed by the Quebec Act (subject to local modification) with English common law, while French civil law was maintained in Lower Canada. The Constitutional Act was replaced in 1840 with the Union Act which established the United Province of Canada. See Quebec Act, 1774 (U.K.); Union Act, 1840 (U.K.). Constitutional amendments See Amendment (legislative; constitutional); and Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended. “Consultative mechanisms” (forums and reports on constitutional reform) Various means used by governments in Canada in the early 1990s to obtain views from the public on constitutional reform. The prime minister, 10 premiers and senior officials privately negotiated the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 to obtain Quebec’s support for the Constitution Act, 1982, but failed to achieve unanimous provincial ratification through last-minute, high-pressure negotiations in 1990. This abortive exercise in constitutional reform brought to a head public opposition to the style of federal-provincial relations known as executive or administrative federalism. Critics argued pejoratively that Canada’s constitutional future should not be determined—to cite an often-used phrase—“behind closed doors by 11 white, middle-aged men in business suits.” Various groups, but notably those representing the interests of Natives, women, the disabled, labour, environmentalists, and the poor, argued that constitutional change should involve broadly based public consultation and approval, possibly including a referendum. Those who had voiced opposition to the Meech Lake Accord had objected to the requirement of legislatures to vote the proposal up or

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down without amendment. Some legislatures held no committee hearings on the Accord, while others held perfunctory hearings. After 1990, the federal government and several provinces organized various forums on constitutional change in which representatives of public interests were invited to participate. At the federal level, the Citizens’ Forum on Canada’s Future (Spicer Committee) organized hundreds of small group meetings and regional and national forums to discuss constitutional reform before presenting its Report to the People and Government of Canada. The federal government also established a joint parliamentary committee to study the constitutional amending formula (BeaudoinEdwards). The government published proposals for discussion in 1991 (Shaping Canada’s Future Together) which were examined in public hearings by another joint Senate and House of Commons parliamentary committee (Beaudoin-Dobbie). The government also organized five nationally televised regional forums, including public interest group representatives, to discuss the proposals. These forums or consultative assemblies were far removed from the style of executivedominated politics that is deeply rooted in pre- and post-Confederation Canada. These federal government-sponsored activities had counterparts in several provinces, notably Quebec, which set the pace for the federal response described above. With the defeat of the Quebec round of constitutional negotiations in the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord, nationalist sentiment in Quebec was revived. The provincial Liberal government responded first with the party’s Allaire report, which recommended a very decentralized federation with the federal government solely responsible only for currency equalization, customs and excise, debt management, and defence, with other powers either shared or solely provincial concerns. The provincial government established a broadly based commission, including the two major provincial parties, the federalist and nationaliste Liberal and the sovereignist Parti Québécois, and sectional interests (Bélanger-Campeau). In addition to enlarged provincial authority for Quebec, the commission recommended separation from Canada unless the “rest of Canada” proposed a satisfactory new constitutional regime, and set a deadline for a referendum in Quebec on sovereignty. Following these public consultations, the first ministers resumed negotiations leading to the Charlottetown Accord, which was rejected in a country-wide referendum in 1992. Constitutional negotiations still require federal-provincial diplomacy, and constitutional amendment formally requires only the approval of parliament and provincial legislatures. However, while executive federalism without public consultation appears now to lack legitimacy, the process of ratification by referendum also has its drawbacks. Supporters of the Charlottetown Accord, notably the first ministers, were obliged to defend a comprehensive set of compromise proposals while opponents could criticize particular components without an obligation to present a comprehensive alternative. As well, the referendum defeat makes problematic the success of future intergovernmental constitutional negotiations. In the aftermath of the rejection of the Charlottetown Accord, some people argued for constitutional negotiations through a constituent assembly as a compromise between the processes of executive federalism, which led to the defeat of Meech, and of direct democracy, which led to the defeat of Charlottetown. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Meech Lake Accord (1987).

Contracting out

Consumer Price Index (CPI) A measure of change in the retail prices of goods and services bought by a representative cross-section of the population. CPI data are published monthly by Statistics Canada for provinces and territories, and for metropolitan areas, as well as for the country as a whole. The CPI is based on seasonally adjusted spending patterns on a weighted fixed list of several hundred aggregated items, changed from time to time better to reflect consumer behaviour. The aggregated categories include food; shelter; household operations; clothing and footwear; health and personal care; recreation, education and reading; alcoholic beverages and tobacco products; and energy. There are indexes excluding energy and indexes excluding food. The CPI is reported using “a particular year = 100” reference base. Thus, the CPI is a measure of changes in the cost of living and the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar. The CPI has considerable significance beyond that of an economic monitor. Some social benefits such as the old age pension supplement and private pension benefits are indexed to the CPI; that is, the benefit increases as the CPI rises in a given period. Also, many labour contracts include cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), which allow for wage and salary increases based on the CPI. Continentalism A term used pejoratively by Canadian nationalists to describe Canada-United States relations in terms of a continental region, the result of which, particularly since 1945, has been for Canada to lose the capacity for independent policy-making in both domestic and foreign affairs and the ability to maintain a distinctive identity. While the impact of continentalism could be observed in cultural terms (in the publishing, popular music, film, and television industries), the debate over CanadaUS relations has more often focused on the economy and the large amount of US-based equity (ownership) capital invested in Canada. The debate on continentalism in the late 1960s and 1970s gave rise to the left-nationalist “Waffle” movement within the New Democratic party, to the centrist Committee for an Independent Canada, and to debate within the federal Liberal government and the eventual establishment of policy to review foreign investment. The alliance of economic nationalists faded until renewed in the late 1980s and 1990s in opposition to the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and later the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico, which sought to “harmonize” the three national economies. With the transformation of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade to the World Trade Organization, of which Canada is a member, Canadian nationalists are as likely to denounce economic and social “globalization” under the WTO as they criticized continentalism in North America under NAFTA. See Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, 1989; Economic nationalism; Investment Canada; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); World Trade Organization (WTO). Contracting (opting) out A provision whereby a province may remove itself from the effect of a federal-provincial agreement, usually with compensation. One example involves dissenting from a constitutional amendment; another, from shared-cost federal-provincial programs.

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Under the Constitution Act, 1982, an amendment “that derogates from the legislative powers, the proprietary rights or any other rights or privileges of the legislature or government of a province” may be adopted without unanimous provincial consent. However, the amendment will not have effect in a province whose legislature has “expressed its dissent” (ss.38, 39). In cases where the amendment transfers provincial powers to parliament “relating to education or other cultural matters,” the federal government “shall provide reasonable compensation” to any dissenting province (s.40). Under the Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act, 1965, provinces could withdraw from and receive financial compensation for several major federal-provincial shared-cost programs: hospital insurance; old-age assistance; allowances for blind and disabled persons; the welfare portion of unemployment assistance; technical and vocational training for young people; and the health grant program. The Act also allowed for withdrawal from several smaller and temporary programs, and was later amended to include the Canada Assistance Plan. The formula was proposed in response to objections by Quebec and other provinces to federal conditional grants in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Only Quebec exercised the option. Since then, similar opting-out provisions have been available to all provinces, for example, regarding immigration and health care. In the Social Union Framework Agreement of 1999, in the event of any new federal-provincial social programs agreed to by a majority of provinces, federal compensation would be available to a province that already had comparable programs in effect. Controverted election A constituency election challenged, or “petitioned,” in the case of federal elections under the Dominion Controverted Elections Act, because of alleged irregularities or corrupt and illegal practices. Electoral petitions alleging corruption or irregularities that would disqualify an elected member of the House of Commons are investigated and tried without jury by two superior court justices for the province in which the disputed election took place. The judicial determination that may declare the challenged election void is subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Otherwise, the ruling is final and reported to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The report to the Speaker may include an additional report that the judges feel ought to be presented to the House of Commons. If the judges differ in their determination, the member is deemed elected. Persons may subsequently be tried for corrupt or illegal practices. The process is obviously lengthy, complex, and costly. The last case occurred in 1988; otherwise there have been few cases in recent decades. There have been recommendations from a royal commission and the federal chief electoral officer that the subject be dealt with under the Canada Elections Act which deals with other election irregularities, and that judicial hearings be transferred from provincial courts to the Federal Court so that a single judicial body might develop expertise in electoral irregularities. Convention (constitutional) See Custom, convention, and usage.

Convention (party)

Convention (party) More or less regularly held meetings of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary party personnel if not to review or possibly select a leader and executive officers, then to discuss policy. As parties of nineteenth-century origin, the Conservative and Liberal extra-parliamentary organizations developed in the twentieth century in response to requirements as defined by the parliamentary leadership. Leaders are selected for an unspecified time, but since the 1970s have been subjected to various kinds of review procedures. Resolutions adopted at their policy conventions have constituted advice only to the leader—“a chart and compass,” in the words of the longestserving prime minister, Liberal William Lyon Mackenzie King. In anticipation of a future campaign for the position of party leader, contests at conventions for executive positions in the extra-parliamentary organization might be challenges by supporters of prospective leadership candidates for control of the party apparatus. Parties created in the twentieth century to oppose the Conservatives and Liberals have also had a strong central organization required by the conventions of parliamentary government and electoral law. However, as popular grassroots protest movements, their leadership must accept the policy resolutions of their conventions and be ever-mindful of the founding principles and values of the party. For instance, the social democratic New Democratic party (NDP) succeeded the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a mass movement party established during the economic depression of the 1930s. The NDP constitution requires a biennial convention, styled “the supreme governing body” of the party. The convention selects a leader for a two-year, renewable term, determines policy, and selects a Federal Council to act on its behalf until the next convention. The Reform party, which was founded in 1987, likewise held its assemblies approximately every 18 months. As a new social conservative populist party, its very existence, policy, and electoral fortunes were directly related to the personal influence of its founder-leader, Preston Manning. His “unite the right” proposal eventually led to the transformation of Reform to the Canadian Alliance in 2000 and its merger with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003. The founding social conservative values of Reform-Alliance, including such parliamentary reform measures as weaker party discipline in the House of Commons, and the role of members of parliament as constituency delegates, remain touchstones of the movement following its merger with the Progressive Conservatives. Social conservatism of the newly merged Conservative party was also evident in the party’s strenuous objection in 2005 to the inclusion of same-sex couples in the legal definition of marriage. However, at the party’s first policy convention that year, the delegates dropped the populist, direct democracy instruments of referendum, legislative initiative and recall from the party’s program, and adopted the Progressive Conservative’s support of official federal bilingualism and a less direct leadership review procedure. The Liberal and Conservative experience with extra-parliamentary organization, and with conventions in particular, developed in the twentieth century generally in concert with the requisites for electoral success, given the gradual increase in population, the ongoing expansion of the franchise, and hence an increase in the number of constituencies to be organized and voters to be wooed. The devel-

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opment of electronic mass media of communication, especially television, and changes in election finance laws, also encouraged the expansion of membership and the holding of conventions to capitalize on attendant publicity. While the CCF-NDP experience with conventions is based in its grassroots origins outside the established political elite, that party’s leadership also expected electoral benefits to flow from the appearance on television of the party in convention as dynamic and public-spirited. Rules among all parties on delegate selection usually ensure policy debates and resolutions that will not embarrass the leadership. The Liberals and Conservatives have employed the device of the numerous leader-appointment delegates while the delegates from affiliated trade unions at NDP conventions usually provide a moderating force over local constituency and youth delegates. Generally, all parties, including the merged Conservative party, present a selection of resolutions to their conventions from among the scores submitted, hoping to maintain internal harmony while projecting to the Canadian public a positive image of a united party worthy of their support. Conventions to select party leaders, as distinct from those to discuss policy, are an awkward transplant to Canada’s parliamentary party system of the presidential nomination process among parties in the United States. Ostensibly democratic compared to earlier selection of party leaders by the parliamentary caucus, the leadership convention was prone to various criticisms. The Liberals held the first federal party leadership convention in 1919. The Conservatives adopted the practice soon afterwards and parties established since then have always selected their leaders in convention. Toward the end of the twentieth century, however, the selection process came under criticism, particularly within the Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties as their leaders were selected without term, leading to the introduction of various forms of leadership review. But there were also serious criticisms of leadership conventions respecting financial cost, voting procedure, selection of delegates, even the “hothouse” atmosphere of decision-making and the role of the mass media in influencing outcomes. Since the 1980s, however, all parties have experimented with various methods of leadership selection, including all-member voting and mixed systems involving both delegates in convention and members at large. Also, the Canada Elections Act was amended in 2003 to make the financing of federal party leadership contests more restrictive and transparent. See Leadership conventions (selection). Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) A grassroots socialist party, founded in 1932 and reconstituted as the New Democratic party in 1961. The CCF program was based on the Regina Manifesto, which called for “genuine democratic self-government, based on economic equality” through public ownership of major industries and government planning. In contrast to the Conservative and Liberal parties, the CCF stressed membership participation in policy making and in party finance. The party achieved its greatest electoral success, not during the economic depression of the 1930s, but in the final years of the Second World War, when Canadians began to contemplate life after the war. In September, 1943, a Gallup poll showed a slight lead for the CCF over the governing Liberals and the Conservatives in national popularity, though it never attracted

Co-operative federalism

more than 16 per cent of the popular vote in a federal election. But the party formed the official opposition in Ontario in 1943, and won the election in Saskatchewan in 1944. The victory in Saskatchewan, which was repeated several times until 1964, was the only electoral breakthrough for the party. The CCF fell to third place in Ontario through the 1940s and 1950s, although it formed the official opposition in British Columbia throughout the 1950s. Most of the federal seats it held in the House of Commons were from western Canada, but it had considerable popular support in urban Ontario and the mining community in Nova Scotia. Several matters account for the CCF’s inability to become a major electoral force. There was an extensive and well-organized “Red scare” propaganda campaign, reinforced by a post-Second World War “Cold War” foreign policy that conflated support for the CCF with support for international Communism. The influence during these years of the United States in opposition to the Soviet Union and China included Canadian participation in the Korean War in the early 1950s. The 1950s was also the decade during which anti-Communist “witch-hunts” conducted in the United States by Senator Joseph McCarthy were well-publicized in Canada. But the 1950s was also a period of material improvement in living standards brought about not only by economic development, but by the improvement of public services by various provincial and federal governments. Under such circumstances, the CCF’s criticism of capitalism seemed incongruous, though periodic public support was a reminder to the established parties to be more responsive to public opinion in their otherwise pro-business values and policies. Consistent with changes that took place in socialist movements throughout western Europe, the CCF modified its outlook in the Winnipeg Declaration of 1956. Economic and social planning through government regulation replaced public ownership as the prime means to achieving social justice. From 1958 to 1961, the CCF leadership transformed the party structure to allow for greater participation of trade unions, and generally to create an image that would be more appealing to a youthful, urban, self-perceived socially mobile electorate, especially in populous Ontario and Quebec, and particularly among francophones in Quebec. The party emerged from this process as the mildly reformist New Democratic party. See League for Social Reconstruction; Movement parties; New Democratic party (NDP); Regina Manifesto; Socialism. Co-operative federalism A political slogan associated with the federal Liberal government under Lester Pearson’s leadership in the 1960s. It described a trend under Pearson to settle federal-provincial jurisdictional disputes through accommodative intergovernmental bargaining rather than through court decisions. Phrases such as “administrative” or “executive” federalism have also been used to describe federal-provincial diplomacy since then. Critics viewed the outcome of co-operative federalism as further legitimizing federal spending power in areas of provincial responsibility and thus altering the federal nature of the Canadian political system. Various phrases, such as collaborative federalism, have been used more recently to describe a flexible approach to intergovernmental relations that has made Canada one of the world’s most decentralized federations. See Federalism.

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Council of Atlantic Premiers (cap-cpma.ca) A body formed in 2000, comprising the heads of governments of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Council elaborates on the work of the Council of Maritime Premiers (NB, NS, and PEI), created in 1972 to co-operate among themselves on regional programs, but also jointly to represent regional interests to the federal government regarding its jurisdictional responsibilities affecting the region and federal-provincial programs. See Intergovernmental committees. Council of Maritime Premiers See Council of Atlantic Premiers. Council of the Federation (councilofthefederation.ca) A council of provincial and territorial first ministers—the subnational political elite of Canada—formed in 2003. The council represents a more formalized association than its predecessor, the Conference of Provincial First Ministers. Its chair circulates annually among the first ministers. The council’s Agreement proposes two meetings each year, but allows for special meetings from time to time to which it might invite the federal government. Ostensibly, the council was created to provide its member governments with a “leadership role” to “revitalize” Canadian federalism and create a more “constructive and co-operative” federal system. In practical terms, it is a mechanism to improve the effectiveness of member governments in various negotiations with the federal government. In part acknowledging different constitutional and situational characteristics of its members, the council’s Agreement encourages collaborative interprovincial/territorial ties “based on respect for the constitution and recognition of the diversity within the federation.” A steering committee comprising provincial and territorial deputy ministers of intergovernmental affairs constitutes a board of directors, assisted by a secretariat. Ad hoc committees of provincial and territorial ministers with similar responsibilities can be created. In its initial years, the council’s “workplan” included “strengthening the federation” regarding the economy, education, energy, and health care, but also ways to ensure regional interests are met in federal appointments to institutions such as the Supreme Court of Canada and the Senate. It proposes joint reviews of federal measures and activities, and in this regard, it established a task force of private citizens to develop ways to “improve” the fiscal imbalance between the member jurisdictions and the federal government. See Intergovernmental committees. Count (election), official and unofficial The tabulation of votes cast in general and by-elections. In federal elections, the deputy returning officer and a polling clerk in each polling station in a constituency conducts the unofficial count on election night, immediately after the closing of the polls. All candidates are permitted to have two representatives (scrutineers) at polling stations throughout the day and during the unofficial count, with the ability to challenge alleged irregularities. After the count, the ballots in each station are returned to the ballot boxes, which are sealed and delivered to the returning officer of the constituency. As the count in each polling station is reported before the result is known for an entire constituency, political parties are periodically reported as having won or to be leading in particular con-

Crossing the floor

stituencies. The returning officer is responsible for safeguarding the boxes and ballots until conducting the official count later, at which time ballots cast in advance of election day and by military personnel and other non-resident electors are included. In the unlikely event of a tie, a by-election is held. In the event of a narrow victory or alleged irregularities, a judge conducts a recount. Finally, the returning officer certifies to the chief electoral officer the name of the winning candidate, the total number of votes cast for each candidate, and the number of rejected or spoiled ballots. See Controverted election. Courts See Judicial system. Criminal Code of Canada Law pertaining to crimes against society, rooted in large part in English criminal jurisprudence, and applied uniformly across Canada in contrast to private or civil law, which is based on the Civil Code in Quebec and on common law elsewhere. Under the Constitution Act, parliament is responsible for criminal law (s.92:14), which must conform to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Latter-day changes to the Criminal Code have included amendments to include a broad and controversial definition of “terrorist activity” and the granting to law enforcement and security agencies of extraordinary investigative powers with a “sunset” provision and required parliamentary oversight. The definitions of “hate crimes” and propaganda were revised to include computer-based material and mischief directed against places of religious worship and associated property. Issues related to sexual orientation, abortion, bail reform, the jury system, eavesdropping on or recording of private conversations and rules regarding evidence in cases of alleged sexual assault have also been the subject of criminal code amendments. A notable testing of the Criminal Code against the Charter involved the invalidation of then-specific requirements imposed for the procurement of therapeutic abortions (Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen [1988]). Subsequent attempts by the federal government to enact amendments to the Criminal Code on abortion failed. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004). Crossing the floor A decision by a legislator, elected as a party candidate, to leave that party voluntarily and sit “across the floor” from former colleagues as a member of another party or an independent member. This action usually results from an irreconcilable difference between the member and the party leadership, and is usually preceded by obvious signs of disaffection. It is rare for a member to change parties because, though defectors may be welcomed to another party, they might not be re-elected as a candidate of the new party in the same constituency. It is also a rare event for a member to become an independent voluntarily, because elections and house procedure—including recognition by the Speaker to address the house—are based on party affiliation. Even rarer is the victory of an independent candidate against party-affiliated candidates in a general election. In the federal election of 1997, however, John Nunziata, an independent candidate who had been ejected from the governing Liberal caucus in the previous Parliament, won re-election as an independent, but was defeated in 2000; in 2004, Chuck Cadman, an incumbent Alliance member, who

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had been denied nomination by the newly formed Conservative party, stood as an independent and won, defeating, among others, the Conservative candidate. He died soon afterwards from illness, but his support in the House of Commons was instrumental in sustaining the minority Liberal government in an early vote of confidence on its budget. Parties are normally happy to welcome a disgruntled member of parliament to their ranks. The Bloc Québécois began as a group of Liberal and Conservative defectors including, notably, its eventual leader, Lucien Bouchard, who abandoned his prominent position in Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government. However, it is the government party, with various perquisites on offer from the prime minister, that usually entices disgruntled opposition members to its fold. Such a defection occurred in 2005 involving Belinda Stronach, runner-up candidate for the leadership of the newly formed Conservative party in 2004 and elected to the House of Commons in 2004. Apparently at odds with her party’s leader and direction, she crossed the floor to the Liberals and was immediately appointed to a prominent cabinet position, thereby bolstering Prime Minister Paul Martin’s nonetheless short-lived minority government. In the 2006 election, Stronach was re-elected, but found herself again in opposition, the Liberals defeated and the Conservatives forming a minority government. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appointments to his cabinet following his victory in 2006 included David Emerson, a cabinet minister in the outgoing Liberal government. Emerson’s defection was controversial as he had been re-elected as a Liberal only two weeks earlier in a constituency where the Conservative candidate came third. Crown The supreme executive authority in Canada derived from the monarchy of the United Kingdom and therefore bearing constitutional likeness to it. In fact, the Canadian monarch, sovereign, or head of state is the same person as the British monarch and is represented in Canada by the governor general. The Constitution Act, 1867 declares the “Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada…to continue and be vested in the Queen [Victoria]” and, by implication, her successors (s.9). British constitutional development involved the wresting of prerogative powers from the monarch by parliament. Today, the monarch, or the governor general as the monarch’s representative (s.10), does virtually nothing except on the “advice” of constitutional advisors styled “the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada” (s.11). The effective part of the Privy Council is the cabinet—the government-of-the-day—that is formed largely from, and remains in office only with the continued confidence of, the House of Commons. See Crown prerogatives; Governor general. As Canada has a federal system of government, the Crown is represented in each province by lieutenant-governors who act virtually always on the advice of their respective Executive Councils or cabinets. An important exception is that, as the office of lieutenant-governor is a federal office, the governor-in-council, or federal cabinet and effectively the prime minister, may direct a lieutenant-governor to reserve provincial legislation, leading to its federal disallowance. The federal powers of reservation and disallowance, however unlikely to be used in an era of cooperative or collaborative federalism, still comprise part of Canada’s constitutional law. The autonomy of the territories is not constitutionally entrenched. However,

Crown corporation

the federally appointed territorial commissioners tend to be removed from political debate and have a “dignified” role similar to provincial lieutenant-governors. See Disallowance; Reservation. Canadian jurisdictions therefore have dual executives. The Canadian monarch “reigns, but does not rule,” while the political executives or cabinets rule, but formally have no authority in their own right—only as “advisors” to the Crown’s representatives. Supporters of the monarchy and parliamentary democracy make much of this distinction, as several prerogatives remaining to the Crown, notably regarding the dissolution of a legislature and the holding of an election, and the appointment of a government, are seen as a constitutional protection against the abuse of power by a government-of-the-day. See Crown prerogatives. Crown corporation An corporate organization that may be organized similarly to a private-sector enterprise but, established by specific legislation or pursuant to enabling legislation of a federal or provincial legislature, is owned by the Crown (or government) and thus a public-sector enterprise. Crown corporations report to the relevant legislature through a minister, but are not directly responsible to the government. Government appointments to boards of directors of crown corporations are frequently characterized by partisan patronage, but their recruitment to and promotion within their administration tend to be based on professional qualifications and performance. Operating at “arm’s length” from the government, crown corporations can be influenced through policy directives, budgetary allocations, and, if necessary, legislative amendment to their statute. The legislature reviews the financial affairs of crown corporations, and officers of crown corporations may appear before legislative committees. Thus, a degree of public accountability co-exists with independent corporate initiative in the achievement of public policy goals. At the federal level, the Financial Administration Act establishes classes of crown corporations, each involving different degrees of independence from the government, and involving very different purposes. Some crown corporations exist for monetary reasons (the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Mint); others to promote business generally (for example, the Business Development Bank and the Export Development Corporation) or specific industries (for example, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada Wheat Board); still others for cultural and integrative purposes (for example, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Film Board, Canada Museums Corporation); for regional development (for example, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency); and for purposes of public importance that cannot be achieved solely or at all through the private sector (for instance, VIA Rail and Canada Post). As public-sector organizations, crown corporations exist to achieve public policy goals and therefore provide service ahead of, or instead of, profit. However, like many other countries, Canada experienced a trend in the latter decades of the twentieth century to government downsizing and the privatization of crown corporations. Prominent examples of federal government privatization in the transportation and energy fields include Air Canada, an international air carrier, and Petro-Canada, a major player in the “oil patch.” However, the federal government remains an active regulator of these and other industries. Thus, Canada’s economy still contains a strong element of “public enterprise.”

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The practice of governments making patronage appointments to boards of directors and as chief executive officers of crown corporations came under scrutiny during the federal judicial commission of inquiry appointed in 2003 to examine fraudulent activities respecting the $300-million sponsorship program. In 2006, Justice John Gomery recommended that initial appointments to the boards of crown corporations be made on the basis of merit, and that remaining directors thereafter be responsible for filling vacancies. He also recommended that the boards of directors appoint, evaluate and, if advisable, dismiss chief executive officers. See Regulatory agencies (regulations). Crown prerogatives Unrestricted by statute, a residue of discretionary authority or “reserve powers” possessed by the Crown that are delegated to the governor general through Letters Patent, the Instrument and the Commission of Appointment. Otherwise, with the exception of the powers of reservation and disallowance relevant to the provincial lieutenant-governors, the Crown’s representatives act entirely on the advice of their Executive Councils (cabinets), which are themselves accountable to their respective legislatures, and eventually to the electorate. The discretionary powers, or crown prerogatives, are historically shrinking. The most important of the prerogatives remaining in Canada pertain to the Crown’s role in summoning, proroguing, and dissolving parliament and provincial legislatures before the expiry of the statutory five-year term, and appointing a prime minister or premier. In the twentieth century, there was only one instance of the governor general exercising such discretionary power. In 1926, the governor general, Lord Byng, refused to grant dissolution on the “advice” of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, whose Liberal party had won only the second largest number of seats in a three-party House of Commons in an election eight months earlier. Though the Conservatives, led by Arthur Meighen, had more seats than the Liberals, Prime Minister King exercised the right to remain in office unless defeated in the newly elected house. Now, however, the house was debating an opposition motion of censure concerning a scandal in the Customs Department that King’s minority government was likely to lose. Byng rejected King’s request for dissolution of parliament and another election, as there appeared to Byng to be the possibility of Meighen forming a workable alternative minority government with the third party, the Progressives. However, the Meighen government suffered an early defeat in the house and, in the subsequent election campaign, the Liberals made the discretionary act of the governor general a major issue, and were returned to office with a majority. A strict constitutionalist will argue that, upon their resignation—either voluntary or as a result of an election defeat—prime ministers (provincial premiers) do not have the right even to advise the governor general (lieutenant-governor) unless asked. Usually, though, an electoral defeat that results in a prime minister’s resignation is accompanied by the electoral success of an opposition party whose leader is the obvious choice as the next prime minister. In a close multi-party election, the prime minister does have the right to meet the new House of Commons and seek a vote of confidence. In such a case, however, the governor general might “encourage” the prime minister to expedite some informal coalition arrangement and the convening of the new Parliament. A resignation in office as party leader will result in a leadership contest that will present the governor general

Cultural duality

with an obvious successor as prime minister. Were, however, a prime minister to die in office and the government caucus not present the governor general with a clear indication of support for at least an interim successor while the party chose a permanent leader, then an exercise of well-informed, astute, discretionary action would be necessary. The basic constitutional obligation of the Crown is to ensure that there is a government in office that has the on-going support of the legislature. For some, crown prerogatives imply an emergency power to dismiss a government whose behaviour violates the constitution. Especially in view of the King-Byng dispute, it appears that for a governor general or lieutenant-governor to exercise such discretionary power, the present situation would have to involve a clear violation of a fundamental constitutional principle, and there would have to be no reasonable doubt among the public about the appropriateness of such independent action. Wise counsel to a governor general or lieutenant-governor might also be to allow time for party politicians, ever-attentive to public opinion, to resolve the matter. See Crown; Governor general; Letters Patent; King-Byng Dispute; Lieutenantgovernor. Cultural duality The division of Canadian society into anglophone and francophone communities, fundamental to Canadian history and constitutional development since the Conquest of 1759–1760. Britain’s Quebec Act, 1774, which allowed Roman Catholics freedom of worship and the right to hold public office, and retained civil law in the colony, represented the earliest legislative recognition of cultural duality in British North America. The Constitutional Act, 1791 divided Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada and granted representative government to each colony. The Civil Code was retained in Lower Canada where the population was predominantly francophone. In 1840, the British enacted the assimilative Union Act, bringing the two colonies together again, as Canada East (Lower Canada) and Canada West (Upper Canada) in the United Province of Canada. However, by then, French society was firmly entrenched in British North America and the cultural duality of the Province of Canada was acknowledged through various devices from dual leadership to budgetary matters, for example related to education. The new federal state involving Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, established primarily at the insistence of the Canadian politicians in 1867, recognized the duality of the country through various constitutional provisions. For example, the Constitution Act, 1867 allocated matters of cultural significance such as education, property and civil rights, and matters of a local or private nature to the provinces, which now included Quebec with its predominantly francophone population; the Act established rights for the French and English languages in the new parliament, in the Quebec legislature, and in the federal and Quebec courts; and it protected minority Catholic and Protestant education rights in the provinces. Quebec’s political leadership generally accepted the Confederation agreement of 1867 until the 1960s and the “Quiet Revolution” in Quebec. Since then, the leadership of that province has argued for a recognition of Quebec as a distinct society with particular needs as the only jurisdiction in Canada (indeed on the North American continent) with a predominantly French-speaking population. Demands by French-speaking Quebeckers to become “maîtres chez nous” (“mas-

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ters in our own house”), have ranged from various forms of formal recognition of special status for Quebec within the federal union to a new constitution based on an independent and sovereign Quebec “associated” with the rest of Canada. Successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative federal governments, most with significant numbers of francophone MPs from Quebec in their ranks and all with important cabinet members from Quebec, have responded to this assertive nationalism—notably the Liberals led by Pierre Trudeau, with a policy of official bilingualism through the Official Languages Act, 1969 and a patriated citizensrights-based constitution in 1982, which entrenched a Charter of Rights and Freedoms containing, among other things, the federal language policy and minority-language education rights. Neither the Quebec Liberal party nor the Parti Québécois supported the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1982, especially the section on minority-language education and the general amending formula that denied Quebec a veto over constitutional change. Through two rounds of constitutional negotiations in the 1980s and 1990s, the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney tried, but failed at considerable political expense to himself and the party to achieve Quebec’s accommodation to the constitution. Failure derived from the opposition of some provincial governments and public opinion among anglophones to any semblance of a “distinct society” status for Quebec that appeared to grant powers to the Quebec legislature and government not held in common by the other provinces. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; Charlottetown Accord (1992); Distinct society clause; Meech Lake Accord (1987); Patriation of the constitution. Custom, convention, and usage Informal rules of constitutional behaviour that do not have explicit statutory sanction, but are based on long-established observance or precedents. Conventions are treated as obligatory practices while custom and usage denote long-established but non-obligatory practices. In Canada, many such unwritten rules of the constitution actually modify or contradict obligations based in law. For example, British constitutional conventions respecting responsible government, which were adopted in most North American colonies prior to Confederation, were imported into the Canadian constitution in the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1867 (“…a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom”). Those conventions define executive power better than the specific provisions of the Act: by convention, the governor general chooses as prime minister the party-designated leader of the party that commands majority support in the House of Commons and the prime minister determines the composition of the cabinet, the effective executive. Constitutional conventions also determine the relations between the executive and the legislature. For example, cabinet members must have seats in the House of Commons (with some allowances granted for members from the Senate) and a minister without a seat must be actively seeking one; the cabinet remains in office only as long as it has the support of the house, support based on strict party discipline, which is almost always assured in majority governments; after a reasonable length of time following the previous election and the first session of the Parliament, and within the statutory five-year life

Custom, convention, and usage

of a Parliament, the prime minister determines when the Parliament will be dissolved, and therefore the date of the next election. Statutory constitutional power may atrophy or be altered by constitutional conventions. The federal powers of reservation and disallowance of provincial legislation are permitted under the Constitution Act; but they have fallen into disuse (s.90 with reference to ss.55–57, 60–61). Similarly, the statutory declaratory power of the federal government to nationalize “Local Works and Undertakings” (s.92:10[c]) has not been exercised since the Second World War. In constitutional negotiations since the 1970s, various federal governments have been prepared to abandon these powers. This suggests that they are not likely to be exercised in practice, but they nonetheless remain part of Canada’s constitutional law. Unused statutory powers does not necessarily mean abandoned powers. Section 26 of the Act (and Letters Patent delegating crown prerogatives to the governor general and the convention that requires the governor general to accept a prime minister’s “advice”), which allows the prime minister to appoint additional senators, was used for the first time by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, more than 125 years after enactment of the Act. Federal spending power is an example of the formal statutory provisions of Canada’s federal constitution being altered by informal behaviour. The federal government’s constitutionally unrestricted taxation power, compared to the limited power of provincial governments under the statutory provisions of the constitution (ss.91:3; 92:2), has allowed the federal government to involve itself in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. By offering federal funding for provincial programs that meet federal standards (and later modifying that support), the federal government thus affects provincial government priorities and establishes performance standards for provincial programs. When there is a conflict between law and convention or among conventions, the matter is normally resolved through the exercise of political will; but there can also be resort to the judiciary. During the constitutional negotiations preceding the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982, the federal government asked the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on the constitutionality of an address to the parliament of the United Kingdom from the Canadian parliament that would fundamentally change the constitution, but that had the support of only two of the ten provinces. The court ruled that, though the federal action was legal, it violated constitutional convention because it lacked the “substantive agreement” of the provinces (Reference re Amendment of the Constitution of Canada, 1981). The court did not define the term “substantive agreement,” but the UK parliament eventually acceded to the request of the Canadian parliament when it obtained the support of all provinces except Quebec. Constitutional conventions can be categorized according to the degree to which they sustain a constitutional principle. An important convention would be one which, if unobserved, would significantly alter the relationship of political institutions, or the relationship between, government and citizens; on the other hand, custom and usage can refer to behaviour that, if unobserved, would simply be politically inadvisable. For example, important conventions would be those related most directly to the principles of responsible government and the independence of the judiciary. That a government should resign following defeat of its budget

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in the House of Commons is a fundamental, constitutional requirement, by convention, of responsible government. That ministers should not interfere with judicial decisions appears now to have been extended to decisions of quasi-judicial government agencies. Until the 1960s, only Britons held the post of governor general. But since then only Canadians have held the position and a break with that convention would be inadvisable. Unlike constitutional law, which must be observed, behaviour according to constitutional conventions is determined by practice. For instance, individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention of responsible government, but ministers are not compelled to resign for every administrative wrongdoing. Generally, disputes concerning ministerial responsibility and accountability will include whether the minister participated in the wrongdoing or later learned about it but failed to act, or should have known about it and apprehended it. Such cases are settled by political will; as arguments to sway public opinion focus on precedents, the outcome of each dispute becomes a precedent to be cited in a later dispute on constitutional convention. See entries on various subjects mentioned here.

D Declaratory power The authority of parliament, that is, the federal government, to take control of “Local Works and Undertakings,” which are otherwise provincial responsibilities, by declaring them to be “for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces” (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:10[c]; see also s.91:29). Such federal control could be assumed before or after the work or undertaking was completed. The courts have interpreted “Works” broadly, to include “integrated activities” as well as “things” or “facility.” The imposition of federal control over the uranium industry during and after the Second World War is a case of the broad use of declaratory power. This constitutional provision illustrates the intention of the framers of Confederation to create a centralized federation. In constitutional negotiations since the 1970s, successive federal governments have been prepared to abandon the power in section 92:10[c]. Although it has not been invoked since the 1940s, provincial governments have expressed concern about federal declaratory power. For example, Alberta has voiced apprehension about the potential use of declaratory power with respect to the petroleum industry. See Economic union of Canada. Delegate theory of representation A view that legislators should represent faithfully the views or the general will of their constituents, a populist notion that would keep elected members in a distant capital more than mindful of local grassroots opinion. The theory found support in western Canada in the early part of the twentieth century as part of a deliberate attempt to replace the established disciplined party system in which a legislator’s vote was really determined by the party leadership. Western populists contended, not without reason, that the two federal

Delegated power

parties in the House of Commons, the Conservatives and Liberals, were dominated by central Canadian financial and commercial interests. In western Canada in the early twentieth century, the United Farmers parties required their candidates to commit themselves to this theory prior to their nomination. Indeed, Alberta had a provincial Recall Act under the populist Social Credit government until an attempt was made in 1937 to unseat the premier. In 1994, the New Democratic government in British Columbia enacted the Recall and Initiative Act, which involves however, a strict time limit for submitting a petition that must include signatures only of qualified electors in the relevant constituency at the time of the previous election. In the 1990s, the western-based Reform party (forerunner of the Canadian Alliance) implicitly revived the delegate theory of representation with its demands for more “free votes” in the House of Commons. Following the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative party in 2003, many Conservative members of parliament continued to insist that their policy positions reflected the views of the majority of their constituents—views that coincidentally tended to be conform to party policy. The delegate theory is in contrast to the traditional representative, or trustee, theory of parliament, according to which legislators are elected as parliamentarians to reflect on and articulate policy in the national interest, based on their own sound judgment, if necessary contrary to the majority view in their constituency. However, as mentioned above, the disciplined party system usually determines the votes of most members of parliament and provincial legislatures. See Representative (trustee) theory of representation. Delegated power Legislative, administrative, and quasi-judicial power delegated under enabling legislation to various government bodies, notably to the cabinet (the federal governor-in-council or a provincial lieutenant-governor-in-council), but to any government official or agency—department, corporation, commission, or board—within the jurisdiction of the legislature. The delegation of power is the basis of the modern administrative or regulatory state, and is therefore widespread. Delegated legislative power is power to enact subordinate legislation by orderin-council or regulation. Delegated quasi-judicial power is held by various government agencies to enforce implementation of their rules and regulations, with, variously, the possibility of “political” appeal to the cabinet and “judicial” appeal to the courts. The Canadian constitution does not permit the interdelegation of power, that is, the delegation of the jurisdictional competence held by a legislature of one level of government to a legislature of the other level that lacks jurisdictional competence. However, the Supreme Court of Canada has permitted a government of the level that possesses jurisdictional authority to delegate policy administration to an administrative body of government of the other level that lacks jurisdictional authority (Nova Scotia Interdelegation Case, 1951). Delegated power can be revoked by subsequent legislation and federal-provincial agreements that establish delegated administrative power may also be revised or terminated. There are many examples of the interdelegation of administrative power. For example, the federal government collects personal and corporate income tax on behalf of most provinces and federal inspectors assist in the enforcement of provincial food standards. See Interdelegation Reference.

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Department

Delegated legislative power is so common today that the law within a particular policy area is effectively created by these executive and administrative bodies, rather than by the legislature. The legislature’s role is to enact the so-called enabling legislation authorizing certain officials or agencies to devise, promulgate, and supervise regulations “as may be deemed necessary for giving full effect” to the particular Act. An example of delegated legislative power is the Emergencies Act, Canada’s “emergency legislation.” The Act gives the governor-in-council (the federal cabinet) extraordinary regulatory power during declared emergencies. The Act thus transfers from parliament to the cabinet the emergency powers that were granted parliament under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause in the Constitution Act, 1867 (preamble, s.91). See Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers). Delegated authority that combines legislative, investigative, prosecutorial, and adjudicative functions in a single government body for the sake of administrative efficiency creates potential for the abuse of power. Therefore, the procedures of such bodies are required to follow generally established principles of natural justice: their regulations are published, their proceedings should be accessible to all concerned, with efficient and wide distribution of information prior to and following public hearings. In several Charter decisions, the Supreme Court has ruled that procedures and decisions of both cabinets and administrative bodies at all levels of government, including municipal government, are subject to review under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Having “enabled” the growth of the administrative state, parliament has been slow to supervise it. Only in 1971 did parliament pass the Statutory Instruments Act and establish a joint Senate and House of Commons committee on scrutiny of regulations (formerly the joint committee on regulations and other statutory instruments) to examine subordinate legislation. However, such legislation is so extensive that parliament can do little other than investigate some cases and recommend repeal of an offensive regulation. Finally, the creation of the office of ombudsman in several Canadian jurisdictions since the 1970s was, in part, recognition by legislators that they were incapable of dealing effectively with alleged abuses by administrative officials and tribunals exercising delegated power under enabling legislation. See Ombudsman; Regulatory agencies (regulations). Department (of government) An administrative unit, sometimes called a ministry, that exists under an Act of the legislature and is headed by a cabinet minister and staffed by public administrators. Within a department, or more likely an interdepartmental committee, government policy and programs in a particular area are formulated and proposed. If adopted by the cabinet and with any required legislative approval, a particular department might be given responsibility for the implementation and review of the policy or program. Most departments are “line” or vertical departments, operating within a particular policy field, while some, such as the Department of Finance, are central, horizontal agencies that have influence across the public administration. Some departments, such as Veterans Affairs, respond to the needs of a particular clientele, while others, such as Fisheries and Oceans, have major program and service-delivery responsibilities.

Deputy minister

The minister is the political head of the department, its representative, and defender in the cabinet and the legislature. The deputy minister is the administrative head and, although holding that position at the pleasure of the government, is usually a career public official. Because they possess management skills as much or more so than policy expertise, the government may shift deputy ministers across departments and agency. The deputies, associate and assistant deputies, and directors of various departmental sections or branches constitute the senior departmental administration. In the federal government, there is a close working relationship between the senior officials and their minister, but also between the senior officials and the Privy Council Office whose clerk is the head of the public administration and deputy to the prime minister, as well as the cabinet secretary. In his final report in 2006 on the sponsorship scandal, Justice John Gomery made several recommendations respecting the relationship between deputies and their ministers, designed to clarify their respective roles, responsibility and accountability, notably respecting the singular official being clerk of the privy council, deputy to the prime minister, secretary to the cabinet, and head of the public administration. Departmental organization is usually in a state of flux. A few federal departments have remained distinct over the years, while a number have operated under different names or been amalgamated with others. Customs and Internal Revenue, for example, operating as separate departments in the early decades of Confederation, became National Revenue early in the twentieth century, and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency at the end of the century; Justice and Finance are two of the oldest and most senior of departments, indicating a long-term interest of the federal government; Foreign Affairs, established in 1909 as External Affairs, traditionally had high status in the civil service, has been variously tied to and untied from International Trade; the large Health portfolio illustrates epochal change in the scope of government policy interests; Public Works and Government Services assists other government departments. In the 1990s, both Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments downsized the public administration, eliminating some departments and merging others. Following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the enactment of anti-terrorist legislation in Canada included the creation of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness with responsibilities over various federal security and law enforcement agencies as well as emergency activities in the Department of National Defence. Deputy minister The appointed administrative head of a department of government. A person may have deputy minister status as a chief executive officer of an operation of government other than a department, but which also reports to parliament through a minister. Deputy ministers of departments hold office at the pleasure of the government, that is, they lack security of tenure, and are subject to transfer or dismissal. However, they are often administrators who have developed managerial expertise and been promoted during their career in the public administration. The functions of a deputy minister are both managerial and political. A deputy minister is a manager, directing administrative affairs but also recommending new policy and serving as an important adviser to the minister, the political head of the department. The deputy is particularly influential in relation to the minis-

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ter because, unlike the minister who has several political roles and for whom the portfolio is probably a short-term responsibility, the deputy is frequently a fulltime official and a potentially longer-term department head. The deputy minister deals with other departments in related policy and program areas and, perhaps more critically, with senior officials of the cabinet secretariat, the Privy Council Office, who co-ordinate government business at the centre. Given the integrated nature of the Canadian federal system, deputy ministers are also involved with counterparts in provincial and territorial governments. Committees of deputy ministers comprise one of the most important strata of governmental and intergovernmental committees. The results of their consultations frequently determine the pace and outcome of respective ministerial meetings. While the role of deputy minister may appear largely administrative and managerial, a deputy minister’s political role is also important. Some statutes and central agencies such as the Treasury Board impose specific administrative responsibilities on federal deputy ministers. In turn, the deputy might delegate certain administrative and managerial tasks to the ranks of permanent assistant deputy ministers and directors, as the deputy focuses on non-partisan political advice to the minister relative to the role of the department, both within the administration and in relation to other jurisdictions. Some ministers might delegate responsibilities to their deputy, but they cannot abdicate their responsibility to the legislature. Therefore, an effective minister-deputy minister relationship involves an understanding and agreement as to their respective roles and mutual trust in each other’s conduct in carrying out an agreed-upon agenda for the department. Since the mid-twentieth century, the rank of federal deputy minister has diminished somewhat in status, although it nonetheless remains high. This has occurred due to several factors: the increase in the number of deputy ministers and the subsequent diminution of collegiality and an increasing bureaucratic competitiveness among them; the growth of ministers’ personal, political staff; the increase in influence of the Prime Minister’s Office and senior political staff; a greater oversight role for other central agencies, such as the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat; and the need to respond to various parliamentary commissioners respecting auditing, official-language policy, access to information, and privacy legislation. Finally, the public generally can find reasons to criticize government and be uncharitable towards both politicians and “bureaucrats.” It is a more common practice than in the past for deputy ministers to appear before parliamentary committees to answer for perceived administrative and policy shortcomings, though their political ministers are still responsible for defending government policy. Increasingly, there is a tendency for governments to rotate deputy ministers and sometimes to establish periodic exchanges with counterparts in the private sector. Especially when a new party takes office, it may suspect that its senior advisors in the administration were too closely involved with the outgoing government and its policies, and therefore shuffle, or even dismiss some senior personnel in the administration who lack security of tenure, and rely more heavily at least initially on its partisan political staff. While a dynamic equilibrium will eventually be established as a government party remains in office, the

Direct (indirect) taxation

relationship among senior officials and political staff, and among officials themselves, will always be complex and sensitive. The position of deputy minister was the subject of recommendations in 2006 from the federal judicial committee of inquiry that examined fraudulent activities involving the $300-sponsorship program. Justice John Gomery recommended that deputy ministers be appointed in an open and competitive process, and that deputies and assistant deputies be appointed for a minimum of three years, but normally five years, with the government required to explain publicly any detraction. In addition, deputies and other senior officials who have statutory responsibilities in their own right are accountable to the public accounts committee of the House of Commons. If a minister were to overrule a deputy minister’s opposition to an action in an area of jurisdiction of the official’s statutory responsibility, the minister’s action should be recorded and reported to the relevant official, the comptroller general in the Treasury Board Secretariat, to be examined by the auditor general. Justice Gomery’s recommendations were based on the perceived need to assign responsibility and accountability more clearly between politicians and administration, between policy and administrative decisions, respectively. See entries on various items mentioned here. Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government control and supervision of private-sector economic activity. Deregulation was a significant item on the so-called “neo-conservative” agenda of the federal Progressive Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as various Conservative, Liberal, New Democratic, and Parti Québécois provincial governments. The federal Conservative government’s agenda also included the privatization of selected crown corporations, reduction in government transfers to individuals and provincial governments, and reductions in levels of personal and corporate income tax. Notable areas of federal deregulation included the air transportation, energy, and finance industries. The “neo-con” agenda had its supporters and critics. Supporters contended that “excessive” government regulation added to costs and protected companies from the “rigours” of competition, to the disadvantage of consumers. Also, deregulation was intended to make Canadian firms more innovative and competitive internationally. Critics argued equally adamantly that becoming competitive within an unregulated global economy would impair national sovereignty, the environment, social security benefits, and public well-being. By the late 1990s, however, there were indications among the Canadian public of increasing concern about negative consequences in the reduction of “human investment” by federal and provincial governments, notably in education, health care, and environmental protection. Direct (indirect) taxation Defined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the manner of John Stuart Mill, a direct tax is a tax “demanded from the very persons who it is intended or desired should pay it” (Bank of Toronto v. Lambe, 1887). Under the Constitution Act, 1867, provinces can raise revenue through direct taxation “in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes” (s.92:2), including such taxes as personal and corporate income tax, succession duties, property, and sales taxes.

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Disallowance

This power, however, is not held exclusively by the provinces. Under section 91:3 of the Constitution Act (“The Raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation”), the federal government has the power to levy both direct and indirect taxes. Moreover, there is no stated limitation on the purpose for which a federal tax may be levied, as there is for the provinces in s.92.2. Section 121 of the Act prohibits provincial tariff barriers and section 125 exempts public land or property belonging to “Canada or any Province” from taxation. However, for some provinces— notably Alberta—the ability eventually to levy taxes on natural resources (s.109 not made applicable to Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, when established as provinces in 1905, 1870, and 1905 respectively, until 1930, and enhanced by s.92A in 1982) became a financial boon in the late-twentieth century. But for provinces that lacked a significant number of taxable corporations and people with accumulated wealth, and oil and natural gas resource industries, the fiscal playing field was exceedingly unequal. The revenue needs of the provinces increased significantly during the twentieth century to meet public policy needs within their exclusive jurisdictional competence in fields such as health, post-secondary education and social assistance. But their independent access to revenue fields did not. Various forms of federal conditional and unconditional federal grants to the provinces existed following Confederation. But especially since the Second World War, the federal government has made significant transfer payments to the provinces in the form of conditional and unconditional grants, exercising a so-called spending power. During the economic depression of the 1930s prior to the Second World War, the provinces, constitutionally responsible for such areas as education, roads, unemployment relief, and municipalities, were clearly incapable of funding the necessary programs. The federal government appointed the (Rowell-Sirois) Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations in 1937. In 1940, the commission recommended a shift of government functions and powers of taxation to the federal government and the introduction of a program of unconditional equalization payments. Its report represented a major departure point in Canadian fiscal federalism from the regime of the Constitution Act of the nineteenth century which gave responsibility for social policy fields that by the late-twentieth century were the most expensive to the level of government with the most restricted independent access to revenue. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937–40); Spending power. Disallowance The voiding of provincial legislation by the governor-in-council, that is the federal cabinet and more specifically the prime minister, on the recommendation of the minister of justice within one year of the receipt of the provincial Act—“reserved” by the provincial lieutenant-governor for the “pleasure” of the federal government. The power of disallowance is based in the federal government’s appointment and control of the office of lieutenant-governor in the provinces. It mirrors a function of the imperial government in 1867 in relation to Canada’s federal government through the governor general (Constitution Act, 1867, ss.56, 58, 60, 61) and illustrates the intention of the framers of Confederation that Canada be a centralized, federal state.

Dispute settlement mechanism

Although frequently used in the early years of Confederation, federal disallowance power fell into disuse in the twentieth century. In the late 1930s, however, the federal government disallowed many statutes dealing with federal matters that had been enacted under the Social Credit government in Alberta. Asked by the federal government for a reference on such powers, the Supreme Court declared the powers of disallowance and reservation to be unimpaired (Disallowance and Reservation Case, 1938). The notion of the federal government as a paternalistic watchdog of the provinces is now out of fashion. The power of disallowance has not been exercised since 1943. By the 1970s, the federal Liberal government was willing to abandon both disallowance and reservation in a new constitution. In 1977, the government rejected suggestions that it disallow Quebec’s Official Language Act (Bill 101), preferring to leave the matter to the courts and to the provincial electorate. See Reservation. Discretionary power Power to act on the basis of one’s own judgment. Institutional discretionary power is found in the Canadian political system in the office of governor general and of provincial lieutenant-governors in the form of crown prerogatives (the residue of authority unrestricted by statute), but of more practical significance in the quasi-judicial powers granted ministers and administrative officials and tribunals under enabling legislation. The exercise of such power, both procedural and decisional, may be tested in the courts against the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Crown prerogatives; Delegated power; Regulatory agencies (regulations). Dispute settlement mechanism Procedures to settle international trade disputes under provisions of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989) and later of the North American Free Trade Agreement (1992), but also under the World Trade Organization (successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—the GATT). Disputes arise over anti-dumping and countervailing duties, internal subsidies, and other domestic policies applied in one country against imports from another that grant preferences to imports from some countries over the same product from others, or that allegedly protect or enhance unfairly domestic industries with respect to foreign counterparts. Canada has been both appellant and respondent in the use of dispute settlement mechanisms, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. Dispute settlement mechanisms are heralded by supporters of “freer” international trade as a major factor in improving international relations generally; critics, however, note that a country’s domestic trade laws can trump decisions arising from the dispute settlement. For instance, the refusal of the United States in 2005 to accept NAFTA rulings supporting Canada in the dispute over exports to the United States of softwood lumber threatened NAFTA. Several senior Canadian negotiators of the Agreement styled the US as bullies and encouraged the Canadian government to consider retaliation. Otherwise, critics view “free trade” as part of the “globalization” movement that strengthens the competitive advantage of large, multinational corporations centred in the developed regions over smaller

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businesses and national governments, especially those in less developed regions. See Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989); North American Free Trade Agreement (1992); World Trade Organization (WTO). Dissolution of Parliament (the Legislature) The termination of a current Parliament, or of a current provincial or territorial Legislature, with the issuance of writs for a general election to the lower house of parliament—the House of Commons—or to a provincial or territorial legislature. (The upper house of the bicameral Canadian parliament, the Senate, is an appointed body; all provincial and territorial legislatures are unicameral.) Dissolution occurs automatically five years from the date of the return of the writs for the previous general election, or sooner on action by the governor general (lieutenant-governor), normally on the advice of the prime minister (premier). Not since 1926 has a governor general refused a request from a prime minister to dissolve parliament for an election, instead appointing another government from the same House of Commons. See Crown prerogatives; King-Byng Dispute. Distinct society clause A provision found first in the failed Meech Lake Accord of 1987 (later in the Canada Clause of the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, which was defeated in a referendum) that Canada’s constitution be “interpreted in a manner consistent with…the recognition that Quebec constitutes within Canada a distinct society”; further granting “the role of the Legislature and Government of Quebec to preserve and promote the distinct identity of Quebec.…” The Meech Lake Accord, which resulted from a so-called “Quebec round” of federal-provincial constitutional negotiations, also affirmed the role of parliament and all provincial legislatures “to preserve” French-speaking minorities in provinces outside Quebec and the English-speaking minority in Quebec as “a fundamental characteristic of Canada.” Supporters of “Meech” argued that the interpretive distinct-society clause gave the National Assembly of Quebec no additional powers and none not possessed by other provinces, though it might be of some significance in future debate over the distribution of legislative powers between the federal and provincial governments. Opponents of “Meech” felt otherwise. The recognition of Quebec as a distinct society had been one of five requirements established by the Quebec Liberal government in 1985 to obtain its consent to the Constitution Act, 1982. While the defeat of the Accord involved other criticisms, opposition to the distinct society clause was the focus of criticism, especially after the Quebec government invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect its official-language law following a successful court challenge in 1988. The Charlottetown Accord reached by the federal, provincial and territorial governments, and Native groups in 1992, in a subsequent so-called “Canada round” of negotiations, included a Canada Clause that required that the Constitution, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, be interpreted “in a manner consistent with” specified “fundamental characteristics.” They included a definition of the “distinct society” of Quebec, “which includes a French-speaking majority, a unique culture and a civil law tradition.” The Canada Clause then affirmed the Quebec government and legislature’s role “to preserve and promote

Division of powers

the distinct society of Quebec.” Nothing in the Clause was to derogate from the powers of parliament or the provincial legislatures. The Charlottetown Accord was defeated in a country-wide referendum, notably in six provinces, among them Quebec, where nationalist francophones argued that the Accord represented “less than Meech.” Following the near-success of the sovereignty referendum in Quebec in 1995 (a 1.2 per cent difference with 93 per cent voter participation), the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, acknowledging the need for an immediate response, had the House of Commons enact a resolution recognizing Quebec as a distinct society. The resolution was a symbolic response as it is not constitutionally entrenched. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Meech Lake Accord (1987). Division of the House The recording of votes in a legislature. In the House of Commons, the Speaker first puts a question to a voice vote and announces a decision. If at least five members rise to request a recorded vote, the Speaker orders “Call in the members,” and division bells summon members to the chamber. An opposition party usually forces recorded votes on questions of confidence and on second reading of bills or amendments to legislation that are important to the party. Divisions are carried by the majority of the members present. Members stand for identification when their votes are recorded and then resume their seats. Divisions carry more significance during minority governments than majority governments. In the case of majority governments, the disciplined party system and the ever-watchful eye of the government party’s whip normally ensure that the government wins on division. In the case of minority governments that do not control the majority of members, the mutual agreement of each party’s house leader to house business, including votes, and the careful assurance of attendance or absence of members by each party’s whip, are important for the government’s survival on divisions of the house. However, some parties might want the government defeated sooner rather than later: for instance, a former opposition party now forming the minority government, and with the momentum of public support, hoping to gain a majority in the next election, or an opposition party hoping to defeat a now much-weakened minority government party and forcing an election that it expects to win. Members who expect to be absent during a vote may, with the approval of the party whips, “pair” with a member of parliament on the other side of the house. In such a case, neither MP votes; thus, the government’s and opposition’s relative strength remains unaffected. “Pairing” is obviously more important when a minority government is in office and members must be absent from the house for public or personal reasons. Division (distribution) of powers The legislative competence of the federal and provincial levels of government, respectively, as outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867 (named the British North America Act until 1982) and interpreted by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in its role as the imperial court of appeal in London until 1949, and the Supreme Court of Canada. The distribution of legislative jurisdiction, which is fundamental to any federal system, is the source of much political dispute, and over time is subject to both

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informal modification and formal constitutional amendment or clarification. Canada’s Constitution Act grants broad residual power to parliament, that is, to the central or federal government, to make laws for “the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada in relation to all Matters not coming within the Claims of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces” (s.91, preamble). The Act then enumerates matters of federal competence—“but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing”—including such significant fields as the regulation of trade and commerce (91:2), the raising of money by any mode or system of taxation (:3), currency (:14), banking (:15; :16) and legal tender (:20), defence (:7), and the criminal law (:27). In a constitutional amendment in 1940, unemployment insurance (now called employment insurance) was transferred to the federal government (91:2A). See Residual power. The enumerated legislative powers of the provinces (s.92) are not preceded by such a comprehensive phrase as the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause mentioned above. They include: direct taxation within the province for provincial purposes (92:2); the amendment of provincial constitutions, except the federally appointed office of lieutenant-governor (:1); property and civil rights (:13); the administration of justice (:14); municipal institutions (:8); and most hospitals (:7). In section 93, the Act refers to provincial rights and obligations in education. While section 109 placed natural resources in the provinces under provincial jurisdiction, the federal “trade and commerce” power permitted federal involvement given the cross-border marketing of those resources. Section 92A on nonrenewable resources and electrical energy, adopted in 1982, granted additional revenue-raising and resource-management powers to the provinces, without compromising established federal authority. Section 95 establishes agriculture and immigration as jurisdictions held concurrently by both levels of government. An amendment in 1951 added old age pensions to concurrent powers (s.94A). In disputed cases, the federal legislation takes precedence in agriculture and immigration while the provincial legislation takes precedence in the matter of pensions. Section 132 refers to the treaty obligations of the federal government, on the basis of which the JCPC granted treaty-making power to the federal government in the 1930s, but in consideration of the enumerated powers in sections 91 and 92. See Treaty power. The Act also grants the federal government extraordinary powers over the provinces. Section 56 allows the governor-in-council (federal cabinet) to disallow provincial legislation, and sections 58–61 create the “federal” office of lieutenantgovernor in each province. The lieutenant-governor has the power to reserve any provincial bill for consideration by the governor-in-council. Section 92:10[c] permits parliament to nationalize any “local work or undertaking” in a province simply by declaring it “to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.” These federal powers, however, have fallen into disuse and successive federal Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments have offered in constitutional negotiations to abandon them. See Declaratory power; Disallowance; Reservation. Until 1982, the history of Canadian federalism was basically an account of disputes over the division of powers settled by the JCPC. Generally, from the 1880s to the 1930s, federal powers waned due to judicial decisions weakening the “Peace,

Division of powers

Order, and good Government” clause in section 91 relative to the “Property and Civil Rights” enumerated head in section 92, and defining the scope of the criminal law and treaty-making powers of the federal government. Indeed, critics of the JCPC argue that it effectively rewrote the Constitution Act, ignoring the centralist intent of its framers (perhaps even unitary-state intent of some framers). Others, however, maintain that the JCPC protected the fundamental nature of the union—its federalism. More sensitive to the contemporary needs of Canadian society than the JCPC, the Supreme Court, which has been the final constitutional arbiter since 1949, has sought to reconcile the constitution to those needs. For example, in 1951, the Supreme Court declared that neither parliament nor any provincial legislature could directly delegate its power to the other level (Nova Scotia Delegation Reference [1951]), although indirect delegation was allowed from a legislature of jurisdictional competence at one level to an administrative agency at the other level that lacked jurisdictional competence (PEI Potato Marketing Board v. H.B. Willis Inc. and A. G. of Canada, 1952). See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; Supreme Court of Canada. Canadian federalism since 1982 still involves jurisdictional disputes, but circumscribed by the Supreme Court’s additional role of testing government action at all levels against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). In the latter part of the twentieth century, the federal and provincial governments devised ways other than legal confrontation to finance costly programs in policy fields of provincial jurisdiction that many provinces could not afford, given their limited power of taxation and the difference in per capital tax yields across provinces, compared to the federal government’s greater power of taxation and access to revenue. Policy fields such as health, post-secondary education, and social assistance, which were considered by the framers of the federal constitution in the nineteenth century to be either minor or of primarily local concern, became expensive policy fields of major concern for Canadians in the twentieth century. Variously styled as co-operative, collaborative, administrative, or executive federalism, federal-provincial diplomacy since the 1960s has occasionally included references to the court for jurisdictional rulings (for example, on western offshore mineral rights) to facilitate subsequent federal-provincial negotiations and agreements. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Spending power. Provincial governments remain ever-jealous of their jurisdictional powers, some merely protective of traditional rights and prerogatives, but others more assertive in defending their interests not just within Canada, but outside the country’s borders as well. This is particularly so of Quebec, whose population predominantly comprises not just French civilization “in” America, but the distinctive French civilization “of ” America. Other provincial governments generally pursue an international “presence” to advance their provincial interests, notably regarding industrial development and export trade. All provinces are attentive to additional incursions by the federal government and some are particularly sensitive to maintaining the principle of jurisdictional equality among provinces, especially in view of Quebec’s demand for constitutional recognition of its distinctiveness within the federation. Constitutional negotiations

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Dominion

in the 1980s and 1990s that followed constitutional patriation in 1982 focused on the division of powers, including the federal disallowance, reservation, declaratory, spending, and residual powers; federal withdrawal from certain policy areas such as labour training, housing, forestry, and mining; the possibility of federal and provincial constitutional agreements in the fields of immigration and culture; permission for interdelegation of powers; and a provincial role in nominations to the Supreme Court and important federal agencies such as the central bank, the Bank of Canada. Because the constitution was effectively patriated—without Quebec’s assent—through the adoption of a domestic amending formula involving various combinations of the federal and provincial legislatures, revision of the formula was also on the constitutional agenda, especially in the immediate aftermath of the near-victory of the sovereignty movement in the Quebec referendum of 1995. In the absence of further constitutional negotiations, the federal and various provincial governments have negotiated federal withdrawal or joint responsibilities in some policy fields. Dominion (of Canada; government; status; Day) A now seldom-used term with reference to Canada as “One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom,” comprising several provinces “under the Name of Canada” (Constitution Act, 1867, preamble and s.3 [before 1982, the British North America Act]), or to the national, federal, or central government, or parliament of the Dominion. Created as a Dominion within the British Empire, Canada’s “dominion status” refers to the autonomy possessed by Canadian authorities with respect to the imperial government or parliament of the United Kingdom at a given time (see Statute of Westminster [U.K., 1931]). In 1879, the Canadian, or Dominion, parliament established July 1, the day the BNA Act came into effect in 1867, as Dominion Day. The term was largely abandoned in the late-twentieth century because of the pejorative overtone of “domination” and of its French equivalent, “Puissance,” both externally with respect to the United Kingdom and internally with respect to federal-provincial relations. The country is simply known as Canada; the dominion or central government is commonly referred to as the federal government, and dominion-provincial conferences as federal-provincial conferences or as conferences of first ministers. Since the patriation of the constitution in 1982, Confederation has been celebrated on July 1 as Canada Day. Dominion-provincial conferences Meetings involving the prime minister and provincial premiers or their representatives, held in 1927, 1935, 1945–1946, 1957 and 1960–1961. Since then, the meetings have been named federal-provincial conferences, and later still, conferences of first ministers, including territorial first ministers. The generic term federal-provincial conference now also refers to innumerable meetings involving not only the heads of government, but also ministers with particular portfolios, or senior officials of particular departments or with particular policy responsibilities. Most of the earlier conferences that were styled dominion-provincial concerned the division of jurisdictional responsibilities and the search for agreement on a “domestic” amending formula for the Constitution Act, 1867. For example, the Dominion-Provincial Conference on Reconstruction, in 1945–1946, concerned the report of the (Rowell- Sirois) Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial

Duff Doctrine

Relations, which was established by the dominion (federal) government in 1937 and which recommended in 1940 wider policy responsibility and powers of taxation for the dominion (federal) government. See Intergovernmental committees; Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937–1940). Double majority A procedure requiring approval within a political unit of a majority of members of each designated sub-unit. For example, the “double majority” convention existed in the nineteenth century in the United Province of Canada, which had two sections equally represented in the legislature—the pre-dominantly francophone Canada East (Quebec after Confederation in 1867) and the predominantly anglophone Canada West (later Ontario). Following the adoption of responsible government in 1848, a convention developed whereby the government was required to retain the confidence of the majority of members of both sections of the colony’s legislature and not just a majority of the legislature as a whole. The device was a contributing factor to political deadlock, which led to negotiations between Canada and the Maritime colonies in the 1860s, culminating in Confederation in 1867. The failed constitutional Charlottetown Accord of 1992 included proposals for a Senate of equal provincial representation, but with a requirement for a double majority of all senators voting, including a majority of francophone senators voting, to approve any legislation that materially affected French language or culture, effectively a veto for the francophone-minority senators. Duff Doctrine (constitution) A judicial opinion in 1938 that the preamble of the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act), which asserts that Canada is to have a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom, precludes provincial legislatures from restricting “free public discussion of public affairs, notwithstanding its incidental mischiefs…,” and other rights essential to the operation of parliamentary government, while parliament “possesses authority to legislate for the protection of this right…” (Reference re Alberta Statutes, 1939). The so-called Duff Doctrine is associated with Chief Justice Duff, who wrote the decision in the Reference concerning the Alberta Accurate News and Information Act, 1937, which would have subjected newspapers to government censure and required “corrections” of stories. The doctrine was written as an obiter dictum, that is, as an opinion that was not central to the decision in the case and therefore represented only a guide for subsequent judicial interpretations. Because Duff based federal competence in the “powers requisite for the protection of the constitution itself,” he felt that parliament could only protect and not itself restrict the right of free public discussion of public affairs. Duff ’s view was reasserted subsequently in several decisions by other justices of the Supreme Court of Canada regarding provincial legislation. However, until 1982, legislation affecting civil liberties in Canada was tested in the courts largely against the federal-provincial division of powers in the British North America Act, 1867. In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was constitutionally entrenched in the Constitution Act, 1982, and all government legislation as well as executive and administrative orders, regulations and procedures can now be tested against the provisions of the Charter.

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Economic nationalism

E Economic nationalism. A phrase associated with the opinion, especially widespread during the 1960s and 1970s, that the federal and provincial governments should act to slow the rate of increase and reduce the amount of non-resident equity (ownership) capital in the Canadian economy, thereby reversing the “continentalist” policies of federal governments since 1945. Since the 1980s, economic nationalists have generally opposed continental trade agreements, as well as the “globalization” of international trade agreements such as those of the World Trade Organization, whose binding decisions restrict the options available to federal and provincial governments in responding to domestic socio-economic needs. The roots of late-twentieth century economic nationalism may be found in the report of the (Walter Gordon) Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects in the 1950s and in Gordon’s later position as minister of finance in the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson in the 1960s. Important in the latter were his abortive “foreign take-over” tax proposal in 1963, and a Gordoncommissioned study on foreign ownership by economist Mel Watkins (1968), when Gordon was president of the privy council. A House of Commons committee (Wahn) report in 1970 and a government review (Gray) the following year added fuel to the fires of controversy. Kari Levitt’s Silent Surrender: The Multinational Corporation in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada Ltd., 1970) was an important academic work on the subject at the time. The greatest pressure from outside the Liberal government came from the political left, and was organized originally as a faction within the New Democratic party. Its founders, Watkins and historian James Laxer among them, styled the group “the Waffle” because they initially hesitated at its founding in the late 1960s to argue for extensive public ownership as a solution to foreign control of the economy. In 1969, the Waffle attempted unsuccessfully to have the federal NDP adopt its manifesto. In 1971, Laxer unsuccessfully challenged veteran New Democrat David Lewis for the federal party leadership. In 1972, the Ontario NDP denounced the Waffle as an unacceptable “party within a party” and forced the group from the party. The Committee for an Independent Canada (CIC), which was also established at this time, comprised mostly Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. Walter Gordon, now out of government, and Conservative organizer and fundraiser Eddie Goodman were prominent in the CIC’s ranks at its founding. Publisher Mel Hurtig and economist Abraham Rotstein were also prominently associated with the organization. The federal government and some provincial governments did respond to the issues raised by the economic nationalists. The most notable federal responses were the introduction of the Canada Development Corporation (CDC), designed to develop Canadian-owned and managed private corporations and investment opportunities for Canadians, and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA), to assess the benefit to Canada of proposed foreign purchases of established Canadian companies or new businesses. However, the Liberal government rarely disallowed investment proposals.

Economic union of Canada

Economic nationalism waned in the late 1970s and 1980s, especially during the period of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government from 1984 to 1993, but continues in views expressed notably by the Council of Canadians (canadians.org). The Conservative government replaced FIRA with Investment Canada (http://investcan.ic.ca/en_faq.htm), designed to attract foreign investment. In 1986, the Conservatives privatized most of CDC’s assets, and concentrated on reducing government’s role in the economy generally, negotiating the Canada-United States free trade agreement of 1988 and later the North American Free Trade Agreement with the US and Mexico. Among other things, the agreements restricted the role of Investment Canada, opened up industries hitherto “protected” from foreign ownership such as the banking industry, and reduced Canada’s freedom of action respecting the exporting and pricing of oil and gas to the US. Upon their return to office in 1993 and following later re-election, the Liberals essentially continued Conservative economic policy, focusing on the elimination of the budget deficit, reduction of the government debt, negotiation of other free-trade agreements, and generally encouraging free trade through such organizations as the World Trade Organization. The Council of Canadians has broadened its scope to the protection of Canadian sovereignty, the environment, and social justice generally. It has also broadened its activity as part of a social movement network of activist organizations called the Solidarity Network. It counts among its successes the defeat in the 1990s of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which would have further restricted government controls on the international movement of investment capital (http://multinationalmonitor.org/mai/contents.htm). See Continentalism; Globalization. Economic union of Canada One of the major objectives of Confederation in 1867, the creation of an integrated economy and common market in British North America. The Constitution Act, 1867 prohibits provinces from establishing tariff barriers against each other’s products (s.121) and grants jurisdiction to the federal parliament in matters crucial to establishing and maintaining an economic union, notably trade and commerce, banking and currency, patents, interprovincial transportation, and immigration (s.91). By the late-twentieth century, however, provincial governments had established a variety of barriers to the mobility of labour, capital, goods and services. During constitutional negotiations in the early 1990s, the federal Progressive Conservative government failed to obtain provincial support to revise section 121, which would have granted new federal power “to make laws for the efficient functioning of the economic union.” Under the proposal, federal legislation on management of the economy would have required the support of “at least seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population,” with a restrictive opting-out procedure. The proposal was designed “in the face of recent and ongoing continental and global economic change” (“Shaping Canada’s Future Together: Proposals,” Supply and Services Canada, 1991). Large-business organizations supported the federal proposal, but various interest groups representing, for example, women, labour, the poor, and environmentalists, joined provincial governments in opposing it. In 1993, the newly elected Liberal government continued Conservative

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Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act

efforts to eliminate internal trade barriers, but without resorting to constitutional amendments. Although a federal-provincial framework agreement was reached to prevent discrimination against the mobility of goods, services, labour, and investment capital across provincial borders, conflicts still arose between provinces concerning various discriminatory practices. Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats) Provisions for drawing the boundaries of constituencies represented in the House of Commons, following the redistribution of seats based on population data derived from the decennial census. An important object of the Act is to remove the task from the government to independent commissions, one for each province. (As the three territories have one seat each in the house, there is no need for territorial commissions.) Otherwise, the business of drawing electoral boundaries would have been left in the hands of politicians in office who would be tempted to establish constituency boundaries to maximize electoral support for their party (to “gerrymander” the boundaries). Each federal boundary commission established after the census comprises three members: a judge, appointed by the provincial chief justice, who takes the chair, and two others appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons—usually an academic, the provincial chief electoral officer, or another nonpartisan official. The chief electoral officer calculates the number of constituencies to be assigned to each province and territory (redistribution) following rules in the Constitution Act, 1867 as amended by the most current version of the Representation Act, and prepares maps showing the distribution of population in each province. Each commission exercises impartial judgment in drawing boundaries of the allocated constituencies according to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, maintaining and modifying previous boundaries, creating new constituencies, and eliminating some. Malapportionment, in which some constituencies are overpopulated relative to others, is generally tolerated: for socio-demographic reasons, particularly between densely and sparsely populated parts of a province and the sparsely populated territories, with consideration for accessibility and rate of population growth; also for socio-political reasons, recognizing community or diversity of interests of the inhabitants of a particular area. Federal legislation permits a deviation in constituency size normally not greater than plus or minus 25 per cent of the determined national electoral quotient, or average number of voters per constituency in the country. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the legislative mandating of consideration of non-population factors (in a particular Saskatchewan provincial case in 1991, to ensure the overrepresentation of rural voters), effectively rejecting a strict interpretation of principle of voter equality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.3). Two years earlier, the court had disallowed a provincial electoral map of British Columbia because it failed the test of voter equality. Preliminary recommendations of the commissions are subject to public comment. Following the hearings, the reports are to be completed and sent to the chief electoral officer within one year of having received the population data. The chief electoral officer transmits the reports to the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling and committee examination. Members then have approximately

Electoral law

30 sitting days to object to the proposed changes. Naturally, members of parliament and the political parties are soon familiar with the electoral implications of the proposed changes, applying the previous election results to the proposed constituencies. Objections supported by 10 MPs can be filed with the Speaker, debated, and then a copy of the house committee’s review is sent to the relevant commissions for review. As the commissions are free to amend or reaffirm their earlier reports, the final decision is theirs and not the politicians. The process of federal boundary readjustment or redistribution can be lengthy. Redistribution based on the 1961 census was completed for the 1968 election (not for the elections of 1962, 1963 and 1965), redistribution based on the 1971 census was used first in the 1984 election (not in the elections of 1972, 1974, 1979, and 1980); data from the 1981 census were first used in the 1988 election (not in the 1984 election). The election in 1997, rather than the election of 1993, was the first one based on the 1991 census. However, the 2004 election was based on the boundaries changes effected following the 2001 census. Given the length of time, first between each census and then redistribution, and the high rate of growth in Canada’s urban population (comprising close to 80 per cent of the total population), the tolerated malapportionment between densely and sparsely populated areas tends to be accentuated, with urban populations being considerably under-represented, notably in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. In 1992, the (Pierre Lortie) Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing recommended reducing the level of tolerance of voter inequality, but the “plus or minus 25 per cent” level has been maintained. See Carter v. Saskatchewan (A.-G.) (1991); Gerrymander; Malapportionment; Redistribution (electoral). Electoral law (controls; subsidies) Provincial and federal election laws that variously require the official registration of political parties, candidates, and their agents, then provide limited tax credits for contributions to parties and candidates, require public disclosure of names of financial supporters, control election expenditures, grant limited compensation for designated election expenses from the public treasury, legislate access to the mass media, control “third party” advertising, and set rules regarding the disclosure of results of public opinion surveys. The laws are intended to enhance the probity of election campaigns and create a “level playing field” among parties and candidates. Although there has been considerable improvement following the introduction of such laws, there continues to be debate over the effectiveness of legislation in different jurisdictions given various exemptions and loopholes. Important changes in federal legislation originally enacted in 1974—the Canada Elections Act (http://laws.justice .gc.ca/en/E-201)—were introduced following the report in 1992 of the (Pierre Lortie) Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. Various attempts to control “third party” advertising in federal election campaigns and to restrict donations to parties and candidates from corporations and trade unions generated the most debate at the turn of the twenty-first century. Several attempts to control advertising by “third parties,” that is, individuals and groups other than registered political parties, their candidates, constituency associations, and their agents, were successfully challenged in the courts as violations

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of fundamental freedoms protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.2). In 1984, the Alberta Supreme Court ruled that federal legislation permitting only registered parties and their candidates to spend money in federal elections violated fundamental Charter of Rights (National Citizens’ Coalition v. A.G. of Canada). The ruling was not appealed and, though the ruling applied only to federal elections in Alberta, the prohibition was not enforced elsewhere, and federal campaigns prior to the campaign of 2000 were conducted with unrestricted third-party or direct interest group participation. The 1988 campaign was noteworthy for the controversial participation of organizations other than registered political parties either in support of, or opposition to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Thus, while there were financial and advertising controls on parties, including a 24-hour moratorium before election day, there were no controls on other organizations. Because only the Progressive Conservative party was defending the FTA, while the Liberal and New Democratic parties were opposing it, it is generally thought that the Conservatives were advantaged by the third-party campaigning in support of the FTA, either reinforcing the intentions of Conservative supporters or causing pro-FTA Liberals to vote Conservative. Following the 1988 election, the federal Progressive Conservative government established the Lortie royal commission, whose final report contained wide-ranging proposals on the conducting of federal elections, including party and candidate financing, and restrictions on third-party participation that it felt would survive a court challenge. It also proposed controls not only on nomination contests for local candidacies, but also on campaigns for party leadership. Scholarly studies of the effects of third-party campaigning in Canada have generated mixed results. Some studies have concluded, for example, that the Conservatives might have been helped by third-party campaigning in 1988, or that the effects of the pro- and anti-advertising cancelled each other, thus no cumulative effects. Studies on effects in specific constituencies targeted by third parties concluded that the problem was exaggerated, especially as election campaigns in Canada tend to be broadly focused and, in the multi-party system, a campaign directed against a particular party candidate would not necessarily result in a vote for a group’s preferred party candidate. Despite the recommendations of the royal commission and subsequent amendments to federal legislation, courts at the provincial level continued to rule that, while fairness in election campaigning is an appropriate objective of legislation, there was no firm evidence that third-party activity was harmful. The federal government nonetheless renewed attempts now to limit, rather than prohibit, third-party expenditures in federal elections and to prevent collusion between third parties and political parties, in further amendments to the Canada Elections Act in 1999. The federal government might have been influenced by a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that sustained the principle of limitations on third-party campaigning in Quebec’s referendum law. In Libman v. Quebec (Attorney general), the Court ruled in 1997 that the limits on “independent spending” in Quebec’s referendum law, though a violation of section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, were “saved” by section 1, which allows “reasonable limits,”

Electoral system

in this case to promote fairness. Moreover, “the limit on independent spending must also be stricter than that granted to the national committees [established to advance the Yes and No options], since it cannot be assumed that independent spending will be divided equally to support the various options.” However, once again, the restrictions on third-party advertising in federal election campaigns were before the courts. During the 2000 federal election campaign, in an 8–1 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada lifted an injunction that had been ordered by an Alberta court against the amendments, without however judging their constitutionality, the majority citing the “rule against granting the equivalent of final relief in interlocutory challenges to electoral statutes, even in the course of elections governed by those statutes.” The court also noted the principle that “at this stage of the proceeding,” other than “in clear cases,” it is assumed that the challenged, but “duly enacted law” will “produce a public good”; the onus is on the applicant who asserts otherwise to establish that suspension of the law would be in the public interest (A.G. of Canada v. Stephen Joseph Harper). By the 2004 election, court-sanctioned restrictions on third-party federal election campaign advertising were in place. The Elections Expenses Act requires defined “groups” and “third parties” to register and report both country-wide and constituency-based advertising campaign expenses that are subject to limits. The amendments in 1999 also reinforced a ban on both advertising and the publication of new public opinion surveys results on election day. Further, requirements were introduced concerning the reporting of results of public opinion surveys. They involved, for example, disclosure in the first instance of sponsors, the firm that undertook the survey, when and how the sample was drawn, how many people participated, and the margin of error regarding the results. Newspapers and Internet sites were required to publish the wording of the questions and how a copy of the questionnaire might be obtained. These amendments followed an earlier Supreme Court ruling against more restrictive federal legislation. Other significant amendments to federal law were enacted in 2003. Parties qualify for public subsidies if they achieved 2 per cent of the national vote in the previous election, but if short of 2 per cent, then if they received 5 per cent of the vote in constituencies where they had candidates. Thus, following the elections of 2004 and 2006 in which it won no seats, the Green party nonetheless qualified for public reimbursement of some election expenses. Corporations and trade unions can donate a limited annual amount to registered parties, constituency associations, nomination contestants, and candidates of registered parties, and a candidate not endorsed by a registered party (effectively an independent candidate). Individual constituency nomination contestants and candidates, or party leadership candidates are also limited in the amount they can contribute to their own campaigns. Electoral system The means by which votes cast for party candidates are translated into legislative seats held by the parties, the basis upon which governments are formed. Elections to the House of Commons and to provincial legislatures are based on the single-member (sometimes dual-member ridings in some provinces) constituency system with a simple plurality win, or the first-past-the-post system. A victorious candidate is one who receives more votes than any other candidate irrespective of the percentage of the total number of votes received. In a multi-party

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contest, a candidate may win with a plurality, but not necessarily a majority, of the votes cast. There are other types of electoral systems. For example, in federal elections in the United States, there are different electoral systems for election to the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Federal Republic of Germany, some of the Bundestag’s deputies are elected by the single-member constituency system with simple plurality win, while others are elected through a system of proportional representation based on party support in a separate ballot. In Israel, the Knesset is elected by proportional representation applied to party lists of candidates. Other specific rules and procedures pertaining to elections concerning, for example, candidate selection, voter eligibility, and campaign procedures and financing are usually referred to as election laws. No electoral system is neutral; each has inherent biases. The system used in Canada’s multi-party elections results, in effect, in two levels of electoral reality: “voter reality,” the percentage of overall public support for each party, and “legislative reality,” the number of constituencies each party has won. Governments, however, are appointed on the basis of seats held in the House of Commons (or the provincial legislature), regardless of any discrepancy between the percentage of seats and the percentage of votes for that party. Therefore, the reality that counts in the formation of a government is the number of seats won by each party; the percentage of popular support for each party is irrelevant. The discrepancy between these two levels of electoral reality attracts considerable academic and some media and public attention, especially when there are extraordinary discrepancies in election results, but also when considering the long-term consequences of rational short-term considerations that party strategists employ to exploit the biases inherent in the system. For most of the twentieth century, for example, Conservative representation in the House of Commons from constituencies in Quebec rarely equalled or surpassed the party’s share of the popular vote in that predominantly French-speaking province. Thus, a predominantly anglophone and unilingual parliamentary caucus contributed to an image of an anglophone party unsympathetic to francophone interests. Some commentators have also noted that interpretations of Canadian political history based on legislative majorities can misrepresent the past when viewed from the perspective of the overall proportion of party support in the period being studied. For example, the considerable Liberal majority of members of parliament elected in the 1935 election held during the economic depression of the 1930s—usually styled a “landslide” of support for the Liberals—was based on the same share of popular vote held by the party when it lost the previous election of 1930. The party’s “landslide” in 1935 was based on a vote split among five parties, including three new parties, more so than on an overwhelming increase in support for the Liberals compared to the results of the 1930 election, then contested largely by the Liberals and Conservatives. Contemporary reports and later historical analyses based on the Liberal “landslide” and Conservative defeat during the economic depression tended to enhance the Liberal party’s progressive reform image and reinforce the Conservative party’s pro-business image. The federal elections of 1993 and 1997, which resulted in extraordinary discrepancies between “voter reality” and “legislative reality” for some parties, led to a pub-

Electoral system

lic debate that might yet lead to a change in the electoral system. The election results effectively eliminated the century-old Progressive Conservative party as an electoral force, but also highlighted the tendency of the electoral system to reward parties with concentrated regional support—including a sovereignist Bloc Québécois and a western-based Reform party—at the expense of parties with diffused country-wide support. In 1993, the Progressive Conservative party’s 16 per cent share of the popular vote, nationally distributed, resulted in only two seats (0.7%), while the Bloc and Reform votes—13.5 and 18.7 per cent respectively—were each regionally concentrated, the Bloc in Quebec and Reform in the West, resulting in 54 and 52 seats, respectively (18% each)—with the sovereignist Bloc forming the official opposition. All Bloc votes were cast in Quebec ridings (49% of the provincial vote total), while Reform’s supporters comprised 52 per cent of voters in Alberta and 36 per cent in British Columbia. With its 6.9 per cent of the national vote total concentrated in Saskatchewan (26.6%), the New Democrats won nine seats with the support of fewer than half the number of Progressive Conservative voters. In 1997, the election results, in order of popular vote, gave the Liberals 51.5 per cent of the seats with 38.5 per cent of the vote; Reform, 19.9 per cent of the seats (19.4% of the vote); Progressive Conservatives, 6.6 per cent of the seats (18.8% of the vote); New Democrats, 7 per cent of the seats (11% of the vote); Bloc Québécois, 14.6 per cent of the seats (10.7% of the vote). The results of the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections also contained the usual anomalies. In 2000, the party with the largest share of the popular vote received a disproportionate share of seats—in this case, the Liberals with 41 per cent of the vote won 57 per cent of the seat; parties with a small, but widely distributed vote share fared worse than those with a small, but regionally concentrated vote share— in this case, the Progressive Conservatives with 12 per cent of the vote spread across the country won 4 per cent of the seats while the Bloc Québécois with 11 per cent of the vote concentrated in Quebec won 13 per cent of the seats. The pattern was repeated again in the 2004 election when the Liberals formed a minority government (43.8% of the seats with 37% of the vote, the largest percentage of party support); the newly formed Conservative party, resulting from a merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties, formed the opposition (32% of the seats with 30% of the vote); the Bloc won 17.5 per cent of the seats with 12 per cent of the vote concentrated in Quebec ridings only, while the NDP, with a larger popular vote than the Bloc (16%), but diffused throughout the country, won only 6.1 per cent of the seats. In 2006, the Conservative party formed a minority government, winning 40.3 per cent of the seats (supplemented two weeks after the election by a Liberal defection) with 36.3 per cent of the vote; the Liberals, the official opposition, with 33.4 per cent of the seats (less one seat following the post-election defection) based on 30.2 per cent of the vote; the NDP won 9.4 per cent of the seats with 17.5 per cent of the vote while the BQ won 16.6 per cent of the seats with only 10.5 per cent of the vote. Constituency-based elections necessarily entail the possibility of chicanery when boundaries are drawn. Gerrymandering involves the drawing of constituency boundaries by the governing party of a jurisdiction in order to divide opposition support and maximize the number of seats likely to be won by it, given the various levels of party support throughout the jurisdiction. Malapportionment occurs

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when some constituencies contain vastly more electors than others, whereby voters in sparsely populated constituencies have far more electoral influence than those in densely populated constituencies. In Canada, the re-drawing of constituency boundaries, usually including the creation of additional constituencies—or redistribution—occurs following each decennial census, in order to ensure reasonably equal power among Canadian voters. Procedures have been established to limit gerrymandering by placing responsibility in boundary commissions independent of politicians. However, malapportionment is permitted in recognition of the need for communities of interest, notably in sparsely populated areas, to be effectively represented. See Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats); Gerrymander; Malapportionment; Redistribution (electoral). Elites Small groups of people who exercise considerable power in society. One may speak separately of economic, social, political, and bureaucratic elites, collectively of a national elite or ruling class, as well as regional elites. In urbanized and industrialized societies generally, there tends to be a plurality of elites forming temporary coalitions of interests on different issues, rather than a well-defined, permanent ruling class as in more traditional societies. However, in modern societies that retain remnants of a pre-industrial culture, one may detect an “establishment” associated with inherited wealth, family status, certain schools and universities, and professions such as law, business, and public administration. There is much in the literature of political science and sociology on the role of elites in public policy and decision-making. Studies of community power have led to “ruling elite” and “plural elite” models of community power. The methodology employed by investigators may explain their different conclusions. If one follows a reputational method of study, one might arrive at the ruling class model; if one adopts a decisional approach, examining a variety of issues, the plural model might be confirmed. Nonetheless, in pluralist societies, some interests are better organized and financed than others and consequently have more influence on decision-making in that society. In the manner of John Porter’s seminal work, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), some Canadian academics adopt an understanding of power as conflicts, not between those who are “in” and those who are “out,” but rather among those who are “in”: holding decision-making roles in important sectors of society, the elites “compete to share in the making of decisions of major importance for the society, and they co-operate because together they keep the society working as a going concern” (27). For Porter and for Robert Presthus (Elite Accommodation in Canadian Politics [Toronto: Macmillan of Canada Ltd., 1974]), the major forces dominating the political system are the political (elected) and bureaucratic (career public sector) elites along with an elite based in the private sector of the economy, comprising representatives of large-scale business and financial interests. A less influential cultural elite might be identified within the universities, the mass media, and the arts, and a labour elite among the leadership of trade, industrial, and public sector unions. Moreover, these groups share a class background characterized by a high

Emergencies Act

level of education, which results in a secularism that values moderation, bargaining, and accommodation. This secularism may be contrasted with the particularism of the lower strata within each group, which may occasionally complicate the bargaining process. In the 1960s, Arend Lijphart devised the term “consociational democracy” to describe countries that had fragmented political cultures but were stable democracies. In such countries, he argued, the elite make a conscious decision to accommodate their differences while defending the particular values and interests of their constituency, or subgroup. Lijphart later classified Canada as a semi-consociational democracy, in which the cultural fragmentation was institutionalized by the elite in intergovernmental relations (Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977]) (see Consociational democracy). A characteristic of such a horizontally accommodative elite system is the movement of personalities back and forth across groups, in addition to recruitment to the top vertically from within the groups. This is particularly evident in federal politics in Canada, where the Liberal party has been pre-eminent since 1896. Especially from the 1930s to the 1950s, but also at other times, the Liberal party has been not so much a power structure in itself as a coalition for power that has included people “imported” into leading party positions from other elites, notably the economic and bureaucratic elites, but also from institutions that comprise the cultural elite. The social, educational, and professional background of Conservative party leadership throughout most of the twentieth century also reflected a consistent pattern of political elite recruitment, especially from the economic elite. Historically, the federal system in Canada enhanced the elite structure of Canadian society. However, a consequence of the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 has been to alter the nature of political discourse in Canada. Alan C. Cairns has commented on both periods. In 1977, before the advent of the Charter and the rise of so-called Charter interests, he wrote of the federal and provincial levels of government creating powerful support for their survival in their public employees and in the support of parties and interest groups in a complex network of mutually supportive relations (“The Government and Societies of Canadian Federalism,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 10 [1977], 695–725). In 1987, he wrote of a movement away from federal-provincial to citizen-state dialogue, at least in constitutional matters (Charter versus Federalism: The Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform [Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1992]). More broadly, however, the Charter and judicial review of government action under the Charter have defined “citizen interests” and legitimized new “equality interests” in public debate among groups not heretofore granted status, such as Native Peoples, women, gays and lesbians, and the mentally and physically disabled. A consequence, then, of the Charter is an apparent broadening of the pluralist elite nature of Canada’s political community and political bargaining and accommodation (see Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [1982]). Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers) Federal emergency legislation enacted in 1985 and receiving royal assent in 1988 under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” preamble of section 91 of the Constitution Act, enabling the governor-in-council, that is the cabinet, to declare and respond to emergen-

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cies with the approval of parliament. This Act, successor to the War Measures Act, 1914, is distinct from anti-terrorist legislation enacted following terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 (see Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 and Public Safety Act, 2002 [2004]). The War Measures Act, whose invocation in peacetime in 1970 was criticized, largely retrospectively, and whose unchecked application in wartime, especially to confiscate property and intern thousands of citizens mostly of Japanese origin, has also been retrospectively condemned. Also, since 1982 Canada has had a constitutionally entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms to which all legislation, including emergency legislation, must conform. The Emergencies Act is distinguished from its predecessor by detailing several types of emergencies, each with appropriate powers, including time limits on the declaration of emergency, and by the degree of parliamentary oversight. The Act defines public welfare, public order, and international and war emergencies, and indicates specific requirements for the declaration and the executive orders and regulations that can pertain to the specific emergency. A motion to confirm a declaration of emergency must be presented to parliament within seven days (if not sitting, parliament must be called within seven days; if prorogued, “at the earliest opportunity”). A defeat of the motion in either the House of Commons or the Senate nullifies the declaration. A motion to revoke a declaration, filed by at least 20 members of parliament or 10 senators, must be debated within three sitting days and the question put within 10 hours. A motion passed in either house revokes the declaration. The Act specifies a length of time for each type of emergency, from 30 days for a Public Order emergency to 120 days for a War emergency. A motion to confirm an extension of an emergency must be tabled in parliament within seven days of its proclamation, with a ministerial report giving reasons and naming the orders to remain in effect, and must receive the support of both houses. An all-party parliamentary review committee meets in private during the emergency to review all orders and regulations, including those exempt from publication in the Canada Gazette under the Statutory Instruments Act, and to report regularly to parliament. Within 60 days following the expiry or revoking of a declaration, the government must hold an inquiry into the circumstances that led to the declaration, including the measures employed during the emergency, and table the report in parliament within one year of the termination of the emergency. See Emergency power; October (FLQ) Crisis (1970); War Measures Act (Canada; emergency powers). Emergency power Extraordinary power to be assumed by the federal parliament in times of national peril, under the residual “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause of the Constitution Act (s.91, preamble), specifically under provisions of the Emergencies Act, 1988, successor to the War Measures Act. The occasion on which to invoke the powers and their duration are fundamentally political questions, determined by the cabinet with parliament’s approval. During the First World War, parliament enacted the War Measures Act, which gave authority to the governor-in-council to make orders and regulations that “it may deem necessary or advisable for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada.…” It was under the authority of the Act, for example, that the federal government passed orders-in-council during the Second World War,

Employment Insurance

expropriating the property of Canadians of Japanese descent and forcibly detaining them in camps in the interior of British Columbia. When the Second World War ended in 1945, parliament passed the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act declaring that the state of emergency under the War Measures Act still existed. The powers, renewed during the Cold War and the Korean Conflict under the Emergency Powers Act, 1951, expired in 1954. The War Measures Act was invoked once in peacetime, in 1970, upon the government’s assertion of an “apprehended insurrection” when the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped a British trade official and a Quebec cabinet minister in separate incidents in Montreal. The cabinet minister was later murdered by his captors and the trade official was released following negotiations with the kidnappers. Serious concerns were expressed during and after the events of 1945–1954 and 1970 about the draconian nature of the Act, but it was not replaced until all legislation had to be brought into conformity with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982. The successor Emergencies Act distinguishes among types of emergencies, each with appropriate regulatory powers, and provides for more immediate parliamentary debate, ongoing secret parliamentary review of regulations, and a report to parliament following the emergency. The Constitution Act, 1982 requires parliament (and the provincial legislatures) to sit at least once a year (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.5) and allows no House of Commons or provincial legislature to continue for more than five years except “in time of real or apprehended war, invasion, or insurrection” and when “such continuation is not opposed by the votes of more than one-third of the members” of the House of Commons or provincial legislature (s.4). See Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers); October (FLQ) Crisis (1970); War Measures Act (Canada; emergency powers). Employment equity See Equity legislation. Employment Insurance (EI) Earlier termed “unemployment insurance,” a federal income-maintenance program established during the Second World War. In 1937, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council declared a federal scheme for unemployment insurance, part of Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s “New Deal” legislation, to be a violation of provincial jurisdiction. In 1940, the British North America Act (since 1982, the Constitution Act) was amended to give jurisdiction unequivocally to the federal government (s.91:2A). In 1941, a federal Unemployment Insurance Act allowed for benefits to those unemployed who had earlier contributed premiums when employed. Under the Act, the governor-in-council appoints commissioners to administer the Act through several regional offices. The Act also allows for appeals to independent referees by claimants. Regulations pertaining to EI are subject to constant political debate and alteration, usually involving longer times of employment and contribution to the fund in order to qualify for lower payments for a shorter period of time. Government data indicate that during the 1990s, the percentage of unemployed people receiving benefits fell from 74 per cent to 36 per cent. When their EI payments expire, people may qualify for provincial social assistance, or welfare, through programs

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that vary from province to province. Job re-training programs are also available as is access to universal public programs such as health care. Some people argue that the qualifications for employment insurance payments are too lax, while others argue that they are too strict. There have also been arguments over whether the EI program, which had become a costly general welfare program actually built into the operation of some regional economies, should be strictly an insurance program. Some have argued that a negative income tax, or minimum guaranteed income, would be preferable as an income-maintenance program. Entrenchment, constitutional Formal requirements contained in a constitutional statute, or basic law, subject to judicial interpretation, that can be amended only through a complex and difficult legislative procedure, are thus said to be entrenched in the constitution. Until 1982, all legislatures in the Canadian federal union were supreme within the context of the federal-provincial division of powers as adjudicated by the courts. However, the Constitution Act, 1982 fundamentally altered the nature of the constitution and Canadian federalism, notably with the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Part I of the Act), the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal rights (Part II) and of the principle of federal equalization payments (Part III), and domestic amending formulae (Part V). (Part IV of the Act concerns constitutional conferences that were held shortly after its enactment.) All legislation, as well as executive and administrative regulations and procedures at all levels of government, are subject to challenges in the courts based on the provisions of the Charter that can be amended only by a resolution of parliament and two-thirds of the provincial legislatures having at least 50 per cent of the population of Canada’s provinces. In addition to the well-known liberal democratic rights, the Charter also entrenches mobility, equality, official-languages and minority-language educational rights, and the principle of maintaining multicultural heritage, with judicial interpretation giving meaning to these rights. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Enumeration (of powers) Delineation of the jurisdictional responsibilities of parliament and of the provincial legislatures in Canada’s federal constitution, as outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended (see notably parts VI, VII, and s.132 in Part IX). See Division (distribution) of powers. Enumeration (of voters) The registration of people as eligible voters in federal and provincial elections. Until the 1990s, the voters’ list for federal elections was created anew prior to each election on the basis of door-to-door visits by enumerators. Since 1996, however, a permanent register of voters has been established that is updated from various sources including income tax returns and provincial databases. Registered voters receive a mailed card indicating their eligibility to vote and directions as to time and place. People not included on the list of eligible voters can appeal during the election campaign and on election day itself to be declared eligible to vote.

Environmentalism

Environmentalism A social movement with varying degrees of political influence since the 1960s, concerned about ecological damage from both private- and public-sector activity, in matters ranging from the use of nuclear power to individual behaviour affecting the ecosystem, manifested, for example, in global warming and desertification. On the assumption that unrestrained economic growth and development harms the ecosystem on which all life depends, the movement promotes laws and regulations to submit developments to environmental assessments; conserve nonrenewable resources; protect endangered fauna and flora in environmentally sensitive areas and habitats; and secure the atmosphere from industrial and urban pollution, including acid precipitation, global warming, and depletion of the ozone layer. Environmentalism, broadly interpreted, may be seen as an aspect of postmaterialism. Some social scientists hold that a difference in values exists, particularly in the developed world, between generations raised in the context of scarcity and deprivation, and therefore focused on the pursuit of material well-being, and a younger generation raised in a period of relative economic security, and therefore focused more on non-material aspects related to the quality of life, including the protection of the environment from degradation associated with the economic growth agenda of the materialist generation. Canada’s environmentalists are part of a larger, international “Green” movement. Greenpeace (greenpeace.ca), one of the world’s best-known environmental organizations, was begun in Canada. The Canadian Environmental Network (cen-rce.org) comprises several hundred organizations. The federal Green party (greenparty.ca) was founded in 1983, and by 2004 was able to field a full slate of candidates across the country. However, its popular vote share of slightly less than 5 per cent in the 2004 and 2006 federal elections did not result in any constituency victories; thus, unlike green parties in some other countries, Canada’s Green party remains without any representation in the country’s parliament. While most governments in Canada now include a department of the environment and have enacted legislation in response to the environmentalist agenda, the level of human and financial resources, and the regulatory power of such departments can vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from one government to another within a jurisdiction. Consequently, Canada’s active and influential social movement network of environmental lobbyists has effectively used the courts to pursue their objectives. For example, through their efforts—and sometimes in collaboration with organizations representing Native Peoples—the courts have given the federal government power to order environmental studies of provincial projects that touch on any aspect of federal jurisdiction and, in some cases, have ordered federal environmental reviews of provincial projects. Provincial governments have challenged federal environmental assessment as a intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. At the same time, federal governments that place a high value on amicable federal-provincial relations have not welcomed such judicial involvement in those relations. Concern about the degradation of Canada’s environment necessarily includes concern about environmental policies and practices in the United States, the foremost national producer of most of the world’s pollutants. Trans-border pollu-

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tion, for instance in the form of acid rain, affects Canadian air, water, land, plant and animal life, and property. The desire to conserve Pacific fish stocks and the west-coast transportation of oil by water have generated disputes between the two countries. Despite domestic opposition from business interests and some provincial governments, the Canadian government signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gases, while the United States government continued to question whether human activity was dramatically accelerating climate change and global warming. Standards of environmental protection were a major concern for opponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement involving Canada, Mexico, and the United States. While the courts have widened federal responsibility in environmental matters, the extent of Canada’s effective compliance with the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (cec-org) established in Montreal under NAFTA depends on the commitment of federal and relevant provincial governments. See North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992); Postmaterialism; Treaty power. Equality rights See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Equity legislation. Equalization grants (unconditional transfer payments) Unconditional financial payments made by the federal government to provinces, according to a specific formula, in order to achieve revenue equalization among provinces. Although the provinces are formally equal and have the same powers of taxation, in practice, the fiscal capacity among provinces varies significantly as the concentration of revenue-generating natural resources, corporate head offices, and personal wealth varies significantly from province to province. Following the expiry in 1946 of the federal-provincial Wartime Tax Agreements of 1941, the federal government, in bilateral agreements with all provinces but Ontario and Quebec (1947–1952), continued to “rent” provincial personal income and corporation taxes, as well as succession duties, and paid individually negotiated provincial subsidies beyond a minimum level. In the 1952–1957 period, only Quebec remained completely aloof from these arrangements. The 1950s arrangement included a guaranteed amount of “rent” regardless of the revenue yield of the tax fields vacated to the federal government—the earliest form of unconditional equalization payments to “have-not” provinces. In 1956, new federal-provincial arrangements for 1957–1962 led to the determination of unconditional federal subsidies for provincial revenue equalization based on objective criteria. The formula for determining the grants was designed to bring the provincial per capita yield of personal income and corporation tax and succession duties to the per capita yield of the same taxes in the two wealthiest provinces (the so-called “have” provinces as distinct from the “have-not” provinces) in each year. By then, all provinces participated to some extent, including Quebec, which received an equalization payment as well as a tax abatement in place of rental payments, equal to what the province would have received had it entered the agreement to vacate the three standard tax fields. Since 1957, the principle of equalization of provincial revenue has been reaffirmed in five-year agreements and, in 1982, was entrenched in the Constitution

Established Programs Financing

Act, 1982 (Part III, s.36). All governments are constitutionally committed to promote “equal opportunities for the well-being of Canadians,” encourage “economic development to reduce disparities in opportunities,” and provide “essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians”; the essential mechanism is “making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation,” and the formula for calculating equalization payments remains subject to periodic federal-provincial negotiations. Provincial, territorial, and federal governments debate the formula by which equalization payments are determined finally by the federal government and federal legislation. However, the views of some governments of “have” provinces disguise a more deep-seated opposition to the program itself. When provincial governments assert that “fiscal imbalance” is an issue, it is a reference to an imbalance between them and the federal government, rather than an imbalance among the provinces themselves. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Tax abatement and tax points. Equity legislation Enactments by federal and provincial legislatures dealing originally with gender-based inequity in the workplace, with reference to hiring, promotion, benefits, compensation, and policy dealing with sexual harassment. Later, equity requirements were extended to include ethnicity and physical ability. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, constitutionally entrenched in 1982, guarantees “equality rights.” The primary focus for advocates of workplace equity is the provincial legislatures, as labour legislation falls under provincial jurisdiction with the exception of employment by the federal government and in federally regulated industries. Apart from the justice of the demands for equity based on available statistics, legislation setting guidelines or mandating specific goals for both the public and private sectors is supported by the “equality rights” provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 15 guarantees “equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical ability.” It also sanctions laws or programs designed to improve the conditions of individuals disadvantaged on those specific grounds. Further, section 28 affirms that rights and freedoms in the Charter “are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); and Charter groups; interests. Established Programs Financing (EPF) From 1977 until 1996, federal-provincial cost-sharing arrangements for post-secondary education and hospital and health care insurance involving tax abatements and periodically negotiated formulae for block funding, enacted in the parliament’s Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act. Over time, the provinces increasingly balked at conditions applied by the federal government to provincial programs, especially in health care under the Canada Health Act. The federal government wanted to maintain its conditions while reducing its financial obligations. In 1996, Established Programs Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan for social assistance were combined into a single block grant designated the Canada

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Health and Social Transfer. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Estimates A government’s annual spending proposals for which it requires approval of the legislature. Only the Crown (that is, the government) can propose the expenditure of money (Constitution Act, 1867, ss.53;54), but the government must obtain the legislature’s approval. The consideration of estimates, then, is basically an opportunity for the opposition to debate government policy across the board. The following describes procedures for dealing with estimates at the federal level. Detailed departmental and agency spending estimates for the forthcoming fiscal year, approved by the Treasury Board and cabinet with a concern for the government’s priorities in spending as well as for economy, are usually tabled in the House of Commons in February as the main estimates (the “Mains”) in several “Blue Books.” The government’s main estimates take the form of a supply or appropriation bill, and are accompanied by the detailed spending proposals of departments and agencies. The estimates for specific departments and agencies are then sent to the relevant standing committees of the House of Commons for intensive scrutiny. The committee members—at least the opposition members— question the designated or responsible minister, who is accompanied by senior civil servants to provide information and advice in responding. In some jurisdictions, the legislature sits as the committee of the whole, or a committee of supply, to question the minister and department officials. In the federal example, where estimates are considered in various committees, it is questionable whether there is effective concerted scrutiny of government finance and policies. Nonetheless, while the estimates will have been fought over and resolved in the private executive confines of government departments, Treasury Board Secretariat, and cabinet committees, this is the first time they will have been exposed to public criticism and defence. When the committees report back to the House of Commons (no later than the end of May), the estimates are voted on and passed through parliament as one bill. The opposition uses the committee meetings and supply periods in the House (25 days in three periods, also known as “Opposition days,” or allotted days) to criticize not only government spending but its policies. As estimates have been prepared and made public well before the fiscal year begins, and because parliamentary approval can be delayed, parliament may vote “interim supply” before the study of the main estimates is concluded and may be asked to approve “supplementary estimates” during the fiscal year. All departments and agencies must spend appropriated funds as outlined in the detailed estimates approved by parliament. A government body may deviate somewhat with the approval of the Treasury Board. However, parliament requires the auditor general to investigate and report on spending for purposes other than those for which funds were appropriated (see Auditor General of Canada). When parliament is not in session and the government faces a serious appropriation shortfall, it can spend money through Governor General’s Warrants. The governor-in-council (that is, the cabinet) issues warrants when the president of the Treasury Board reports that there is no appropriation for an expenditure that the relevant minister deems urgently required. These special warrants must be published in the Canada Gazette, reported to parliament, and be approved as supple-

Ethics Commissioner

mentary estimates. See Budget and budgetary process; Treasury Board; Treasury Board Secretariat. Ethics Commissioner (Senate Ethics Officer) (parl.gc.ca/oec-bce/site/pages/ethicse.htm) Parliamentary offices established in 2004 under the Parliament of Canada Act to govern the ethical conduct of members of parliament and senators as legislators. Following their appointment, prime ministers are required to publish ethical principles, rules and obligations for selective public office holders, notably ministers, parliamentary secretaries and senior officials. The ethics commissioner (Senate ethics officer), appointed by the governor-in-council (effectively the prime minister), but with parliamentary approval and removable during the renewable term of appointment only on a parliamentary resolution, provides confidential advice to parliamentarians and other relevant office holders not specifically excluded by legislation. The ethics commissioner (Senate ethics officer) carries out duties assigned by the House of Commons (Senate) or its relevant standing committee. The ethics commissioner also investigates allegations by members of parliament or senators of violations of the prime minister’s ethics code, notably for ministers, their political staff and public officials. The commissioner’s reports related to MPs are tabled in the house. Reports related to alleged violations of prime minister’s guidelines are tabled in both the House of Commons and Senate. Only a few months after his appointment as ethics commissioner, Bernard Shapiro was obliged in 2005 to investigate alleged abuse of power by a minister during the recent federal election campaign and allegations during debate on the minority government’s budget of vote-buying and bribery involving an opposition backbencher, a minister, and the prime minister’s chief of staff. In 1992, a parliamentary committee recommended the establishment of a parliamentary office to hold private information respecting all parliamentarians in confidence, to make some information public, to advise parliamentarians on their legal obligations, to investigate alleged violations, conduct public hearings, and report to parliament. In 1994, following an election promise, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed a career public official as ethics counsellor to offer advice and investigate alleged violations of prime ministerial guidelines. However, the counsellor was accountable to him rather than to parliament. Thus the matter of conflict of interest remained entirely an area of prime ministerial prerogative and responsibility. The ethics counsellor ruled on several cases of alleged conflict, even involving the prime minister, frequently to dismiss the allegations. In 2001, the auditor general disclosed evidence of a financial scandal during Chrétien’s government concerning allegations of abuse of public trust involving the illegal funnelling of large sums of public money to Liberal party organizers and supporters. The creation of the parliamentary officer of ethics commissioner by Chrétien’s successor, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, was the result of the scandal as well as the public disrepute surrounding the previous office of ethics counsellor. Although Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicated in 2006 that he would accept the findings of the ethics commissioner as final and binding, he would not necessarily co-operate with inquiries respecting his prerogatives. See Conflict of interest; Lobby (ist; -ing); Scandal (Pacific, Beauharnois, Customs, Sponsorship).

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Executive, the That part or branch of government responsible for the presentation of a program to the legislature for its approval, and for the implementation of laws by the administration. The executive also has certain subordinate legislative and quasi-judicial powers through delegated power under enabling legislation. Canada has a dual executive. The formal executive—the Crown and its representatives, the governor general, and the provincial lieutenant-governors—and the political executive—the cabinets, or governments-of-the-day. The Constitution Act, 1867 invests the “Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada” in the Crown, its governor general, and the Privy Council for Canada (ss.9–11), and the lieutenant-governors advised by the Executive Council of each province (ss.58–67). The cabinets constitute the de facto or effective provincial and federal executives, appointed by the Crown’s representative and, by the convention of responsible government, required to have and retain the support of their respective legislature. However, they have de jure or statutory existence only as the effective part of the Privy Council for Canada and the provincial Executive Councils. Within the context of parliamentary government, each of Canada’s executives observes the constitutional conventions of confidentiality and collective responsibility. Indeed, the federal system has sometimes been referred to as executive federalism. The cabinets are supported in office by key central co-ordinating administrative agencies; the federal system has also been described as administrative federalism. See Cabinet; Central agency; Crown; Crown prerogatives; Delegated power; Executive (administrative) federalism; Governor general; Letters Patent; Lieutenant-Governor; Public administration (civil service); Quasi-judicial Decisions; Regulatory agencies (regulations); Responsible government. Executive (administrative) federalism A term to describe a federal system such as Canada’s, in which intergovernmental relations are paramount in accommodative bargaining, and are characterized by a high level of interdependence, with emphasis on multilateral and bilateral consultation, negotiation, and functional operations among the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Especially as most governments have majority support in their legislatures, agreements achieved through intergovernmental “diplomacy” are approved, when necessary, by the legislatures. This type of federalism contrasts with a more classical federal system in which intergovernmental relations are determined by a strict delineation of jurisdictional competence between the levels of government. Also, Canadian federalism is frequently referred to as “inter-state” federalism as distinct from “intra-state” federalism where accommodative bargaining takes place within executive and legislative institutions of the central, or federal government. Executive federalism is by nature elitist, with accommodative bargaining taking place in closed meetings of government ministers and officials. But the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and the defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord in 1990 led to some modification of executive federalism in constitutional negotiations. The Charter elevated so-called Charter interests among the public, whose lead organizations thereby claimed to have an interest in negotiations that would lead to constitutional change. The Accord’s defeat was seen, in part, as a public rebuke of executive federalism, wherein the country’s future was seen to have been the prerogative of 11

Executive assistant, ministerial

first ministers and their aides engaged in private negotiations. Subsequently, the Charlottetown Accord of 1992 was negotiated by federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal leaders following extensive public consultation. Nonetheless, it was defeated in a national referendum. Constitutional amendments and intergovernmental relations in Canadian federalism generally still require a high degree of intergovernmental co-operation and approval at executive/administrative levels, with legislative oversight. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charlottetown Accord (1992); Federalism; Meech Lake Accord (1987). Executive assistant, ministerial (chief of staff; exempt staff) The chief of staff of a cabinet minister, hired and retained at the minister’s “pleasure” to head the minister’s personal political staff. As such, employees serve at the pleasure of the officeholder and they are “exempted” from protection normally afforded career public officials, for example under the Public Service Employment Act in the federal government. At its inception in the federal government in the 1960s, ministerial staff dealt with constituency business and appointments. Over time, however, ministerial staff have increased in numbers, positioned politically between the minister and departmental staff, offering advice and briefing ministers on various political matters. Usually such personnel at the federal level, who are maintained on public salaries, are hired with the approval of senior members of the Prime Minister’s Office (for “political” security) and the Privy Council Office (notably for national security). The minister determines how to allocate departmental, cabinet, party, and constituency responsibilities among the executive staff. From the minister’s point of view, an executive assistant or chief of staff should bring to the minister’s attention information and points of view from outside the cognizance of the departmental senior administrators, and thereby improve political judgment on issues within the minister’s responsibility. The influence of ministers’ personal staff relative to their departmental officials increased during the Progressive Conservative government of 1984–1993. With the exception of a few months in 1979–1980, the Conservatives had been out of power for 21 years, inheriting a senior public administration from its Liberal “political masters.” At the outset of his government in 1993, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien reduced not only the size of the cabinet, but also the size of the ministerial exempt staff. In 2005, a minister who resigned from Prime Minister Paul Martin’s cabinet over allegations of abuse of power was later criticized by parliament’s ethics commissioner, thus bearing major responsibility for the activity largely of the minister’s chief of staff. After three years of service as exempt staff for federal ministers, political aides can receive priority consideration for positions in the permanent public administration. Frequently the target of lobbyists when attached to a ministerial office, many ministerial staff have consulting careers later with private government relations or lobbying firms, or head associations of firms that do business with the government. Exempt staff drew the attention of Justice John Gomery during his commission of inquiry into fraudulent activities respecting the $300-million federal sponsorship program of the late-1990s. In 2006, Justice Gomery recommended that exempt staff have no authority to give direction to public officials, and that min-

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isters be fully responsible and accountable for the actions of their exempt staff. He further recommended that ministerial exempt staff no longer be eligible for appointment to the public administration without competition. Executive Council The formal name for a provincial government-of-the-day, cabinet, or ministry. Executive Councils are mentioned in the Constitution Act, 1867 only with respect to the lieutenant-governor (ss.63–66). The principle of responsible government is observed in the provinces by constitutional convention; that is, the lieutenant-governor appoints the Executive Council, but selects as premier someone who has the support of the legislature—usually the acknowledged leader of the party with the most seats—and then accepts the premier’s recommendations on appointment to the Executive Council, or cabinet. Formally, the cabinet acts as the lieutenant-governor-in-council. The lieutenant-governor always accepts the government’s advice, subject to the federal aspects of the office (including appointment, tenure, and powers of disallowance and of reservation). See Disallowance; Lieutenant-governor; Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council; Reservation. Extraterritoriality The extension and application of the laws of one country to another country. The extraterritorial application of United States laws is particularly serious in Canada because of the extensive ownership of Canadian companies by US-based firms and the high level of export trade essential to Canada’s economic prosperity. Thus, Canadian exports, which involve components and technical data from the United States, have been subjected to the US Export Control Act of 1949. Also, United States Foreign Asset Control Regulations, including the Cuban Assets Control Regulations implemented following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, as well as the Trading With the Enemy Act apply to American-owned operations abroad, even when no United States components are involved. In 1992, the United States adopted the Cuban Democracy Act to prohibit foreign subsidiaries of American firms from dealing with Cuba. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, 1996, which places sanctions on anyone dealing with US-owned property confiscated by the Cuban government has been applied to Canadians. United States anti-trust (anti-combines) laws are also applied when Canadian subsidiaries of United States firms are merged. Successive Canadian governments have publicly expressed opposition to the application of the Trading With the Enemy Act, for example, concerning trade with countries in Asia, Europe, the Caribbean area, and Central America. There have been a few cases when Canadian-based but American-owned companies have lost export business because of the extraterritorial application of United States laws. However, the greatest impact of extraterritoriality may be in the inhibition it places on Canadian managers and boards of American-owned firms when developing export markets. Historically, statutes of the imperial parliament were paramount over any conflicting Dominion (that is, federal) statutes under Britain’s Colonial Laws Validity Act until renounced at the imperial conferences of 1926 and 1930, and by the British parliament in the Statute of Westminster of 1931. Of contemporary significance, following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the US government applied considerable pressure to the Canadian government to harmonize various laws and

Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act

regulations with US law in the interest of continental (though primarily US) security. See Imperial conferences; Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931).

F FLQ Crisis See October (FLQ) Crisis (1970). Federal Court (fct-cf.gc.ca) (Federal Court of Appeal [fca-caf.gc.ca]) Successor to the Exchequer Court, established in 1971 and, until 2003, comprising a Trial Division (a court of original jurisdiction) and an Appeals Division. In 2003, the Appeals Division was established as a separate Federal Court of Appeal. The Federal Court rules on disputes “in the federal domain,” including interprovincial and federal-provincial disputes, claims against the federal government, decisions of federal boards or tribunals except where otherwise provided, and civil suits in federally regulated areas such as immigration, citizenship, customs, transportation, communication, international trade obligations, copyright, and trademark protection. The Federal Court normally comprises a chief justice and 32 other judges, while the Federal Court of Appeal normally comprises a chief justice of the court and 10 other judges. The federal Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001, enacted following the terrorist attacks in the United States, increased the Federal Court by up to thirteen new positions and up to two for the Federal Court of Appeal in anticipation of cases related to anti-terrorism. Although separated from the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal performs the same tasks as the earlier Appeal Division of the Federal Court. Because the “federal domain” touches on almost every aspect of the society and economy, there are more than 100 parliamentary statutes under which the courts can hear cases. Of general interest, for example, are the courts’s responsibilities concerning government actions respecting privacy, access to information, business competition, and anti-terrorism activities conducted by law enforcement and security agencies. In the judicial hierarchy, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal are below the Supreme Court of Canada. However, appeals to the Supreme Court are not automatic unless the dispute is interprovincial or federal-provincial. While their headquarters are in Ottawa, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal hear cases elsewhere to facilitate access. See Supreme Court of Canada. Federal-provincial conferences Earlier termed “dominion-provincial,” meetings of the prime minister and provincial premiers or their representatives, and eventually territorial first ministers as well, now termed “conferences of first ministers.” As a generic term, it connotes frequent meetings involving ministers with similar portfolios and senior government officials of similar departments or with similar policy responsibilities. Meetings involving ministers and officials are usually held behind closed doors; meetings involving first ministers might begin and conclude with public sessions. See Conference of First Ministers; Intergovernmental committees. Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism).

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Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism) Periodically negotiated agreements whereby the provinces and the federal government share tax revenues and the federal government provides conditional grants in specific sharedcost programs and unconditional equalization grants, to reduce regional disparities in the provision of government services. A federal-provincial fiscal regime has existed since Confederation in 1867, when the federal government assumed existing colonial debts and provided grants to the provinces. However, the contemporary fiscal regime took shape during the emergency conditions of the Second World War, when the provinces agreed not to levy personal income and corporation taxes. In return, the federal government made a tax rental payment to the provinces and assumed the costs of certain social services. The federal government assumed a dominant role in postwar reconstruction to achieve high rates of economic growth and employment, low inflation, and improved minimal standards of living for Canadians. Eventually, with its unrestricted powers of taxation relative to the provinces and hence its spending power, the federal government became increasingly involved in fiscal arrangements involving areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. Since the expiry of the Wartime Tax Agreement, complex and variously amended five-year fiscal arrangements were negotiated and enacted in federal legislation, after 1977 called the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act (EPF). In 1996, federal Established Program Financing for provincial post-secondary education and health insurance, and the Canada Assistance Plan to fund income-maintenance in the provinces, were replaced with a federal block grant and tax points under the Canada Health and Social Transfer. The principle of unconditional federal equalization payments to “have-not” provinces in order to raise their level of public revenue to a periodically negotiated national provincial average of public revenue was entrenched in the Constitution Act in 1982. Equalization payments were unaffected by the other changes in federal-provincial fiscal relations in 1996. Since the 1960s, the federal government has been increasingly criticized by provincial governments for the “strings” it attaches to shared-cost programs, effectively involving itself in policy-making in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. In response, the federal government first permitted provincial “opting-out” with compensation and later introduced block funding, which allowed the provinces discretion as to which programs they funded. But the federal government has also reduced its level of funding, preferring to fund its own programs with direct transfers to individuals, thus receiving greater visibility and presumably reaping more political credit. But at the same time, the federal government still attaches conditions to shared-cost programs, notably with respect to the provision of health insurance. In 1999, the federal government and nine provinces, with Quebec dissenting, signed the Social Union Framework Agreement, which set rules for future federal-provincial programs. See Equalization grants (unconditional transfer payments); Social Union Framework Agreement (1999); Spending power. Federalism A political system in which executive and legislative power is distributed between a national, central, or federal legislature and a level of state or provincial legislatures.

Federalism

In a theoretically pure, or classical federal system, there is no superior-inferior relationship implied in the divided authority. The national legislature retains jurisdiction in matters crucial to the integrity of the nation, while the sub-national legislatures have autonomy in matters of local concern. In practice, however, federal constitutions are usually biased in one direction; the push-pull of political competition leads to inevitable conflict between the levels of authority and the domination of one by the other in different areas of political activity. An indication of constitutional bias is the location of residual power: that is, which level of authority is given jurisdiction over matters not assigned to either level of government. Jurisdiction in matters related to trade and commerce, criminal law, banking and finance, defence and taxation are indications of effective political power. In case of disputes, governments may negotiate or seek judicial interpretation of the constitution. In Canada, domination by the central or federal government characterized the early years of the federal system. However, the provinces soon asserted a selfinterestedness that led to a competitiveness, which is characteristic of federalprovincial relations. Since the Second World War, an underlying cause of tension in Canadian federalism has been the exclusive jurisdictional responsibility of the provinces in social policy fields in an era of positive government and the welfare state, countered by the considerably greater access of the federal government to taxation power and revenue, and its self-assumed responsibility to ensure national minimum standards in public services through its so-called spending power. Attendant also with the enhanced role of the federal government are contemporary policy fields unknown to the framers of the constitution in the nineteenth century, notably air transportation and broadcasting, deemed by judicial review to be of “national dimension,” and contemporary policy questions that cut across the jurisdictional divide established in the nineteenth century. For approximately 20 years after the Second World War, the federal government was pre-eminent in setting policy priorities, establishing conditions for shared-cost programs in areas of exclusive provincial responsibility, and determining the formula for unconditional equalization payments to “have-not” provinces. After 1960, the provinces—some more than others—began to assert themselves. Quebec’s political elite, in particular, made demands commensurate with its proclaimed role as defender of French culture in North America. Since the 1970s, a significant majority of public opinion in Quebec has supported a fundamental restructuring of the province’s relationship with the rest of Canada, either in a renewed federal state or as an independent nation state “associated” with Canada. Assertiveness by some other provinces, notably Alberta, was based on wealth accruing from natural resource development and conflicts that arose with the federal government’s trade and commerce power, as these resource commodities involved interprovincial and international pricing and marketing policies. Apart from a reduction in the federal government’s role in setting policy conditions in shared-cost programs, the Alberta government has articulated a general desire among western Canadians to reform federal institutions, notably the Senate, to improve the representation of regional interests at the federal level—even though such changes would lead to a new balance between Canada’s current inter-state federal system characterized by accommodative bargaining among federal-provincial

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elites and an intra-state federal system in which accommodative bargaining is conducted within central, or federal institutions. Canada’s federal system is characteristically an inter-elite, inter-state federal system, with federal-provincial disputes following Confederation in 1867 frequently settled by the judiciary (the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Canada) variously tending to sustain provincial power or federal power at different periods. After the 1960s, when both constitutional and policy differences came to the fore, accommodative bargaining in Canada’s federal system was usually styled executive or administrative federalism: conflicts managed in closed-door, intergovernmental negotiations involving ministers and government officials, receiving subsequently, if necessary, only perfunctory legislative scrutiny and approval. At this time, rulings by the courts on constitutional references were sometimes used to strengthen or clarify a government’s position in intergovernmental negotiations, a notable example being the federal government’s constitutional references to the Supreme Court of Canada on procedures to amend the constitution and on provincial secession from Confederation, in 1980 and 1996, respectively. The patriation of the Constitution Act in 1982, with the entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms adjudicated by the courts, created new conditions for the exercise of executive federalism. The Charter legitimized a number of Charter or equality-rights interests in the public, which successfully projected their concerns onto the public agendas of both federal and provincial governments. The defeat of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990, which would have satisfied Quebec’s demands for acceptance of the constitutional arrangements of 1982, was interpreted in part as a defeat of political elite dominance held by the 11 first ministers and their officials, who had attempted to determine the country’s constitutional future behind closed doors. Constitutional discussions after 1990 included federal government-sponsored national forums involving a variety of mass-based interest groups (notably, business, labour, Native Peoples, women, the disabled, multicultural, and welfare groups). Nonetheless, the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, negotiated by federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal leaders, was defeated in a national referendum. However, the constitutional regime of Canadian federalism still requires close collaboration and co-operation of the 11 federal and provincial governments in both public policy and constitu tional matters. See Executive (administrative) federalism; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Filibuster The deliberate use of legislative debate and procedural tactics by opposition parties to protract consideration and delay adoption of government bills. Legislative rules, or Standing Orders, permit the government on the one hand to introduce its proposals, and the opposition on the other to have sufficient opportunity to criticize them. The opposition, however, may occasionally engage in drawn-out speeches, points of order, points of privilege, and even theatrical antics, to draw public attention to some allegedly heinous government measure or ministerial blunder. Debate over Progressive Conservative legislation to enact the Canada-United States free trade agreement (FTA) in 1988 and to introduce the goods and services sales tax (GST) in 1991 occasioned a variety of delaying tactics by the Liberal

Finance

minority in the House of Commons and Liberal majority in the Senate. In the case of the FTA agreement, the government had parliament dissolved for an election based on the issue; the GST legislation was enacted when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney invoked the never-before used section 26 of the Constitution Act to appoint extra senators to support the measure. The usual procedural government counter-measure to opposition filibustering is to invoke house rules on closure and time-allocation, whereby the government may impose time limits on debate. In such legislative confrontations, while the government does not want to appear autocratic and dismissive of the legislature, neither does the opposition normally want public opinion to perceive it as unnecessarily obstructionist. See Closure. Finance, Department (minister) of A key federal department established in 1867 responsible for advice to the cabinet on economic and financial policy. It is a central agency, the focus of whose activity is the review of government revenues and expenditures, and the preparation of the budget and relevant taxation legislation in view of its economic forecasts. The Department of Finance is involved in any policy proposal that has a significant implication for revenue or expenditures, and is likely to have a major impact on the economy. The department is also concerned with monetary policy and the activity of the central bank, the Bank of Canada, and with international decisions that may affect the Canadian economy. In 2006, Justice John Gomery’s final report on abuses respecting the $300-million sponsorship program included recommendations that Department of Finance and the Treasury Board, as central agencies experienced in administrative procedures, should manage special reserves and report to the House of Commons annually on the status of each reserve, including the use of the funds and the criteria employed in funding decisions. The department deals with tax policy and legislation (but not collection, which is the business of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency); economic development policy, dealing with all sectors of the economy, including the activity of federal crown corporations; economic analyses to monitor and forecast national and international developments; international trade and finance, focusing for example on the World Trade Organization and regional free-trade agreements that deal with tariffs, other forms of subsidies and protection and countervailing duties, and international aid and debt management; the regulation of financial institutions such as federally chartered banks and trust companies; the international finance market, regarding the currency exchange rate and the balance of payments; federal-provincial relations and social policy, focusing on expenditure management with respect to federal-provincial programs; and coordination of federal government consultations with the private sector. The department also orchestrates Canada’s involvement in other international discussions such as the economic summit of leading industrialized countries (the G8 and other groups of nations), the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the meeting of G8 and G-20 finance ministers. The minister of finance meets regularly with the governor of the central bank to discuss general economic conditions and monetary policy. The minister also recommends to cabinet the appointment for three-year terms of “outside directors” to the central bank’s board of directors, who review the central bank’s management

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by its governing council of governor, senior deputy, and deputy governors. The deputy minister of finance is a member ex officio of the board of directors of the central bank, the Bank of Canada. Not unexpectedly then, the minister of finance is a senior cabinet minister, viewed by the public as primarily responsible for government policy related generally to the health of the economy. A requisite for government success is frequently said to be “the confidence of the business community.” Consequently, in their private careers before entering politics, federal ministers of finance have usually been well connected to, and respected among, if not actually part of, the economic elite. See Bank of Canada (central bank); Budget and budgetary process. Financial Administration Act (Canada) A major federal statute that includes requirements pertaining to accounting for revenues and the expenditure of money by the government of Canada. The Act defines and classifies departmental and nondepartmental organizations such as crown corporations according to function and degree of financial autonomy from the government. The Act also gives authority for planning, programming, and administrative policy operations in the federal government to the Treasury Board Secretariat, the central body of budgetary and expenditure, and personnel management. Amendment to the Act respecting section 34—payment for work, goods or services—was an important recommendation in 2006 of the Justice John Gomery’s inquiry into abuses respecting the $300-million sponsorship fund to improve the visibility of the federal government in Quebec following the near-success of the 1995 referendum on sovereignty. In public hearings and its interim report, the inquiry had earlier confirmed the auditor general’s allegations of fraud. In the final report, Justice Gomery recommended that violations of s.34 by an employee of the federal government be grounds for dismissal without compensation. See Scandal (Pacific, Custom, Beauharnois; Sponsorship). First Ministers’ Conference See Conference of First Ministers. First-past-the-post electoral system A term that describes the process by which votes are tallied in federal and provincial elections, and candidates declared elected—the single-member constituency system with plurality win. Under “first past the post,” the winner in each constituency is the candidate who receives more votes than any other candidate, but not necessarily more votes than the other candidates’ votes combined, that is, a plurality but not a majority of votes cast. A major criticism of the system is when, as in Canada, elections involve more than two candidates in most constituencies and concerns so-called lost votes, frequently of a majority of votes that cumulatively across constituencies results in a discrepancy between the percentage of a party’s popular vote and of its legislative representation. Perhaps the system’s most popular defence is that the discrepancies usually result in stable, majority governments that will have sufficient time to implement their policies. See Electoral system. Fiscal federalism A reference to the division in a federal system of government of taxation powers and revenue sources (tax fields), and hence a system of revenue-

Fragment (splinter) parties

sharing between the central and subnational governments to manage significant or structural disparities in the revenue base among governments. Although the contemporary fiscal regime in Canada dates largely from the Second World War, the Constitution Act, 1867 established the basic framework in sections describing the economic union and the economic and revenue-raising powers of the two levels of government. The federal-provincial fiscal regime at a particular time in Canada involves federal-provincial negotiations in the context of exclusive provincial responsibility for increasingly important and costly social policy fields, yet restricted powers of taxation compared to the federal government, and a per-capita tax yield that varies widely among the provinces. The result is a complex set of conditional and unconditional federal government transfers of money and tax points to provincial governments, as prescribed since 1996 in the Canada Health and Social Transfer (earlier in parliament’s Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act). See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Economic union of Canada; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Fiscal policy A government’s taxation (revenue) and implicitly its expenditure policies that are the basis of its budget. Fiscal policy involves regulating (along with monetary policy) the level of economic activity through the allocation of financial resources to government, private-sector business and to individuals. A classic debate in politics involves how to manage economic growth while ensuring an equitable distribution of wealth in society, through taxation, annual deficit or surplus budgeting, and overall management of the public debt. See Budget and budgetary process; Finance, Department of; Monetary policy. Fragment (splinter) parties Political parties whose founding leaders have usually abandoned a hitherto successful career in a governing party because of major policy differences with their leader. The fragment or splinter group receives considerable attention because of the founder’s prominence and the popularity of the grievance. However, lacking any real grass-roots involvement and being removed from traditional sources of financial support, fragment parties and their leaders’ political careers are usually short-lived. Henri Bourassa’s (earlier a Liberal cabinet minister) Nationaliste party in the early decades of the twentieth century, T.A. Crerar’s (earlier a Liberal minister) Manitoba wing of the federal Progressive party in the 1920s, H.H. Stevens’ (earlier a Conservative minister) Reconstruction party, and W.D. Herridge’s (confidant of a Conservative prime minister) New Democracy in the 1930s are examples of fragment parties in federal politics. Paul Hellyer’s (earlier a Liberal minister) Action Canada in the 1960s was a fragment party that did not last to contest an election. The Bloc Québécois (BQ), a federal party initially comprising former Liberal and Progressive Conservative members of parliament committed to Quebec sovereignty, gained prominence when Lucien Bouchard, a senior Progressive Conservative minister and confidant of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, resigned from the cabinet in 1989 and accepted the Bloc leadership. Unlike other fragment parties, however, the Bloc is an arm of an established grass-roots movement—the sovereignty movement in Quebec represented primarily by the provincial Parti

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Québécois—and, ironically, it formed the official opposition in the House of Commons under Bouchard from 1993 to 1997. The party became a weaker institutional focus of the sovereignty movement in Quebec after Bouchard resigned from federal politics to assume the leadership of the Parti Québécois and became the premier of Quebec. In the 2000 election, the BQ lost six seats to the Liberals and its first place in the popular vote in the province; in 2004, however, it gained 16 seats in Quebec, 54 to the Liberals’ 21, and most of the popular vote, though the campaign under Giles Duceppe focused on the Liberal sponsorship scandal in Quebec rather than sovereignty. In 2006, the party lost three seats, given a resurgent Conservative party in the province, but remained the most popular party in Quebec (42%). In any event, Bloc supporters intend the party to be short-lived, for its raison d’être would be eliminated with the achievement of its objective of Quebec sovereignty. Meanwhile, it remains the chief opposition to the Liberal party in federal politics in Quebec, but might be challenged in the future by the Conservatives as a federalist alternative to the Liberals. See Bloc Québécois. Franchise The right to vote in elections, now virtually universal in Canada. From 1867 to 1884, the franchise in federal elections in Canada, based on provincial law, was inconsistent across the country. A distinct federal franchise was established in 1885, including a property qualification and multiple votes for electors who held property in more than one constituency, but excluding women and all people of Asian descent. There was a return to the several provincial franchises for federal elections from 1898 to 1917, a combined franchise from 1917 to 1920, with a separate federal franchise established in 1920. Although the federal franchise now is extended basically to any Canadian 18 years of age or older, it was not always so. Property, gender and ethnic biases have already been mentioned. The most flagrant manipulation of the federal franchise for partisan electoral purpose occurred in 1917, during the First World War. Then, to support military conscription and the war, the Union government disenfranchised Canadians of central European origin, extended the franchise to women in the military and close female relatives of soldiers, and created a floating military vote (see Wartime Elections Act and Military Voters Act [Canada, 1917]). Since then, however, the history of the federal franchise is an account of its gradual extension. Following the war, women were enfranchised on the same basis as men, and the franchise was extended periodically to lower age levels from the high twenties in the 1920s to the teens in the 1970s. Denial of the federal franchise to people of Asian origin, Native Peoples, and religious conscientious objectors to military service was fully eliminated by 1960. At the provincial level, women were excluded from the franchise in Quebec provincial elections until 1940 and, until 1945, Canadians of Asian descent were excluded from voting in provincial elections in British Columbia. By 2002, the few remaining categories of disenfranchisement—for instance, judges and people in mental or correctional institutions—were eliminated in view of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees “every citizen” the right to vote in federal and provincial elections (s.3). (La) Francophonie A collective term to designate countries that are wholly or partly French-speaking. See Community (the Francophone; La Francophonie).

Free trade

Free trade The unrestricted flow of capital, labour, goods, and services across national and subnational borders. Despite the objective of Confederation in 1867 to achieve a common market in Canada, various provincial trade restrictions were created over time. Provincial governments cannot formally erect tariff barriers, but they developed restrictive practices through marketing boards, labour law, the licensing of trades and professions, regulating the issuance of securities, and preferential government purchasing policies. In the early 1990s, the federal Progressive Conservative government unsuccessfully proposed constitutional changes to eliminate interprovincial trade restrictions and establish a federal role in managing the economic union, and the successor Liberal government continued Conservative efforts to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers. However, various protective practices persist. There were limited reciprocal trade agreements between the United States and British North America in the nineteenth century, and shortly after Confederation in 1867, there was a movement to engage further in reciprocal trade agreements with the US. But until 1911, both Liberal and Conservative governments supported the system of imperial trade preferences with Britain and protective tariffs otherwise—the “National Policy” initiated by Conservative Prime Minister John A. Macdonald in the 1870s. In 1911, however, the opposition of organized business interests to a reciprocal trade agreement with the United States helped defeat Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government and elect Robert Borden’s Conservative government. But half a century later, Britain joined the European Economic Community (now the European Union) and the Commonwealth (formerly imperial) preferential trade system was dismantled. Canadian business had become firmly integrated with the United States economy and were now strong supporters of free trade with the US. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives (formerly the Business Council on National Issues) (ceocouncil.ca), representing chief executive officers of the 150 largest companies, and other organizations of manufacturing and exporting businesses, became forceful supporters of free trade in the 1980s. Liberal governments negotiated sectoral free trade arrangements with the United States in the 1960s, for example in the automobile industry. Reversing his position in opposition to free trade, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government initialled a free-trade agreement with the US in 1988 and won re-election largely on that issue. The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, formally concluded in 1989, was followed by negotiations among Canada, Mexico, and the United States to conclude the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992. There remain deep divisions within all three countries as to the relative costs and benefits of the agreements. Between Canada and the United States, for instance, Canadians complain about the complicated domestic US trade legislation that effectively ignores the dispute settlement mechanism in the agreements and impedes free trade, while Americans complain about Canadian social benefits such as public health care insurance as effectively a subsidy to the private sector. Attempts to create a western hemispheric free trade zone at the turn of the century were countered by various bilateral agreements with countries in the western hemisphere. Canada is also a signatory to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) agreement to encourage a Pacific free trade zone.

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Since the Second World War, the international community has been committed to lowering trade barriers through periodically negotiated agreements under the World Trade Organization, earlier the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT). The WTO, established in 1995, has almost 150 member-states. See Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (1989); Economic union of Canada; Globalization (globalism); North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992); World Trade Organization (WTO). Free vote A division in a legislature when members, normally bound by party discipline, are free to vote as they wish. In a disciplined party system such as Canada’s, divisions in the legislatures usually take place along party lines, with each party leadership using inducements or sanctions available to them to maintain discipline among party members. This cohesion ensures stability in a system of responsible parliamentary government in which the government must retain the confidence of the legislature in order to remain in office. Occasionally, however, a question will arise for which the leadership of normally the most tightly disciplined party—the government party—may conclude that it cannot or should not maintain the discipline of the whip. In such cases, the government will permit a free vote (the cabinet members excepted if involving a government-sponsored matter), asserting that this dignifies the legislature by making its debate and subsequent division a matter of each member’s conscience rather than one of confidence in the government. The opposition parties may likewise declare their members free of discipline or else maintain party cohesion to contrast their unity on the matter with disunity in the government caucus. Free votes have occurred in parliament on issues such as the abolition of capital punishment, access to therapeutic abortions, and the legalization of same-sex marriage. Some supporters of parliamentary reform argue that party discipline is too strictly observed in the House of Commons, and that members should be allowed to vote more often according to what they determine to be the majority view of their constituents or according to their conscience. On the other hand, party discipline insulates members from the blandishments and threats of powerful and narrow private interest groups and their lobbyists. Still, party discipline in Canadian legislatures is strong compared, for example, to the British House of Commons and, from time to time, federal governments have promised more free votes in the House of Commons by limiting confidence votes to money bills and other legislation declared to be matters of confidence in the government. See Party discipline. Freedom of information Reference to legislation under which the government is obliged to make information public. In 1983, the federal Liberal government enacted the Access to Information Act which was similar to legislation introduced by the short-lived Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark in 1979 (infocom.gc.ca/acts/default_e.asp). This and similar legislation in most provinces runs counter to the traditional practice of Crown privilege and confidentiality, and the natural tendency of governments to protect themselves from the public disclosure of information that might prove embarrassing. Therefore the adoption of such legislation in Canada

Fulton-Favreau Formula

was not only slow, but the statutes contain many broad categories of exemption. The federal legislation, for example, requires the government to reply to formal requests for information within 30 days, subject to extensions if the request is complex or if third parties must be notified. Requests for information may be denied if disclosure would be injurious to the conduct of federal-provincial relations, international affairs, national security, the safety of individuals, the national economic interest, third parties, or the investigation of criminal activities, or if they would facilitate an offence, constitute personal information as defined in the Privacy Act, or violate other statutory provisions (for example, in the Income Tax Act). Finally, cabinet documents are also protected under a broad category called “Operations of Government,” which includes “advice or recommendations” or “an account of consultations or deliberations involving officers or employees of a government institution, a minister of the Crown or the [minister’s] staff.” Dissatisfied applicants may appeal to the information commissioner (infocom.gc.ca), whose staff will investigate complaints related to denial, excessive costs, delay, or any other problems associated with the request for information. The commissioner may appeal to the Federal Court to seek government compliance with a request for information, but of course this further delays the process of disclosure. “Third parties,” that is neither the requester nor a government body, may initiate action before the Federal Court to prevent release of information, and the requester may also initiate action following receipt of the report of the information commissioner. In annual reports to parliament, the information commissioner has repeatedly complained about such delays, the statutory exemptions from the Access to Information Act, as well as a bureaucratic culture that does not accept the principle of accountability implied in “freedom of information.” Citing “persistent distrust,” the commissioner has complained about additional exclusions from the Act contained, for example, in legislation dealing with terrorism, the office of ethics commissioner, and a possible 20-year embargo on information from investigations of alleged wrong-doing resulting from so-called whistle-blowers, ostensibly to protect both the whistle-blower and the accused. The recommendations in 2006 of Justice John Gomery’s inquiry into the abuses surrounding the $300-million federal sponsorship program included references to the information commissioner’s criticisms of excessive government secrecy. Justice Gomery made specific recommendations to strengthen the Access to Information Act and the role of the information commissioner to ensure compliance. Fulton-Favreau Formula (1964) A proposal in 1964 to revise and patriate the constitution—the British North America Act, 1867—by adopting a domestic amending formula, named after the two federal ministers of justice who had chaired federal-provincial constitutional negotiations (E. Davie Fulton, a Progressive Conservative, succeeded by Guy Favreau, a Liberal). Rejected by Quebec, the proposal was, however, a basis for subsequent discussions and the formula that was eventually adopted in 1982. The Fulton-Favreau procedure would have required unanimous consent of parliament and the provincial legislatures for certain changes (for example, legislative powers allocated to the provinces, the use of English and French, denominational education rights, and the determination of representation by province

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in the House of Commons). Certain aspects of the constitution relating to the federal government would have been amended by parliament with the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the provincial legislatures, which together represented at least one-half of the country’s population (for example, the role of the monarchy and the governor general, Senate representation by provinces, and the five-year limit on the duration of a Parliament). Otherwise, parliament would continue to have the right to amend the constitution with respect to the government of Canada. Finally, the delegation of legislative power between the two levels of government would have been allowed by mutual consent of parliament and at least four provincial legislatures. All provinces would have had to be consulted on such delegation and parliament would assert that the delegation was of concern to fewer than four provinces. Federal-provincial conferences continued to be held on the constitution. In 1971, the so-called Victoria Charter was also rejected by Quebec. In 1982, the BNA Act was patriated, renamed the Constitution Act, with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and amending formulae reminiscent of the Fulton-Favreau Formula. Once again, Quebec was a dissenting government and constitutional negotiations continued into the 1990s to accommodate Quebec’s demands, a difficult process, highlighted by the defeat of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990 for want of legislative approval in Manitoba and Newfoundland. Public consultations and intergovernmental negotiations later led to the Charlottetown Accord and its rejection in a country-wide referendum in 1992. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Meech Lake Accord (1987); Victoria Charter (1971).

G G-8 countries, meeting of Annual meeting of the heads of government or state of the eight leading industrialized nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The meetings were initiated in the 1970s as an umbrella for meetings of senior finance officials and central bankers of five countries (Canada and Italy were added shortly afterwards, and Russia in 1977) to coordinate national policies with reference to particular economic problems. The summit meetings themselves are largely ceremonial “photo opportunities” with discussion frequently focused on immediate political issues rather than long-term solutions to economic problems. The institution of the G-8 summit nonetheless is an acknowledgement of an international commitment to achieve agreed-upon common macro-economic policies among finance officials of the leading industrialized economies. In recent years, finance ministers and officials of industrialized countries additional to the G-8 as well as some developing countries, have also met for discussions focusing on third-world development. See World Trade Organization (WTO). Gay and lesbian rights The basis of a social movement, especially since the 1970s, to end all forms of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, that gathered political strength from judicial interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and various provincial human rights codes.

Gay and lesbian rights

The movement for gay and lesbian rights in Canada received initial encouragement from the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, with the removal in 1969 of Criminal Code prohibitions regarding sexual relations among consenting adults. The strength of the movement was considerably reinforced through court decisions involving the equality rights section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enacted in 1982. While governments, especially at the provincial level with few exceptions, have been reluctant to legislate independently of court decisions to eliminate discrimination in law, none has used the “notwithstanding clause” of the Charter (s.33) to protect discriminatory legislation from judicial review. Instead, they have responded, however reluctantly, to bring various legislation and government regulations into conformity with court decisions. Ontario’s New Democratic government in 1994 was the first in Canada to propose granting same-sex couples rights (and obligations) granted others, notably respecting the adoption of children, contracts for property and inheritance rights, in addition to family-benefits packages. In free votes, the legislation passed first reading, but was defeated on second reading. In 1995, justices of the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously agreed to “read in” to the equality section 15 of the Charter “sexual orientation” as a prohibited basis of discrimination (Egan), even though the framers of the Charter had considered, but then excluded sexual orientation from the list of grounds of prohibited discrimination. Egan involved spousal pension rights and, though the court ruled against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the case was narrowly lost as Egan and his partner were not married under the law, and five of the nine justices held that discrimination in this case was “saved” as a reasonable limit permitted under section 1. However, with its agreement that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was unconstitutional, the court thus considered the list in section 15 not to restrict Charter protection from potentially prejudicial discrimination based on other personal characteristics. A few years later, the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta, deciding not to invoke the “notwithstanding” section 33 of the Charter, acceded to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that effectively read in “sexual orientation” as a prohibited basis of discrimination to the province’s human rights legislation (Vriend, 1999). While judicial rulings rather than legislative votes have ended discrimination with reference to such family law matters as same-sex benefits (M v. H, 1999), and employment (Vriend), the legal definition of marriage—a federal matter— restricted to opposite-sex couples remained in place until a series of provincial and territorial courts ruled consistently in 2003–2004 that prohibition of “same-sex” marriage was unconstitutional. Ruling on a federal reference in 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that proposed legislation to extend the definition of marriage to same-sex couples was constitutional, and validated lower court rulings. The court also ruled that religious officials were not compelled to solemnize marriage—a provincial matter—or make religious premises available for the solemnization of same-sex marriages. In 2005, the federal Civil Marriage Act, which redefined marriage as a union of two people, was enacted in a free vote, with the newly created (Canadian Alliance-Progressive Conservative) Conservative party the only party in declared opposition to the measure. During the election campaign in 2006, following which he formed a minority government, Conservative leader

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Stephen Harper promised to reintroduce the subject with a free vote, a promise that ranked high with the party’s social conservative constituency. At the time, public opinion polls indicated that many Canadians considered the matter settled, especially as any move to reverse the law could only be effective by invoking the notwithstanding section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that Harper said he would not do. Gender politics (gap) Discussion focusing on differences between men and women in political involvement, participation, representation, party preference, and public policy attitudes. A seminal event for the contemporary women’s movement, which fuelled gender politics, was the final report of the federal Royal Commission on the Status of Women chaired in 1967–1970 by Florence Bird. Scholarly studies of gender politics in Canada have focused on obstacles to participation and representation by women, and the nature of the gender gap among party activists and voters generally. Also, some feminists argue that differences between men and women in social attitudes and policy preferences are based on different fundamental values. Women, they argue, are more motivated than men for “expressive” reasons such as service, and less than men for “instrumental” reasons such as the personal acquisition of power. Thus, greater participation of women in politics, especially in public roles, can fundamentally alter the political agenda and the quality of political discourse. The entrenchment of gender equality in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 (ss.15, 28) enlarged the domain of gender politics by legitimizing women’s issues in Canada’s political discourse and providing an impetus for the women’s movement to challenge legal and institutional structures that had marginalized women in Canadian society. These challenges have focused on reproduction rights, workplace equity in recruitment, promotion, and compensation, division of labour within the family, and recognition of non-market, that is, household labour, and improved statutory provisions regarding family violence, child support, and child care. In addition to pursuing these issues, the organized women’s movement, comprising a network of about 700 diverse but loosely linked organizations, with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (naccca.ca) at its centre, participated actively in constitutional discussions in the early 1980s and 1990s. Among the electorate, studies in the 1980s and 1990s have suggested that there is a gender difference in party support and views on public policies. For instance, women tend to be more inclined than men to vote for the Liberal or New Democratic parties, whose delegates surveyed at various party conventions have generally favoured redistributive social spending over defence spending, and more rather than less government management of the economy compared to Progressive Conservatives and Reform party delegates. Women consistently comprise approximately one-fifth of members of parliament, for example, 64 women (20.7%) were among the 308 MPs elected in 2006. The percentages varied considerably among the parties, with the two largest caucuses—the governing Conservatives and the official opposition Liberals—having the smallest percentage of women. The fourth-ranking NDP caucus comprised the largest percentage of women: 41.3 per cent; 12 of 29 members. The Bloc Québécois was next: 33 per cent of caucus; 17 of 51 members. The official oppo-

General amending formula

sition Liberal party caucus of 103 members (reduced by one with a post-election defection) included 21 women: 20.3 per cent. The Conservative government caucus comprised the smallest percentage of women: 11.2 per cent; 14 of 124 members (supplemented by one following the defection). An independent male candidate was also elected. Of the Green candidates in 2006, none of whom was elected, 23 per cent were women. No federal cabinet since the 1960s has lacked at least a few female cabinet members in prominent portfolios. In 1993, Kim Campbell, who had served in Defence and Justice portfolios, was chosen leader of the Progressive Conservative party, to succeed Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and served briefly as prime minister until defeated in the general election later that year. There have been two female leaders of the federal New Democratic party, Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough, in the late 1980s and 1990s. The percentage of women in recent federal cabinets has approximated their overall representation in the House of Commons. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s initial cabinet in 2006 included six women: government leader in the Senate; Canadian Heritage and Status of Women; Environment; Human Resources and Social Development; International Co-operation, La Francophonie and Official Languages; and National Revenue. Affirmative action programs for the federal administration begun in 1988 replaced deliberately discriminatory practices. Women represent a proportion of the federal public administration similar to their proportion of the population, but not in senior positions. However, women have been appointed to important positions such as clerk of the privy council and justices and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. That women are graduating with undergraduate and post-graduate university degrees in increasing numbers suggests that the role of women in senior administrative positions will likewise increase. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT) A periodically renegotiated international agreement established in 1947 in the aftermath of the Second World War to reduce tariffs and other restrictions on international trade, now the World Trade Organization. Canada was a signatory to the GATT, as foreign trade comprises a significant portion of Canada’s gross domestic product and employment. See World Trade Organization (WTO). General amending formula (Constitution Act, 1982) The general procedure by which the Constitution Act is amended: by proclamation of the governor general upon authorization by resolutions of the Senate (that can exercise only a suspensive veto [s.47]), the House of Commons, and resolutions of two thirds of provincial legislative assemblies that together have, according to the latest general census, at least 50 per cent of the population of all the provinces (s.38:1). There are several other amending formulae in the Constitution Act, pertaining to matters that require resolutions of parliament and all provincial legislatures, of parliament and some but not all provincial legislatures, of only parliament, and only of a provincial legislature. Until 1982, because the major Canadian constitutional statute—the British North America Act—was an act of the imperial parliament in London, it could be amended only by the UK parliament, albeit on a resolution of the Canadian par-

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liament. This anomaly, given Canada’s status as an independent nation in the twentieth century, resulted from the inability of Canadian federal and provincial governments to agree on a purely domestic amending formula. A consensus was achieved in the early 1980s for the constitution’s “patriation,” lacking however the support of Quebec, in part because the general amending formula precluded the necessary consent of the National Assembly of that sole jurisdiction whose population was predominantly French-speaking. Quebec was not mollified by further subsections in sections 38 and 40: any amendment that affects “the legislative powers, the proprietary rights or any other rights or privileges of the legislature or government of a province” (s.38.2) will not have effect in a province whose legislature expresses its dissent (38.3,4); where an amendment transfers provincial legislative powers “relating to education or other cultural matters” to the federal government, the federal government will provide “reasonable compensation” to the dissenting province (s.40). Following the referendum in Quebec on sovereignty-association in 1995, which was only narrowly defeated, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had parliament enact the non-entrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996 that no constitutional amendment using the general amending formula would be introduced in parliament, even it is met the conditions of provincial support, unless it had the consent of legislatures in each of five regions of the country, with Quebec designated as one of the regions. (Other regions were Ontario, British Columbia, the three prairie provinces, and the four Atlantic provinces—subject to an additional requirement in the latter two regions, that comprise several provinces, of support from legislatures which, together, represent at least 50 per cent of the regional population.) Although not entrenched in the constitution, and therefore subject to modification or repeal by parliament, the resolution effectively granted Quebec a veto on constitutional amendments that require parliament’s approval. See Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended. Geographic cleavage A social division delineating areal or spatial communities of interest. The cleavage is usually expressed in terms of the core, or metropolis, on the one side, and the periphery, or hinterland, on the other. The core/metropolis is that part of a political unit that is densely populated, where most of the manufacturing, industrial, research, and financial activity takes place; it also contains major centres of advanced learning, the arts, the dominant communication media, and government. The remainder of the political unit is the periphery or hinterland. In Canada, the national core has historically been the lower St. Lawrence Valley and the lower Great Lakes area, including Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, or central Canada generally, comprising the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The periphery comprises several distinct regions: the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, or Atlantic Canada when including Newfoundland and Labrador; the West, comprising Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, or the first three provinces alone as the “prairie West”; finally, the North, comprising three territories: Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. These regions and provinces can each be subdivided between core and periphery. For example, the lower mainland including Vancouver and Victoria constitute British Columbia’s core, and the “interior” its

Geographic cleavage

periphery. Also, changes can take place over time. Edmonton and Calgary, the core of the resource-industry-based prairie West, have displaced Winnipeg, the historically dominant core of an agriculture-based prairie West. The political attitudes and behaviour manifested in Canada’s regions often reflect those of adjacent regions of the United States. The models of behaviour for people in Canada’s core were traditionally those of the British core (London), but more recently those of the United States northeast core, including New York City. Likewise, political attitudes and behaviour in the Canadian West have been historically influenced by the populist ideas and political movements of the US midwest and northwest. It is difficult to isolate issues that are purely spatial in meaning, but once apparent, the “inter-state” nature of Canadian federalism promotes and perpetuates such issues in federal-provincial government relations, rather than within political institutions at the centre (intra-state federalism). Policies that highlight regional interests in Canada include transportation, natural resources, trade, agriculture, and regional development. Western disaffection toward the “East” or central Canada is often expressed in terms that also have bicultural or class overtones. This is because the bulk of Canada’s francophone population and a high concentration of wealth and economic decision making are found in central Canada and are well represented in federal institutions, both political and administrative, in the national capital region of Ottawa-Gatineau. Western disaffection with political institutions, processes, and policies deemed “central Canadian” has been manifested in radical political behaviour on both the political left and the right. Historically, the prairie provinces were creations of the federal parliament, and a predominantly European population was enticed there in the early decades of the twentieth century by the Canadian government’s promise of a better life. Moreover, many settlers had already experienced or had knowledge of radical behaviour in trade unions, rural co-operatives, and socialist and populist political parties. As already mentioned, there was also considerable knowledge of similar concerns and debate in adjacent US states. Thus, when expectations were not met, the western population readily rejected the “received” party system and its two “eastern” parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals. In contrast to the West, the Atlantic periphery is a long-settled region where traditional elites were more firmly established and better integrated in the economic and political institutions of Canada. Also, Atlantic Canada’s economy, less advantaged than the West’s by structural changes in the twentieth century, is more reliant on federal equalization, shared-cost, and regional development programs. Therefore, long after Confederation, Atlantic Canada remained the most solid regional support base, both federally and provincially, for the Conservative and Liberal parties of the Confederation period of the late 1800s. Because of its climate, physical size, sparse and widely distributed population, its territorial status and therefore still limited political autonomy, the North has a distinct political personality, including the development of indigenous Nativebased political institutions and practices. In 1999, the territory of Nunavut was established in the eastern Arctic, the first jurisdiction whose population, however small, was predominantly Aboriginal. Territorial government leaders had participated earlier in constitutional negotiations with federal and provincial first min-

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isters in 1992, although their inclusion was foreseen in Part IV/IV.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982. It is noteworthy that the resulting Charlottetown Accord, negotiated by federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal leaders, and defeated in a country-wide referendum in 1992, had its greatest regional public acceptance in Atlantic Canada and the North, and its greatest regional rejection in the West. The West, then, has been the origin and site for much radical political behaviour in Canada. Despite the federal New Democratic party’s attempts to make inroads in central and Atlantic Canada, the West remained a reliable base of support for the social democratic NDP as it had been for its predecessor the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, notably in British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The West was also the bastion of support for the Progressive party in the 1920s and for the social conservative and populist Social Credit party from the 1930s to the 1970s. The ideological polarization of politics in British Columbia is a periphery political counterpoint to the traditional party loyalties in the Atlantic periphery. In BC’s provincial politics from the 1950s to the 1990s, the Social Credit and the CCF-NDP were the two major parties. In federal politics, the decline of the Social Credit party in the 1960s, the rise and fall of the Progressive Conservatives in the prairie West from the 1960s to the 1990s, and the rise of the Reform party in the 1990s—after 2000, the Canadian Alliance that merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003 as the Conservative party—reflected a shift in partisan preferences within the social conservative constituency. The popularity of the federal Progressive Conservatives in the West had been based in large part on the leadership of that otherwise “eastern” party by westerner John Diefenbaker, from 1957 to 1967, and later based on popular provincial representatives such as Alberta Progressive Conservative leaders and premiers, Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein. While Diefenbaker’s immediate predecessor as federal Conservative leader was a central Canadian, his two immediate successors were from the periphery—Robert Stanfield from Nova Scotia and Joe Clark from Alberta—though neither was styled social conservative, but rather as “moderates” or “Red Tories.” In the 1990s, western disaffection with the Progressive Conservative party of central Canadian Brian Mulroney resulted in increased support, especially in Alberta, for the Reform party led by Preston Manning, son of former Alberta Social Credit Premier Ernest Manning. The clarion call of Reform was “The West wants in!” In the 1993 election, the right-populist Reform party won 18.7 per cent of the national popular vote, mostly in the West but notably in Alberta (52%) and BC (36.4%), and elected 52 members of parliament, all but one from western Canada. In 1997, the Reform party formed the official opposition with only western representation, and in 2000, was reorganized as the Canadian Alliance, in an attempt to increase support east of Manitoba. In a leadership contest, the Albertan Manning was defeated by Stockwell Day, an Alberta Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, under whose leadership in the election later that year the Alliance fared little better than Manning’s Reformers previously. Day was succeeded by Alberta-based Stephen Harper, head of a conservative interest group styled the National Citizens’ Coalition. He and Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay negotiated their parties’ merger in 2003 as the Conservative party

Globalization

of Canada, with Harper later winning the party’s leadership, which MacKay chose not to contest. The party remained the official opposition when the Liberals formed a minority government in 2004, but following the election two years later, Harper and the Conservatives formed a minority government. The West was “in,” but, in a minority situation and hoping eventually to form a majority government, Conservative Prime Minister Harper still had to make further gains in eastern Canada, but particularly in Ontario and Quebec, and particularly in large vote- and seat-rich urban areas in most parts of the country—in effect, one might conclude, a coalition similar to that of Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1980s. Liberal organizers have long recognized the electoral importance of central Canada—densely populated and therefore constituency-rich Ontario and a “Québec solide.” Liberal fortunes have faltered only when they have lost favour either in Ontario—during the second decade of the twentieth century, including the First World War—or Quebec—at various times since the 1960s, but especially since the 1990s and the rise of the Bloc Québécois. In the 2006 election, the Conservatives managed to win sufficient support in Quebec to be considered a federalist option to both the Liberals and the BQ. All federal Liberal leaders have had either public- or private-sector careers in Ontario or Quebec. None has come from the periphery, although William Lyon Mackenzie King, the successful leader of almost 30 years, once held a seat in Saskatchewan, but had prominent western representatives in his cabinets. John Turner, briefly leader in the 1980s, was raised and educated in British Columbia and held a seat in Vancouver, but his earlier parliamentary and business careers were based in Quebec and Ontario. Gerrymander Deliberate manipulation of the boundaries of electoral constituencies to ensure that the opposition vote is concentrated in only a few constituencies while the vote for the governing party responsible for the gerrymander will be greater than the opposition vote in most constituencies. The word “gerrymander” comes from such a manipulation in Massachusetts in 1812 by the party of Governor Elbridge Gerry, which resulted in constituencies whose configurations resembled those of a salamander. Gerrymandering can take place effectively only when one party has control over the drawing of constituency boundaries. The possibilities for gerrymandering have diminished considerably in Canada since the 1960s, as federal and provincial legislatures have delegated the responsibility for redesigning constituency boundaries to impartial boundary commissions. See Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats). Globalization (globalism) A generic term for cross- or supranational policies, generated notably by economic interests encouraging the lowering of barriers to international trade, and reducing protectionist national policies on commerce, but also in social and cultural matters. In addition to regional free trade agreements, the chief characteristic of globalism involves the subjection of national and regional trade policies generally to the regulations flowing from international agreements such as those of the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—the WTO and IMF being the organizations that princi-

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pally affect Canada and other industrialized national economies; all three affecting developing countries. The process of globalization encourages enhanced worldwide corporate competition with minimal government controls on cross-national corporate behaviour regarding, for example, the flow of capital investment, labour laws, environmental protection, large-scale mergers of transnational corporations, and technological innovation. Enhanced cross-national corporate competition also involves the recasting, if not elimination, of various national policies and programs regarding such cultural industries as publishing, broadcasting, film, video, and sound recording. Globalization represents a fundamental challenge to individual nation-states whose economic, trade, and cultural policies, while more or less liberal domestically, have historically been protectionist with respect to other countries. Globalization also challenges the fundamental organization of international relations and politics. At its most extreme, it implies an integrated worldwide economic unit managed by organizations named above, in which national borders and national policies are incrementally eliminated. Because foreign trade accounts for a significant portion of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product and provides jobs for millions of Canadians, Canada was among the initial signatories in 1947 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT), now the World Trade Organization, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (the OECD). Periodic agreements among member-states involve the reduction of national barriers to foreign competition, and Canada has had to revamp or eliminate many domestic practices and policies to be in conformity with the regulations and binding decisions of the WTO. In the 1990s, the IMF spurred the Canadian government to adopt policies that eliminated federal budget deficits and reduced the national debt. As a trading nation, following the demise of the imperial trade preferences with the United Kingdom and excluded from an associate relationship with the European Union, the Canadian government vigorously pursued free trade agreements, first with the United States in 1987, and shortly thereafter with the United States and Mexico. The Canadian government continues to pursue bilateral free trade agreements with other countries. Debate over globalization has tended to pit major business interests against “economic nationalists.” For instance, important business groups such as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (ceocouncil.ca) and Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (cme-mec.ca) support globalization. The Council of Canadians (canadians.org) is opposed to the weakening of the independent policy-making role of government in social and cultural policy fields. Their most significant success in this respect was their participation with other national groups in the late 1990s to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). “Globalists” in Canada argued that the MAI, sponsored by various industrialized nations within the OECD, would have ensured that Canadian firms investing abroad would be treated fairly. “Nationalists” were concerned that the MAI would further restrict the Canadian government’s ability to regulate foreign investment and corporate behaviour in Canada, and weaken governments’ role, especially in social, cultural, and communication policy fields.

Government bills

By the turn of the twenty-first century, however, globalization, originally promoted almost entirely by proponents of free trade in the western world, was losing some supporters in the West, but winning over earlier critics who had a broader view of globalization beyond trade and commerce. Innovations in information technology in particular, but “outsourcing” of production and employment generally from the West to the developing world, and growth in the Indian and Chinese economies in particular, were increasingly seen as threats demanding protectionist responses among western governments. At the same time, earlier critics were becoming “globalists,” urging governments to deal with environmental problems such as climate change, as well as with human rights, ethnic conflicts, and scourges such as HIV/AIDS and poverty, particularly as they affect women and children. See Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989); Continentalism; Economic nationalism; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992); World Trade Organization (WTO). Goods and Services (ad valorem, value-added) Tax (GST) A federal consumption, or value-added tax introduced by the Progressive Conservative government in 1991, applied to virtually all goods and services sold at all stages of production and distribution. The few exempt and zero-rated (0 per cent-taxed) goods and services include basic foodstuffs, most health and dental, and educational services, and residential rents. The GST, which replaced the federal manufacturers’ sales tax, is similar to a retail sales tax in that it is paid by the consumer; however, as it applies to all stages of production and distribution, businesses can recover the GST they pay for commercial purposes. The government also introduced a GST credit for which low-income people can qualify through income tax returns. The tax was introduced despite considerable opposition. Indeed its adoption by parliament was ensured only after Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, exploiting a never before-used section of the Constitution Act (s.26), had eight additional senators appointed to overcome a Liberal majority in the upper house. Criticism from the political left focused on the regressive nature of the tax, that is, its ultimate incidence on the individual consumer bears no direct relationship to one’s ability to pay; critics on the political right condemned the GST as a “tax grab.” Despite the government’s assertion that it was “revenue neutral,” revenue from the GST was significantly greater than expected. The unpopularity and defeat of the Progressive Conservative government in 1993 was due in some measure to the GST. The successor Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, having promised to eliminate it, did not; instead, it negotiated a “harmonized” federal-provincial sales tax (HST) with some provinces. The new federal Conservative party’s promise in 2006 to lower the rate of the GST was criticized by many economists, debating the relative merit of taxes on consumption and income. However, the promise was popular, apparently contributing to the party’s electoral success. Government (public) bills Legislation introduced by the government to whose eventual passage, perhaps subject to minor amendment, the government is committed. Consideration of government orders—usually legislation—dominates the legislative agenda. A government may be politically embarrassed if forced by opposition criticism and public opinion to withdraw or significantly alter a bill.

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Because public dissent among government party supporters is even more embarrassing, a wise government usually discusses its intentions in caucus before introducing controversial legislation in the house. In Canada, major government bills, especially supply bills, are questions of confidence on which, if defeated, the government is obliged by convention either to seek dissolution of the legislature for an election or resign. See Legislation; Responsible government. Governor general The person who exercises the functions of the Crown in Canada under Letters Patent made effective by the sovereign. The appointment of the governor general is formally a function of the sovereign, but informally of the federal cabinet, notably the prime minister. Thus Canada has a dual executive: the governor general representing the sovereign, acting on the advice of the prime minister and federal cabinet, the effective part of the executive, the governor-incouncil. Acts of parliament require the assent of the governor general—royal assent—as the final stage in the passage of legislation. Executive orders of the cabinet authorized by legislation also require the governor general’s assent to have effect as orders-in-council. The governor general’s term of appointment is usually for five years although this term can be modified. The Constitution Act, 1867 describes a role for the governor general (Part III), but Letters Patent received from the sovereign also delineate the governor general’s role. Until the Imperial Conference of 1926, governors general were not only representatives of the formal non-resident head of state, but also of the British government in Canada, and hence appointed by the British government. Since 1947, governors general have exercised the power and authority of the Crown in Canada, with the advice solely of the sovereign’s Privy Council for Canada, effectively the federal cabinet. Important powers include appointment of federal ministers of the Crown, notably the prime minister, and provincial lieutenant-governors, judges, and administrative officials; they also include the power to summon, prorogue, and dissolve parliament, the latter in order to hold a general election. The governor general-in-council has exclusive power to recommend legislation involving public expenditures or revenue from taxation and appoint senators, including the Speaker of the Senate. The governor general is also commander-in-chief of Canada’s armed forces. While in these important matters the governor general acts on the advice of the Privy Council for Canada, as the governor-in-council, the effective part of which is the federal cabinet, there remains a residue of discretionary authority, or crown prerogative, pertaining to the dissolution of parliament and the appointment and dismissal of the prime minister. In this respect, the governor general’s primary constitutional duty is to ensure that there is a government in office that has the confidence of the House of Commons. The last time a governor general rejected a prime minister’s advice was in 1926 when Governor General Byng refused Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s request for dissolution of parliament and an election, eight months after the previous election. King, whose Liberals actually held fewer seats than the opposition Conservatives but who courted support from Progressive and Labour members of parliament, was on the verge of losing a vote of confidence. Instead, the governor general accepted King’s resignation and appointed Conservative leader Arthur Meighen as prime minister. Unfortunately for both

Governor general’s warrants

Byng and Meighen, the Conservative minority government lasted only three sitting days. Byng then had no recourse but to dissolve parliament, and in the subsequent election the Liberals won a majority. Though the Liberals made Byng’s “intervention” in 1926 an election issue, the governor general retains this extraordinary discretionary power to dismiss a government. However, a prudent governor general would be one inclined to let the political parties and the electorate resolve questions resulting from indeterminate election results or of political misbehaviour, and exercise the prerogative only in the most dire circumstances to protect the constitution, satisfied that the discretionary act would be deemed justified. Though parliament is dissolved for a general election to the House of Commons, the government continues in office. In the unlikely event of a government and an opposition party being tied following an election or, as in King’s case in 1926, in a minority position, the prime minister retains the right to meet the newly elected House of Commons and seek its confidence. In such a circumstance, a governor general might counsel the prime minister to have the new Parliament summoned sooner rather than later. Since 1947, the office of governor general has been continually “nationalized.” In 1952, following a succession of Britons in the office, Vincent Massey was the first Canadian appointed governor general. Since then, custom suggests not only that Canadians hold the office, but that there be appointed alternately an anglophone and a francophone. Vice-regal appointments have been seen to acknowledge Acadians, women, Canadians born elsewhere, and Canadians of neither French nor British, but other European, Asian and Afro-Caribbean descent. Governors general have had careers in one or more of broadcasting, diplomacy, journalism, the military and politics. Also, since the 1970s, the federal government has “advised” the governor general to engage in activity appropriate to a head of state rather than a representative of a non-resident head of state. Domestically, the occasional presence of the governor general in the Arctic, for example, represents a display of national sovereignty over the land and waterways of the archipelago; internationally, the governor general has made official state visits to other countries. The governor-in-council also appoints provincial lieutenant-governors who have similar roles in their respective province in relation to the government of the day, formally the Executive Council of the province. However, as a federal office, a lieutenant-governor has a role in constitutional law regarding the reservation and disallowance of provincial legislation, though constitutional convention has severely diminished the likelihood of such action by a lieutenant-governor either independently or on instruction from the federal government. See Crown; Crown prerogatives; Governor-in-council; King-Byng Dispute; Lieutenant-governor; Reservation (of legislation); Sovereign, the. Governor general’s warrants Authorization issued through an order-in-council for unforeseen emergency expenditure of public money not approved by parliament. According to provisions of the Financial Administration Act, the governor-in-council issues warrants when the Treasury Board reports, on the advice of the relevant minister, that such authorization is necessary. The government must report the issuance of warrants in the Canada Gazette and the expenditures must be included as part of the next supplementary estimates. Only the government has the authority to put supply bills before parliament, but parliament must sanc-

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tion all expenditures, normally before the actual disbursement of the funds. See Budget and budgetary process. Governor-in-council The formal constitutional body through which the federal cabinet exercises executive power. Under the Constitution Act, 1867 and Letters Patent (1947), the governor general advised by the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada constitutes the executive power. The cabinet or government-of-the-day, which the governor general appoints, has no statutory status by itself. Rather, the cabinet is the effective part of the council, whose advice the governor general virtually always accepts. Thus, the governor-in-council is the governor general acting on the “advice” of the cabinet; and the executive instrument of the governor-in-council is an order-incouncil or minute of the council. The governor general does not attend cabinet meetings, but signs orders or minutes delivered from cabinet through the Privy Council Office (PCO). In the provinces, a similar relationship exists between the lieutenant-governors and their Executive Councils—effectively the provincial cabinets or governments-of-the-day. The lieutenant-governor, however, is a federal officer. Under the Constitution Act, the governor-in-council, effectively the prime minister, appoints lieutenant-governors, and parliament establishes their salaries. Though by constitutional convention not likely to be exercised, constitutional law grants power to the governor-in-council, that is, the federal cabinet, to instruct provincial lieutenant-governors to reserve provincial legislation for the federal government’s consideration and possible disallowance. See Disallowance; Governor general; Lieutenant-governor; Reservation; Privy Council Office (PCO). Green Party of Canada (greenparty.ca) A federal party founded in 1983, intellectually aligned with the international “green,” or environmental, social movement, focusing on policies related to ecological thinking, non-violence and social justice. The party ran 60 candidates initially in the 1984 election, but 20 years later was able to field candidates in all 308 constituencies. It also ran a full slate in 2006, and, as in 2004, garnered almost 5 per cent of the popular vote, but failed to win a seat in the House of Commons. As part of the “green” movement, the Green party supports various progressive issues, in the context of “shifting to a green economy,” including policies that “make ecological and social sense.” The party has been able to finance increased participation in federal elections in part because of public funding based on its share of the popular in previous elections. Not surprisingly, as a party that has diffused support in the country, but insufficiently concentrated to win seats in the House of Commons, the party supports a system of proportional representation. See Electoral system; Environmentalism; Proportional representation. Green (coloured) paper A government document that contains proposals on aspects of public policy. Traditionally designated green or some other colour, governments are not committed to the proposals in these papers, but can use their publication to gauge public opinion. Governments might publish coloured papers on matters of public interest to which it does not wish to commit itself at present, but at least give the impression of interest in the subject. When a coloured paper

Hansard

is tabled in a legislature, it is usually sent to a committee that will hold hearings and report to the legislature on the proposals. Subsequently, the government might introduce legislation on the question or, if it wishes to delay further, might publish a white paper containing specific government proposals or options, for still further discussion. To not act following a green paper is not considered as embarrassing to a government as withdrawing proposals contained in a white paper, and still less embarrassing than withdrawing legislation that it has already introduced in the legislature. See White paper. Grit (Clear Grit) A popular term to refer to Liberals and the Liberal party in Canada. The phrase “Clear Grit” was popularized by George Brown, editor of The Globe and political reformer in Canada West in the mid-nineteenth century. It indicates the quality of character Brown thought necessary for members of his wing of the Reform party in the Province of Canada. The term was applied in the post-Confederation period to the Liberal party, which represented the same rural and Protestant interests in Ontario and included Brown himself as a prominent member. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) A statistical statement that the federal government (Statistics Canada: statcan.ca) publishes concerning economic activity, based on the Canadian System of National Accounts. This system is closely related to an international standard of national accounts. The GDP measures the market value of all final goods and services produced in a specific period by Canadian factors of production. It does not include work within the home, or volunteer work. Demand for Canadian goods and services arises from private and public spending, business investment and export demand. The GDP is a measure of the cycle of domestic economic expansion and recession, and generally of how well the economy is performing: if growing, the economy is “in good shape”; if less than the previous year, the economy is “underperforming,” with high unemployment and a lower overall standard of living.

H Hansard The informal name for the verbatim record of debates in the House of Commons, Senate, and provincial legislatures, named after the family of Luke Hansard, original printers in the eighteenth century of debates of the British parliament. Edited, translated, and printed in English and in French, the House of Commons Hansard is publicly available the morning after each day’s sitting. Hansard is available online (parl.gc.ca [main menu: “chamber business”]). A revised, indexed, and bound edition is published later. The official parliamentary English titles are House of Commons Debates: Official Report and Debates of the Senate: Official Report. The daily record, with minor editorial changes by members of parliament and senators to correct grammar and achieve clarity, is compiled from shorthand notes of “reporters,” who work from the floor of the legislative chamber during the debate. The term Hansard is also used informally with reference to the published record of committee meetings.

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Have (have-not) provinces A popular term that designates provinces that do or do not receive unconditional equalization payments or other adjustment grants from the federal government under federal-provincial tax agreements. Various formulae have been in effect since the 1950s to calculate payments intended to raise the per capita revenue of each “have-not” province to a defined national average of provincial per capita tax revenue. The commitment of the federal government to the principle of equalization payments was entrenched in the Constitution Act, 1982 (Part III). See Equalization grants; Federal- provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Head of state The person who holds the political office that embodies the authority and power of the state—in Canada, a non-resident monarch represented by the governor general of Canada, and within their respective provincial jurisdictions, the lieutenant-governors. Canada’s dual executive distinguishes between the “dignified” representatives of the head of state and the “effective” heads of government, the prime minister, and provincial and territorial premiers. The head of state “reigns, but does not rule.” Constitutional statutes and conventions define the powers of the Canadian head of state and its representatives. See Crown; Crown prerogatives; Custom, convention and usage; Governor general. High Commissioner (Commission) The senior diplomat representing Canada in each Commonwealth country and that of each Commonwealth country in Canada, and their office. The terms, used instead of “ambassador” and “embassy” to distinguish member-states of the Commonwealth from other countries, are of nineteenth-century origin, when Canadian agents had no international status except as associates of British diplomats. Canada’s representative in London was designated a high commissioner rather than an ambassador and had consular rather than diplomatic rank. This model was followed in the cases of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa when they gained self-governing status in their internal affairs in the early twentieth century. In time, Canada and the other dominions acquired status in external relations in their own right. Since the transformation of the British Empire to the large Commonwealth of Nations following the Second World War, the terms “high commissioner” and “high commission” have continued to distinguish the particular relationship of the former colonies with the United Kingdom and to each other in the Commonwealth. See British connection; Commonwealth of Nations. Horizontal agencies An informal term denoting key or central administrative bodies in government that, in addition to being hierarchically organized in single vertical structures, have influence over other government bodies across the entire public administration. At the federal level, for example, the president of the Treasury Board has authority over cabinet colleagues and across the government through the Treasury Board Secretariat, in consolidating and coordinating policy and procedures regarding budgetary process and accounting for expenditures. The Privy Council Office (or cabinet secretariat) responsible to the prime minister, the Department of Finance, and the Public Service Commission are other examples of horizontal agencies in

House of Commons

the federal administration. The Prime Minister’s Office, a source of intelligence and counsel for partisan purposes, is also influential both in the government party and the public administration. See various entries on the agencies mentioned here. House leaders Members of parliament (or provincial legislatures)—one designated from each party to manage party conduct in the legislature, and collectively to seek agreement on scheduling business in the house. The government’s house leader, a member of the cabinet, is responsible for obtaining agreement among the parties on the legislative timetable. Acting in close touch with their respective party leaders, the house leaders have the authority to negotiate a timetable and hold their respective parties to the negotiated agreement. Recognizing that the government and opposition parties have different objectives in parliamentary proceedings, house leaders may not come to an agreement, in which case the government can introduce a motion to allocate specific time to consideration of legislation. See Closure; Filibuster. House of Assembly The official name for the elected legislatures of Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The legislature in Quebec is styled the National Assembly, and the Legislative Assembly in the other provinces and the territories. The organization and procedures of the provincial legislatures are not too dissimilar from those of the House of Commons, especially in matters of constitutional convention. See House of Commons. House of Commons (via: parl.gc.ca) The elected lower house of parliament, some of whose members constitute the government, ministry, or cabinet; others, the opposition parties’ leadership (shadow cabinet or critics); and most, backbench supporters of the parties. At a given time a few members may be sitting as independents, unattached to any party in the house. The composition of the House of Commons is based on the principle of representation by population in single-member constituencies allocated proportionately among the provinces, with minimal territorial representation and a floor for provincial representation (Constitution Act, 1982, s.41[b]), and with a redistribution of seats following each decennial census (Constitution Act, 1867, ss.51–52) (see Malapportionment). Following the census of 2001, there were 308 members of parliament, or MPs, representing a national population of approximately 33 million. The behaviour of MPs is almost invariably dictated by the government or opposition status of their party, and enforced by MPs designated as party whips (see Whip [party]). The MPs are elected in constituency contests among candidates, most of whom represent registered political parties (see Electoral law [controls; subsidies]). The contests take place on the same day, in a general election; otherwise, some MPs are elected in by-elections to fill vacancies that occur between general elections (see Electoral system). The successful candidates sit with other MPs elected from their party. The house is divided by an aisle, with government MPs sitting on one side to the right of the Speaker, and opposition MPs on the other side, the two groups facing each other. MPs of the leading, or official opposition party, sit to the left of the Speaker, with the official opposition party leader

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and critics facing the prime minister and the cabinet, and smaller opposition parties also on the left side of the chamber. As each MP is assigned a desk, in the case of large government majorities, some government MPs may actually be placed by necessity on the opposition side; in the case of a house of minorities, some opposition MPs may necessarily be placed on the government side. Independent MPs are seated in the back rows. Standing Orders, that is, house rules, define the number of MPs required for a party to have official standing in the house for purposes of participating in house and committee deliberations. The principle of responsible government requires that cabinet ministers have seats in the House of Commons (or, constitutionally permitted but less politically desirable, in the appointed Senate), and that the government retain the support of the house on major bills, especially money bills. The governor general appoints as prime minister someone who is likely to command majority support in the house. But given formal party rules selecting a leader and the convention of party discipline, the exercise of this prerogative and the “swearing-in” of a government is usually a formality. Subsequently, the house responds to the government’s agenda—government MPs positively, and opposition MPs critically. Except in cases of war and insurrection, a Parliament lasts no longer than five years (Constitution Act, 1982, s.4[2]). Normally, the governor general dissolves a Parliament on the advice of the prime minister and issues writs for a general election for a new house sometime within the constitutional five-year term (see Crown prerogatives). As implied above, the House of Commons is the site for two important parliamentary roles: the surveillance and legitimation of government activity. With the minor exception of private members’ legislation, the cabinet, acting formally in the name of the Crown, is responsible for the initiation of most legislation—government orders—and solely responsible for the introduction of legislation touching on revenue and expenditures. For government legislation to become law, the government must obtain parliamentary endorsement, while the opposition’s role is to criticize those proposals and government policy generally, hoping to undermine public support for the government in the next election, if not defeating it in a division of the house and thus forcing an election or the government’s resignation (see Legislation). When the government party has a majority of MPs, the opposition will not likely bring down the government, but it can influence the government’s policy through various tactics, and upset its legislative timetable. Normally, the government controls the legislative timetable, but the opposition can also prolong debate on a government measure, perhaps forcing the government to impose closure (see Closure and Filibuster). Also, the daily oral question period, opposition days, and debate on motions to adjourn the house to consider a purportedly urgent matter, are opportunities available to the opposition to throw the government off balance and to call into question its competence. In these various manoeuvres, the role of the mass media in transmitting the parliamentary debate to the public and generating public opinion is crucial. Since 1977, debates of the House of Commons have been available for broadcast by radio and television. A 24hour parliamentary channel (cpac.ca) and several all-news channels on cable television also provide extensive coverage of parliamentary business.

House of Commons

During the daily 45-minute question period, the principle of responsible government is personified in exchanges between ministers and opposition critics. Some questions may be written down and placed on the Order Paper, to receive a printed reply later. The oral question period, however, permits direct questioning of ministers. Any member, other than those in the cabinet, may ask a question of a minister, but usually the leading opposition speakers and selected backbenchers on the opposition side of the house dominate question period. Ministers may be asked questions about activities in currently held portfolios only. Dissatisfied questioners may give notice that they intend to pursue a matter prior to adjournment later in the day. In that brief debate, ministers’ parliamentary secretaries usually defend the government against the opposition attack (see Question period). Approximately 21 so-called opposition days are allotted to the opposition in three supply periods to determine the subject of debate. Supply periods are those occasions when the government is seeking passage of various supply, or appropriation, bills in a session (see Budget and budgetary process; Supply period). The opposition’s objective is to force the government to defend measures that the opposition feels are weak points in the government’s armour. The opposition may also move adjournment of the house to discuss an important matter of great urgency that has risen unexpectedly and is not likely to be considered in normal business that day. If the Speaker, a neutral MP elected by members and usually from the government party, determines that the request is appropriate, the motion to adjourn will be held over until the evening, at which time an extensive debate will take place on the subject. When satisfied that the debate has been concluded, the Speaker will declare the motion to adjourn carried and adjourn the house until the next sitting, perhaps only a few hours hence. Even if the Speaker does not accept the motion to adjourn, the opposition will have raised the issue, to the government’s potential embarrassment (see Urgent [emergency] debate). The debate on the Speech from the Throne—formally a debate on a government motion commending the governor general for the address opening the current session of parliament—and the debate on the budget brought down by the minister of finance are occasions for general debate. In those cases, the opportunity for backbenchers to participate in house debate is greater than in the situations discussed above, which tend to be dominated on both sides by frontbenchers. However, there has been a tendency in recent years to devote less time to the general debates. The role of the private member (that is, an MP who is not a cabinet minister) is severely constrained by party discipline. Within this stricture, however, MPs participate in in-camera sessions of the party caucus and caucus committees; they may participate actively in committees of the house, introduce private members’ legislation and motions, and act as a constituency ombudsman, redressing grievances of constituents (see Caucus; House of Commons committees; Standing [select, special, legislative, joint] committees [of the House and Senate]; Member of Parliament; Private member’s legislation). The chief officer of the House of Commons is the Speaker, whose election from among MPs is the first constitutional order of business when the house meets following an election (Constitution Act, 1867, s.44), and whose duties are outlined in Standing Orders, or rules, of the house. Until 1986, the selection of

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Speaker was largely the prerogative of the prime minister, nominated by the prime minister and elected by the house, which usually comprised a majority of government MPs. Since then, the Speaker has been elected by majority vote of the house in secret balloting, the results of which are announced without numbers mentioned by the Clerk of the House. The Speaker is responsible to the house and not to the government, although, as mentioned above, the Speaker is usually a government party MP. The Speaker’s main function is to preside over proceedings impartially, but also to maintain the rights and privileges of MPs, dealing with points of order and of privilege, and occasionally requiring members to withdraw from the chamber for unparliamentary behaviour (see Parliamentary privileges [immunities]). The Speaker also manages the administration of the house and the permanent employees who staff the house and the committees. The Speaker votes only in the event of a tie, and then to sustain the government’s position as the house itself has not made a decision. Because impartiality prevents the Speaker from expressing opinions publicly even on concerns of constituents, the government will be solicitous towards concerns expressed privately (see Speaker). Other officers of the House of Commons include: the deputy and acting speakers, nominated by the prime minister and elected by the house and will include some opposition members, and such permanent and appointed officers as the Clerk of the house, principal clerks, the sergeant-at-arms, who sit at desks in the aisle between the government and opposition, and parliamentary counsel. The deputy speaker occupies the Speaker’s chair when the Speaker is absent and otherwise chairs the committee of the whole house. Like the Speaker, the deputy and acting speakers are MPs chosen at the beginning of a Parliament and usually serve for its duration. The Clerk, who holds the rank of deputy minister, is the recording officer and is responsible for legislative services, providing advice to all members—but notably to the Speaker and to house committees through their clerks—on procedural matters, circulating and safekeeping relevant documents. The principal clerks act as reading clerks when documents must be read in the house, and are also responsible for ensuring that relevant documents are available to MPs. Parliamentary counsel prepare memoranda and opinions on legal and constitutional matters and advise MPs on proposed amendments or private members’ legislation. The sergeant-at-arms attends the Speaker with the Mace, the symbol of the authority of the house vested in the Speaker, and is responsible for house fittings; in addition, the office of the sergeant-at-arms engages messengers, pages and temporary constables, and labourers when necessary. House staff include Hansard reporters who sit in the aisle recording debate verbatim and translators who provide simultaneous translation of house debate and committee proceedings. Finally, there is a financial and management staff to assist the Board of Internal Economy, chaired by the Speaker and including government and opposition MPs. See Legislation (type; stages of). House of Commons committees Formal meetings of all or some members of parliament in forms other than as the House of Commons. In addition to the committee of the whole house, which is chaired by the deputy or acting speakers who are chosen shortly after the opening of the first session of a Parliament, there are standing, legislative, and special committees of the house, as well as joint and special committees with the Senate.

House of Commons committees

House rules require the striking, or appointment, of standing committees in major areas of public policy, each with approximately 10–15 members, to consider policy objectives, programs, expenditures, and effectiveness in matters relevant to their policy field. An all-party striking committee, following advice from party whips, selects members who usually reflect a party’s caucus committee membership. Alternate members are also designated. Party representation on committees approximates the proportion of party representation in the house, and membership is determined by party leaders. Permanent employees of the House of Commons serve as committee staff. Research assistance is available from the Library of Parliament and the house board of internal economy might grant funds to hire expert staff. Verbatim records of proceedings of public sessions are published. Ostensibly, each committee selects its chair, but party leaders effectively have control over their members. The chairs of standing committees, given government majorities, are usually government MPs (except in the case of the committee on public accounts, which principally examines the annual report of the auditor general). Unlike the Speaker of the house, who remains impartial, committee chairs are often drawn into the heat of partisan battle. Standing committees scrutinize government estimates and conduct a postaudit function. The finance committee holds hearings as part of pre-budget discussion. Standing committees may also review orders-in-council, that is, government appointments. They may call appointees such as deputy ministers, heads of crown corporations and ambassadors. A precedent was set in 2006 when a committee of members of parliament questioned an appointee to the Supreme Court of Canada prior to his confirmation. In 2004, the House of Commons standing committee on justice, human rights, public safety, and emergency preparedness created a subcommittee on public safety and national security to examine the impact of policies and procedures under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001. The Senate also began a study of the Act that required a parliamentary assessment, given the extraordinary powers it granted law enforcement and security agencies to apprehend threats to public, national, and international security. However, as members of both parliamentary committees are not necessarily privy councillors, or otherwise have high-level security clearance, the reviews are circumscribed by government assertions of national security. Legislative committees examine specific government legislation at committee stage, usually after second reading in the house, approval in principle. Their membership, fewer than on standing committees, is also proportionate to party representation in the house, but their chairs are selected by the Speaker from a panel of chairs established at the beginning of each session. Also, unlike standing committees, which can call witnesses to deal with entire policy fields, legislative committee hearings, including witnesses, deal only with the technical (de)merits of a particular bill in a clause-by-clause study, and are then disbanded after they report the bill to the house with or without amendments. There is also provision for standing joint committees with the Senate, including a joint committee that scrutinizes regulations and other statutory instruments (see Statutory instruments). Finally, special and special joint committees have been used, for example, to examine constitutional proposals.

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The advantage of the standing, legislative, and special committee system is that public officials, including ministers, representatives of interest groups, and policy experts may be heard and questioned. Thus, the legislature becomes a more effective site for public education and future changes in public policy and possibly even changes to legislation already proposed. The mass media have given increasing but necessarily still selective attention to committee hearings, and some are televised on the parliamentary television channel. The government, especially a majority government, will finally determine at report stage whether amendments to bills by legislative committee will be accepted. The investigation of government estimates in standing committees does not normally attract much media attention, certainly not as much as the public account committee’s consideration of the auditor general’s annual report, focusing on government mismanagement and policy failures. Generally, the investigative function of standing committees offers the most effective area of non-partisan policy study by committee, before a government is committed to a particular policy. Following a committee request, the government must table a response to a committee report within a specified period. Parliament’s overall surveillance of government is limited by party discipline and the imbalance of resources available to the government and those available to parliamentary committees. Although standing committees, in particular, have recently acquired greater autonomy in determining their own agenda, party discipline may be enforced through the party whips, especially on the government side, should any committee’s activity diverge too much from the government’s interests. In the final report in 2006 of the judicial commission inquiring into the $300-million sponsorship scandal, Justice John Gomery recommended that funding for parliamentary committees should be substantially increased, especially the public accounts committee. See Committee of the whole; Standing (select, special, joint) committees (of the House and Senate); Public Accounts Committee. Hunter v. Southam (1984) A decision of the Supreme Court of Canada pertaining to protection against unreasonable search and seizure in section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, extending protection to businesses by denying broad powers of search and seizure to the federal government in investigations and prosecutions under anti-combines legislation. This was an early Charter decision by whereby the Supreme Court declared the Charter to be “a purposive document” subject to “purposive analysis”: in this case, “a broad and general right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures [and] to protect the right of privacy from unjustified state intrusion.” The Charter’s “purpose requires that unjustified searches be prevented” rather than the determination of an unnecessary search be made after a search has been conducted. In this and other decisions, the court has adopted a non-interpretive approach to Charter cases to review legislation on substantive grounds to achieve for Canadians, whether individuals or corporations, the full benefit of Charter protection. In effect, judicial review is a continuous process of constitutional clarification whereby generally expressed rights in the Charter are interpreted in a contemporary context to circumscribe legislative, executive, and administrative power.

Immigration and Refugee Board

This particular case involved an authorization by the director of the federal Combines Investigation Branch to search the files of The Edmonton Journal, a Southam newspaper, and Southam offices elsewhere. The court ruled on the purpose of search-and-seizure limitations to determine when it was reasonable to search and seize property: since the purpose of such limitations is to protect privacy, the reasonableness of a particular search must be considered beforehand; an authorization must be made by a neutral and impartial person determining that the public interest is superior to the individual’s right to privacy; also, authorization requires “probable” rather than “possible” grounds that evidence pertaining to an investigation would be found in the search. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada.

I Immigration and Refugee Board (irb-cisr.gc.ca) A tribunal established by parliament in 1988 to deal with matters previously dealt with by the Immigration Appeal Board and the Refugee Status Advisory Committee. The board comprises an immigration division that hears cases of people believed by the federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration to be inadmissible to Canada, and a refugee protection division that hears claims for protection under various international agreements to which Canada subscribes. There are also two appeal divisions respecting immigration and refugee decisions. Decisions of the appeal divisions can themselves be appealed to the Federal Court of Canada. The operation of both the law and the appeal procedure with reference to immigration and refugee status is always controversial. There is usually an extensive backlog of cases, especially concerning refugee claims and occasionally complaints about incompetent members of appeal panels or their excessive lenience. Approximately 200 members of the refugee protection division might hear well over 20,000 cases in a year, and they frequently involve many members of parliament in their constituency service roles. MPs from urban constituencies with significant immigrant populations have reported that most of their constituency business involves immigration and refugee claims and appeals. The government has occasionally had to deal with controversial government decisions suggesting political favouritism. In 2005, the Liberal minister of citizenship and immigration resigned and was later criticized by the federal ethics commissioner over discretionary ministerial granting of immigration and temporary work permits to friends and relatives of campaign workers for the minister and other MPs—mostly Liberals—standing for re-election in 2004. Ministerial permits, usually granted on compassionate grounds, are normally not dealt with during an election campaign. The most important case, with respect to the administrative process generally, involved a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To facilitate the hearing of refugee claims, refugee claimants were no longer to appear before a panel, but to be represented on the basis of written submissions. In Re Singh and Minister of Employment and

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Immigration (1985), the court ruled the procedure unconstitutional. Guarantees in the Charter respecting “principles of fundamental justice” required that “credibility be determined on the basis of an oral hearing [and not] solely on the basis of written submissions” thus ensuring “everyone[’s]…right to life, liberty and security of the person…” (s.7). See Federal Court (Federal Appeal Court); Singh Case (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1985). Imperial conferences Forums of prime ministers and ministerial colleagues from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, held occasionally between 1887 and 1930 in London. The conference was neither an executive nor a legislative body, though it would express opinions in resolutions. Topics of the early conferences included imperial federation, defence, and tariffs and, in later years, foreign policy, national autonomy and independence. In 1914, the British government assumed the dominions, such as Canada, to be at war upon its declaration that a state of war existed. Canada did join the collective imperial war effort from 1914 to 1918, but afterwards in its own right attended and took part in the Paris Peace Conference, signed treaties, and joined the League of Nations. The imperial conference of 1926 issued a declaration of equality between Britain and the dominions—Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, in addition to Canada—in imperial and international affairs. This declaration was a turning point from subordination in the Empire to association in a Commonwealth of Nations. The declaration read in part: “They [the dominions] are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.…” The imperial conference of 1930 (the last so styled) requested that the British parliament pass certain resolutions of the conferences of 1926 and 1930, clarifying the new association. Thus, the British Statute of Westminster (1931) became a constitutional statute, removing most statutory impediments to full national autonomy and independence of the dominions. However, Canada lacked a domestic formula to amend the basic constitutional Act, the British North America Act of the British parliament. Consequently, British parliamentary “approval” was still necessary to accede to a resolution of the Canadian parliament to amend the constitution, with provincial approval if the amendment affected provincial jurisdiction and rights. The constitution was finally “patriated” as the Constitution Act in 1982, with various domestic amending procedures. See Commonwealth of Nations; Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931), and entries on various items mentioned here. Income tax A tax levied by federal and provincial governments on all forms of income, personal and corporate, less permitted deductions, according to various rates on that taxable income, and subject to further special deductions and special surtaxes. Graduated rates imply a progressive system of taxation according to the taxpayers’ ability to pay: that is, the higher the taxable income, the greater the percentage of that income is subject to taxation. An income tax system with only one level of taxation is referred to as a “flat” tax.

Indian Act

Permissible deductions from gross income, as well as deductions from the calculated “taxable income” before final determination of the tax due, represent government encouragement in those tax-deductible activities. Thus a dollar earned is not necessarily a dollar taxed, as some people more than others can lower their levels of taxable income and final tax due. Surtaxes are measures by which the government, having granted a universal benefit with one hand, may retrieve it from people of high income with the other, or levy purportedly temporary taxes to deal with urgent needs for revenue. Indexing (de-indexing) The periodic adjustment of private contractual compensation and government payment of social benefits on the basis of changes in the cost of living. Indexing wages or private pension benefits to the cost of living is referred to as the Cost of Living Adjustment, or COLA clause. Governments wishing to “de-index” a benefit have learned from public opposition that it is easier to “claw back” a universal benefit from high-income earners through provisions of the income tax system. See Clawback. Indian Act A federal statute enacted in 1876 that established in Confederation a continuation of British imperial policy toward certain Aboriginal peoples of British North America, which began with the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Historically, British policy was designed to maintain the allegiance of Native Peoples they encountered respecting exploration, defence, trade, and eventually the ceding of land and economic rights to facilitate European settlement through treaties and agreements setting aside “reserves” and providing “presents.” The Constitution Act, 1867 (before 1982, the British North America Act) granted authority over “Indians, and lands reserved for Indians” to the federal government (s.91:24) and the Indian Act consolidated this power, which had already been exercised in the form of treaties similar to those with the British, though there remained Aboriginal populations, notably in British Columbia and the Arctic that had no treaties with the imperial or Canadian governments. Thus, the Aboriginal population from a legal standpoint comprises status Indians, members of bands who have rights to land and benefits, and non-status Indians who do not have treaty rights. The latter group includes notably the Métis population, descended from white traders and Native women, most of whom live in the prairie provinces. Native Peoples in the Arctic were determined in law to be “Indian” within the meaning of the Constitution Act, but not under the Indian Act. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Native Peoples in the Arctic received federal educational and health services, but at the same time were subject to disruption of lifestyle and family through forced relocation. In practice, the Indian Act has been a paternalistic, bureaucratic and repressive instrument of “white” control over a subject peoples. The state of Canada’s Native population is tragic and well known. There are approximately one-million people of Aboriginal origins, a population that generates dismal statistics on housing standards, educational achievement, employment, poverty, health, alcoholism, violence, incarceration, suicide, and mortality. Until the 1970s, Native affairs were not prominent on the public agenda because the Native population was small, dispersed, and poorly organized, the people generally possessing low self-esteem

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induced by the loss of land, livelihood, and culture, reinforced from generation to generation. At the same time, non-Native Canadians generally accepted these conditions as characteristics of a population, without regard to the role played by government policy, especially under the Indian Act. In 1969, the federal Liberal government proposed in a white paper on Indian policy that the Act be abolished and Indians be integrated into the wider Canadian society. The white paper was eventually withdrawn, having served unintentionally as a catalyst to mobilize Native groups already upset at the government’s program of bilingualism and biculturalism that defined the French and the English as Canada’s “two founding peoples,” and casual references to European explorers as having “discovered” land that actually had been occupied by self-governing people for thousands of years. Since the 1970s, federal policy has been directed to give more responsibility for programs and services to Native councils and to settle land claims. Part II of the Constitution Act, 1982 includes a definition of Aboriginal peoples and an acknowledgement of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. The Indian Act was subsequently brought into conformity with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, notably regarding gender. The constitutional Charlottetown Accord of 1992, which was rejected in a national referendum, would have recognized Aboriginal government as a third order of government, in addition to federal and provincial governments. Native groups participated in negotiating the Accord: the Assembly of First Nations (afn.ca) on behalf of Indians under the Indian Act (status Indians); the Council of Aboriginal Peoples (formerly the Native Council of Canada) (abo-peoples.org) for non-status, off-reserve Indians, and Métis; as well, the Métis National Council (metisnation.ca), and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (itk.ca), for the Canadian segment of the circumpolar peoples. When the Accord was defeated, Native leaders and the federal government urged continued negotiations at both federal and provincial levels to institute the intent of the Accord, short of constitutional amendment. Federal responsibilities under the Indian Act have been devolved to Native groups in selective provinces. Comprehensive land claims settlements, self-government, and Aboriginal justice have been the focus of Native interests since the Charlottetown Accord, including more effective government responses to recommendations in 1996 of the (Erasmus-Dussault) Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, involving a fundamentally restructured relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal); Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements; Royal Proclamation (1763). Indirect tax Any tax whose incidence is not borne by the initial taxpayer, for example taxes incurred at various stages in the manufacture of goods that will likely be passed on in cost structure and be borne indirectly by others, ultimately by the purchaser of the finished product. Under the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government has unconditional access to both direct and indirect taxation (s.91:3: “The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation”), and the provinces conditional access only to “Direct Taxation within the Province…for Provincial Purposes” (s.92:2). See Direct (indirect) taxation.

Inner cabinet

Information Commissioner (infocom.gc.ca) An officer of parliament empowered under the Access to Information Act, 1983 to investigate complaints from individuals denied information by the government and, if necessary, to seek redress through the courts. Frequently, the office of information commissioner and privacy commissioner is held by the same person. Upon denial of a request for information, the government must cite a statutory basis for the denial. In addition to appealing a denial, complaints can be lodged if the government is unresponsive or if there are excessive charges for the information. The commissioner’s staff may examine any record except cabinet papers. On finding for a complainant, the commissioner attempts to persuade the relevant government agency to comply and, if access continues to be denied, may appeal to the Federal Court. The commissioner’s annual reports to parliament and addresses by the commissioner and staff to interested public audiences are intended to improve public knowledge about the Act and encourage government bodies to adopt practices consistent with the Act. In annual reports, the information commissioner has repeatedly complained about delays responding to requests, the statutory exemptions from the Access to Information Act, as well as a bureaucratic culture that does not accept the principle of accountability implied in “freedom of information.” Citing “persistent distrust,” the commissioner has complained about additional exclusions from the Act contained, for example, in legislation dealing with terrorism, the office of the ethics commissioner, and a possible 20-year embargo on information from investigations of alleged wrong-doing resulting from so-called whistle-blowers, ostensibly to protect both the whistle-blower and the accused. See Freedom of information; and Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner. Initiative (legislative) A device of direct democracy by which citizens can, in a general vote, propose legislative initiatives that require formal legislative action. In Canada, the federal Reform/Alliance party supported the introduction of the initiative, however it was not included in 2005 in the program of the Conservative party formed from the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. British Columbia provides for initiatives in its Recall and Initiative Act. First, an applicant has 90 days to obtain the signatures of 10 per cent of registered voters in each provincial constituency to petition for a legislative initiative. If the petition is verified, a selected standing committee of the legislature must meet within one month, and has three months either to propose the introduction of the legislation or that the proposed legislation be put to a provincial vote. If more than 50 per cent of total number of registered voters in the province and more than 50 per cent of the total number of registered voters in two-thirds of the constituencies support the proposal, the government is obliged to introduce the legislation. Such a bill, however, is not guaranteed swift passage, and could be defeated. Inner cabinet A select group of cabinet ministers who have a leading role for the whole cabinet in setting government priorities and decision making. The organization of the cabinet is the prerogative of the head of government—prime minister or premier—who is not obliged by law to disclose information about

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their cabinet organization. However, the notion of an inner cabinet has arisen since the growth in the size of the cabinet, making it an unwieldy executive body. Federal cabinets, for instance, usually contain more than two dozen members. In 1968, Pierre Trudeau was the first prime minister to create a small cabinet committee on priorities and planning (“P and P”) that constituted his inner circle of key ministers. Since then, some prime ministers have followed suit, while others have established a few influential committees whose membership by portfolio, if disclosed, can be interpreted to represent the government’s chief policy preoccupations, and whose chairs, especially if duplicated, may be identified as senior ministers. See Cabinet; Cabinet organization. Inter- (intra-) state federalism A reference to the relative effectiveness in a particular federal system of the subnational (that is, state or provincial) and national (central or federal) political institutions in representing regional views and interests. In a federal system characterized by inter-state relations, regional interests are effectively represented by subnational institutions and actors in discussions with political actors at the centre. In a system characterized by intra-state relations, the national institutions at the centre contain effective representatives of regional interests. In the case of Canada’s executive federalism, provincial premiers pose as more effective representatives of regional interests than some federal cabinet ministers, members of parliament, or senators from their provinces or regions. Therefore, the accommodation of regional interests involves inter-state discussions (described sometimes as federal-provincial diplomacy) among federal and provincial government officials. The relative weakness of federal actors as visible regional representatives in Canada’s federal system is reinforced by party discipline in the House of Commons, federal government appointment of senators, and cabinet secrecy and its single collective voice. By contrast, in the United States, state governors are less effective regional political actors than are provincial premiers in Canada; US senators and members of the House of Representatives, unlike their parliamentary counterparts in Canada, often represent the interests of their state or congressional district irrespective of their party affiliation, and are therefore the focus of intra-state political bargaining and accommodation within Congress and with presidential officials in the White House. See Federalism; Geographic cleavage. Interdelegation Reference (Nova Scotia, 1951);…of legislative power. A Reference in which the Supreme Court of Canada declared the direct delegation of powers between the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to be incompatible with the federal constitution (Attorney-General for Nova Scotia v. Attorney-General for Canada [1951]), thus reinforcing an interpretation of the federal constitution as comprising two “water-tight compartments.” The federal (Rowell-Sirois) Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1940) had recommended a constitutional amendment to permit such delegation of legislative responsibility. In the Interdelegation Reference, the court declared unconstitutional a Nova Scotia statute, which delegated provincial authority to the federal government and anticipated delegation of federal power to the province. Thus, the Supreme Court upheld the “water-tight compartment”

Interest groups

approach to the distribution of powers under the British North America Act (since 1982, the Constitution Act). Subsequently, indirect means were tried in order to effect the same outcome as direct delegation of jurisdictional competence. One year after the Interdelegation Reference, the Supreme Court validated the indirect device of parliamentary delegation of powers to a board established by a provincial legislature, rather than to the provincial legislature itself (PEI Potato Marketing Board v. H.B. Willis Inc., 1952). The patriated Constitution Act, 1982 countenances an amendment that “derogates from the legislative powers, the proprietary rights or any other rights or privileges of the legislature or government of a province” (s.38.[2]), with the possibility of a province opting out ([3]) with compensation to a dissenting province if a transfer of provincial legislative powers to the federal government involves “educational or other cultural matters” (s.40). Constitutional discussions since 1982 to permit the interdelegation of legislative power between parliament and the provincial legislatures upon mutual consent have centred on the likely effect of legislative asymmetry in the federal system and the development of a so-called checkerboard federalism. See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; Supreme Court of Canada; “Water-tight compartments” Doctrine (constitution). Interdepartmental committees An administrative device to achieve coordination of government activity. Many government departments have responsibility for programs that bear on similar or related policy fields. Thus, governments often create committees of high- and middle-level officials to advise individual ministers or the cabinet on new policy or on improvements in established programs. Some interdepartmental committees are more or less formalized than others. Not surprisingly, these committees are also the site for the protection of departmental jurisdictions and bureaucratic fiefdoms, especially if instructions from cabinet are to reduce public expenditures, regulations, perhaps even eliminate programs and restructure departmental organization. Interest groups Organizations that make demands on political authorities for specific policy outputs, sometimes termed “pressure groups.” Interests that are aggregated in groups are more likely to have political influence than are unaggregated interests. Whether group politics is inimical or not to democratic politics, it is certainly a clear and irreversible feature of the collectivist age. For virtually everyone resident in Canada, there is some organization or several organizations whose leadership seeks some protection or enhancement from the government on their behalf. Thus, there is a plethora of interest groups that could be classified variously, but usually as economic or non-economic, permanent and institutionalized, or temporary with less cohesive organization. Some groups comprise a tightly organized elite, or represent a particular segment of society, while others are broadly based public-interest groups. The constitutional entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 broadened the public discourse and group politics, having legitimized so-called Charter interests associated with gender, ethnicity, language, age, and disability, whose relevant interest groups are collectively referred to by some as the court party. The political behaviour of an interest group in Canada often depends on its type and upon the federal and parliamentary nature of the political system. Sectional

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groups—such as the Canadian Bar Association (cba.org), the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (cfa-fca.ca), the Royal Canadian Legion (legion.ca), and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (consumer.ca)—have easy access to the public decision-makers who are responsible for formulating policies directly in the areas of these groups’ concerns. Indeed, some groups have had at times an occupational affinity with specific political roles. Usually, federal ministers of justice and provincial attorneys-general are lawyers who, in private practice, have been members of lawyers’ organizations. Similarly, ministers of finance are usually people who, in their private careers, have been closely associated with organized business groups. At one time, being a medical doctor was considered a necessary qualification to be a provincial minister of health. Since the introduction of public medicare, the relationship between provincial medical associations and the provincial bureaucracies may have become more formal and less collegial, but the relationships are still necessarily close. In contrast to such sectional interest groups are those better described as social movements. These are organizations, linked with others in social movement networks, which are agents of social change as much as, or even more so than, seekers of particular policies or benefits for their members. As social activists, they are interested in altering fundamental societal relationships or attitudes pertaining, for example, to women’s rights and gender relations (for example the women’s social movement network with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women [nac-cca.ca] at its centre), the environment (for example, Greenpeace Canada [greenpeace.ca] and the Sierra Club of Canada [sierraclub.ca]), international peace (for example, Project Ploughshares [ploughshares.ca]), and poverty (for example, the National Anti-Poverty Organization [napo-onap.ca]). Relative to well-established sectional interest groups, social movement organizations are reluctant to develop too close a relationship with political and administrative decision-makers for fear of being “co-opted.” Indeed, some social movement organizations see state actors as “guilty” of inappropriate behaviour as much as or more than private-sector actors, for instance in energy production. Consequently, they have a more adversarial relationship with the political authorities, hoping that their various forms of public protest will create favourable public opinion that will force governments to accept their proposals. The federal system in Canada makes it necessary for an interest group to select its target and allocate its resources strategically. Some groups will have to operate at both levels, and possibly in all provinces; others may be able to concentrate on one level and in only some provinces. For example, the Canadian labour movement’s central body, the Canadian Labour Congress (clc-ctc.ca), is a weak federation of relatively strong provincial groups (for example, the British Columbia Federation of Labour [bcfed.com], Ontario Federation of Labour [ofl.ca], and the Quebec Federation of Labour [ftq.qc.ca]). This reflects the particular need for effective lobbying for labour’s interests at the provincial level, where much of Canada’s labour law is enacted and administered. The Canadian Bankers Association (cba.ca), on the other hand, operates in large part at the federal level, as parliament has jurisdiction over banking. When the insurance industry opposed the introduction of government-operated medical insurance in the 1960s, it had to operate at both levels of government—at the federal level where legislation

Interest groups

would allow the federal government to enter shared-cost agreements with the provinces, as well as at the provincial level where the programs would be administered. Lobbying by the insurance industry against public automobile insurance, on the other hand, has been conducted only at the provincial level, particularly in those provinces where governments were considering the introduction of such programs. Because parliamentary government in Canada concentrates power in the political and administrative executive, the cabinet and the public administration are the chief targets for interest group activity. If, for example, the group is working against a declared government objective, then legislators, the mass media, and the public become the more obvious targets in a campaign that does not appear likely to be successful. On-going activity by interest groups may include targeting legislators, party caucuses, and the mass media. But this is more to affect the environment for future discussions with government decision-makers than to achieve a specific current campaign objective. The entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 has increased the influence of some groups—particularly social movement organizations whose concerns have been “legitimized” by the Charter—and altered the configuration of interest representation and influence. In adjudicating Charter cases, the Supreme Court of Canada adopted a broad definition of judicial review to ensure Canadians the full benefit of Charter protection. The Charter identifies particular interests in sections 15, 27, and 28, and allows for “appropriate and just” judicial remedies to alleged infringements of Charter rights in section 24:1. Charter challenges in the courts have voided, for example, provisions of the Criminal Code regarding therapeutic abortions and administrative procedures that violated section 7 rights to “life, liberty and security of the person” according to principles of fundamental justice. Though their case was lost, the Supreme Court heard from peace activists who challenged the federal government’s executive agreement with the United States to allow the testing of cruise missiles over Canada as a threat to the section 7 rights. The Supreme Court of Canada’s reading in “sexual orientation” to section 15 as a prohibited basis of discrimination was a catalyst for the gay and lesbian rights movement (egale.ca). The strength of this so-called court party was assisted by the government’s partial funding of groups representing Charter interests (for example, the women’s Legal Education and Action Fund [leaf.ca], sponsored by the federal government’s Status of Women Canada [swc-cfc.gc.ca]). There are several indicators of an interest group’s day-to-day influence on public decision-making through positional politics. Some groups—traditional sectional interest groups more so than social movement organizations—are represented on advisory boards in the public bureaucracy. Formal appearances of major sectional interest groups before cabinet or the government’s parliamentary caucus are occasions for the government party to convince those groups of its affinity with the group’s interests, and for the group to convince its own members—and public opinion—of its competence and influence on the government. Canada’s largest private business corporations are represented in the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (ceocouncil.ca), which regularly receives invitations to make representations to ministers, officials, and legislative committees. Some

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banks, insurance companies, manufacturing and resource companies, and other government-regulated businesses make a practice of appointing former cabinet ministers, former senior public administrators, and current senators to their boards of directors, hoping to forge a symbiotic relationship between themselves and the public decision-makers: interest groups want appropriate government legislation and regulation; governments want assistance from interest groups in developing, legitimating, and implementing their policy. There has been an historic affinity between certain private interests and political parties in Canada. Now restricted in several Canadian jurisdictions from contribution financially to political parties, banks and manufacturing concerns, for example, were historically important financial contributors to the Liberal and Conservative parties; and the cabinets and opposition front benches of these parties have been populated with people well integrated in the occupational and social environment of corporate and business interests. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, precursor of the New Democratic party, was a federation of many groups, including farm and labour organizations. The transformation of the CCF to the NDP in the 1956–1961 period was designed to achieve, in part, a larger and more effective affiliation of the Canadian labour movement to the social democratic party. Not a few NDP candidates and officials have held positions with some trade unions and farm organizations, although, like private corporations, trade unions are now restricted in their financial support of the NDP in various jurisdictions. A 21-year-old federal Liberal regime from 1963, interrupted briefly by a minority Progressive Conservative government in 1979–1980, terminated with the election of majority Conservative government in 1984. Consequences included a cabinet with inexperienced ministers, a proliferation of partisan ministerial aides to counter the influence of public officials who had served long under Liberal governments, and the profusion of unregulated lobbying firms and lobbyists in Ottawa. Many lobbyists aggressively promoted their personal connections with the new ministerial personalities and the Progressive Conservative party, rather than any expertise in policy or knowledge of the intricacies of policy-making in the federal public administration. Indeed, during its first several years in office, the government experienced a series of conflict-of-interest scandals, including a judicial inquiry into the behaviour of one businessman-minister and a series of resignations, investigations and proceedings related to others. Consequently, the government proposed legislation respecting both conflict of interest and lobbying. One year after parliament adopted the Lobbyists Registration Act, 1989, 295 firms, many employing a large number of lobbyists, had registered. When the Liberals returned to office in 1993, the legislation was moderately strengthened, but otherwise, the lobbying industry accommodated itself to the change of party government, partly through lobbying against even stronger amendments to the law and recruiting personnel with connections to the Liberal party. See Conflict of interest; Lobby (-ist; -ing). Intergovernmental committees Forums involving federal, provincial, and territorial political and administrative officials, in which bargaining takes place in the context of contemporary federalism in Canada, styled variously as executive, administrative, or collaborative federalism.

Intergovernmental committees

Such a federal system entails ongoing interaction between the two levels of government and among the provincial and territorial governments, including regional collaboration, notably in Atlantic Canada and the prairie West. The bureaucratic process of accommodation has become so important in Canada that some observers have likened the intergovernmental committee system to a fourth branch of government, one that operates largely in private and for which there is no effective legislative oversight. Federal-provincial committees have become numerous since the 1960s. They have involved increasingly more policy areas at more levels of the public administration, especially as the federal government’s involvement in matters of exclusive provincial jurisdiction increased. The federal government’s greater access to tax revenues has given it the ability to offer money to provinces to finance various programs under provincial jurisdiction (see Spending power). Thus, there is federal-provincial consultation on a variety of matters within exclusive provincial jurisdiction. At the same time, there are provincial intergovernmental committees whose objective is to pressure to the federal government with respect to policy matters. The highest level of intergovernmental committees involves heads-of-government conferences—for example, of all first ministers, all provincial and territorial premiers, the western premiers and the Atlantic premiers. In 2000, the Atlantic premiers created the Council of Atlantic Premiers to enhance regional collaboration and pursue more effective regional representation regarding federal policies affecting the region (cap-cpma.ca). Three years later, provincial and territorial first ministers formalized their meetings as the Council of the Federation (councilofthefederation.ca). Ostensibly, the council was created to provide its member governments with a “leadership role” to “revitalize” Canadian federalism and create a more “constructive and co-operative” federal system. In practical terms, it is a mechanism to improve the effectiveness of member governments in various negotiations with the federal government. Various ministerial conferences comprise second-rank intergovernmental committees, and they are closely associated with committees of senior officials (deputy and assistant deputy ministers). Finally, there is a level involving technical officials charged with making operational the agreements of the higher officials. There are also regional trans-border conferences involving Canadian provincial premiers and United States governors. The premiers of Quebec and Atlantic Canada meet with the six New England state governors as the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers to discuss trans-border issues. The premiers of Ontario and Quebec meet with the governors of eight Great Lakes states comprising the Council of Great Lakes Governors (cglg.org). Their agendas have focused in particular on matters related to the environment, air and water pollution, and climate change. The Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat (scics.gc.ca) established by the federal government in 1973 is an agency of both levels of government and reports to both federal and provincial governments. It provides technical and administrative assistance to many of the conferences mentioned above involving Canada’s first ministers and the Eastern Canadian-New England conference, but most of its work is at the ministerial and deputy ministerial level.

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Most governments have separate departments of intergovernmental affairs. Some provincial premiers were reluctant to establish such structures outside their own office, perhaps much as Canadian prime ministers were once reluctant to relinquish responsibility for foreign affairs to a designated minister. At the federal level, especially given the strength of the sovereignty movement in Quebec, the federal intergovernmental affairs portfolio is held by a person who has the greatest confidence of the prime minister. See Federalism. Interim supply, vote of A vote by which a legislature authorizes government expenditures prior to the passage of the main estimates. In recent practice at the federal level, the vote on interim supply occurs in the House of Commons in March after the main estimates are tabled and sent to committee for study. The vote of interim supply assumes the main estimates will eventually pass. See Budget and budgetary process; Estimates. International Joint Commission (IJC) (ijc.org) A commission established under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, with Canadian and United States sections. The IJC assists in the resolution of disputes involving any use, obstruction, or diversion of boundary waters in either country, which involves the use or quality of boundary waters in the other country. It also examines and makes recommendations on the matters referred to the commission by the two national governments. Each of the national sections (for a total of two presiding commissioners and four others), is appointed by their respective federal government, and the commission is responsible to the national governments. While trans-border waterways involve the IJC in developments in provinces and adjacent US states from British Columbia to New Brunswick, considerable attention is given to the Great LakesSt. Lawrence River System, which contains one-fifth of the world’s surface fresh water. The System concerns Ontario and Quebec and eight states. In 1972, under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the two countries gave the IJC responsibility to coordinate and monitor programs dealing with municipal and industrial waste treatment. In 1978, the agreement was extended to deal with “persistent toxic substances” and, since 1987, has reviewed the two governments’ “remedial action plans” to clean up the Great Lakes. The IJC also plays a similar role respecting air quality under a 1991 Agreement. Occasionally, the IJC has been the site for political controversy and high-priority policy implementation. In 1963, the head of the Canadian section, General A.G.L. McNaughton, resigned in order to publicize his disagreement with the Canadian government over the Canada-US Columbia River Treaty involving major water diversion, and dam construction in British Columbia to increase hydro-electric power production. Intra (ultra) vires A phrase that describes the statutes of federal or provincial legislatures as being within (or beyond) their legislative competence as described in the Constitution Act, and determined through judicial review by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and solely by the Supreme Court of Canada since 1949. See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Federalism; Supreme Court of Canada.

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

J Judicial commission of inquiry See Commissions of inquiry (judicial). Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) The superior court of the United Kingdom that, until 1949, was the final appeal court for Canada for all but criminal cases. As a constitutional court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was particularly important in the development of Canadian federalism, essentially enlarging the scope of provincial power at the expense of the broad comprehensive legislative powers of parliament through its interpretation of the British North America Act, 1867 (the BNA Act; since 1982, the Constitution Act). During this period, the JCPC comprised British privy councillors who had held high positions on the bench and were assisted on occasion by judges from Empire and Commonwealth countries. The Judicial Committee, as an imperial appeal court, did not publish several judgments in a case; rather, it offered only one opinion (in the manner of the Privy Council itself). In 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada became the final court of appeal in the Canadian judicial system. Since the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the constitution in 1982, the Supreme Court has adopted a broad notion of judicial review in interpreting the contemporary constitution—that is, defining general phrases in the context of contemporary societal need. The JCPC, on the other hand, saw its role as strictly interpreting a statute, the BNA Act, to preserve a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian union—federalism. At the same time, the JCPC may have been generally unappreciative of the difficulties associated with a federal political system that does not permit easy modification of the constitution, as in the case of a unitary state through an Act of a single legislature. The narrowness and inflexibility of judicial review under the JCPC was further reinforced by the single decision of the Court; the expression of one view did not allow for subsequent “distinction” on a case based on a variety of expressed opinions, as in decisions of the Supreme Court. Some important constitutional judgments by the JCPC have been the following: Russell v. the Queen, 1882, in which it ruled, in a case involving a federal statute permitting local areas to prohibit the sale of liquor, that the federal government was dealing with “public order and safety” under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause (BNA Act, s.91, preamble), an action that took precedence over the provincial jurisdiction of property and civil rights (s.92:13), and thus granted a comprehensive legislative role for parliament with the preamble to section 91 constituting a residual power clause; Hodge v. The Queen, 1883, in which the JCPC began to retreat from approval of the broad exercise of federal power under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause, declaring that in one aspect an Ontario statute providing for licensing and control of the sale of liquor locally by provincial authority was constitutional (s.92:8, :9, :15) (see Aspect Doctrine); Maritime Bank v. Receiver-General of New Brunswick, 1892, in which the principle of equality was declared among legislatures—in Lord Watson’s words, the object of the BNA Act was neither “to weld the provinces into one, nor to subordinate provincial government to a central authority”; Attorney-General for Ontario v. Attorney-General for Canada, 1896, also known as the Local Prohibition

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Case, in which parliament’s power to encroach on provincial jurisdictions enumerated in section 92, using the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause, was further denied. Having earlier been declared effective when the legislation was of nationwide importance, the clause was now declared to be only a supplementary statement to the enumerated powers of parliament, which could not take primacy over the enumerated powers of the provincial legislatures. As a result of a reference, Re Board of Commerce Act and Combines and Fair Prices Act, 1919, in 1922, and Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider (1925), the JCPC, under Viscount Haldane, came to look upon parliament’s general power in the preamble to section 91 as an emergency power only. Attempting to reconcile the Judicial Committee’s view in 1925 with its view in Russell v. The Queen in 1882, Haldane suggested that their lordships at that time must have considered drunkenness to constitute a threat to the nation. In the reference in 1937 concerning the federal Employment and Social Insurance Act, part of Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s economic-depression era New Deal, the JCPC declared the measure unconstitutional, and thus the widespread depression insufficient to invoke emergency powers. In effect, “Property and Civil Rights” had become the residual power clause of the constitution, favouring the provinces. The JCPC eventually denied not only the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause as a source of comprehensive legislative competence for parliament, but also “The Regulation of Trade and Commerce” power (s.91:2). Important cases here include Citizens Insurance Co. v. Parsons , 1881, Montreal v. Montreal Street Railway, 1912, Board of Commerce, 1921, and a reference in 1937 on the Natural Products Marketing Act, another part of Bennett’s New Deal. The decisions of the JCPC were important in delineating jurisdictional responsibilities in an increasingly industrial and collectivist economic era. The JCPC, for example, declared the federal role in establishing laws relating to labour and collective bargaining to be restricted to areas in which parliament had jurisdiction (Snider Case, 1925). Treaty-making power was cited to grant parliament jurisdiction in the “new” fields of aeronautics and radio, but not to legislate on matters within provincial competence. Parliament acquired jurisdiction through treaty-making power as part of Empire (s.132) in the Aeronautics Reference, 1932, and in the Radio Case, 1932, through “Peace, Order, and good Government” as a residual power in non-imperial treaty-making; there being no specific reference to treaty-making power other than imperial treaties, the obligations for which fell to the federal government, and non-imperial treaties amounted to the same thing. However, the treaty-making powers of the federal government did not give it the power to legislate generally on such labour-related issues as hours of work, holidays, and minimum wages (Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario [Labour Conventions Case, 1937])—also part of the abortive New Deal. By now, the strict “water-tight compartments” view of federal-provincial jurisdiction—so called by Lord Atkin in the Labour Conventions Case—was dominant, despite an earlier characterization by Lord Sankey of the BNA Act as a “living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits,” which the JCPC did not wish “to cut down…, but rather give it a large and liberal interpretation” (Edwards v. Attorney-General for Canada, 1930, the Persons Case in which the

Judicial review

use of the male pronoun in the British North America Act to describe senatorial qualification was ruled to apply as well to women). By Atkin’s “water-tight compartment” metaphor, matters assigned to parliament were the responsibility of parliament, matters assigned to the provinces were the responsibilities of the provincial legislatures, and this clear-cut distinction would be maintained except for the sole emergency of war: “While the ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters, she still retains the water-tight compartments which are an essential part of her original structure.” In cases in 1945 and 1946, the JCPC wove an unsteady pattern in the matter of emergency powers. In 1946 (Attorney-General of Ontario v. Canadian Temperance Federation), Lord Simon asserted the Aspect Doctrine in Hodge v. The Queen—that the nationwide importance of the issue (and not an emergency situation) was the litmus test of jurisdictional competence. In 1947 (Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians v. Attorney-General for Canada), however, the Judicial Committee returned to the narrow emergency doctrine. Since 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada has been the final court of appeal, and constitutional development became a matter largely of accommodative bargaining among the federal and provincial governments in the context of court rulings. However, since 1982, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty within each jurisdiction’s legislative competence has been fundamentally compromised by the constitutional entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Until then, the courts tested legislation against the government-rightsbased BNA Act. Since 1982, legislation and administrative behaviour has also been subject to testing against the citizen-rights-based Charter with the courts as agencies of remedial action. Lord Sankey’s “living tree” metaphor in 1930 has in effect been adopted, but in a different context. Sankey was encouraging legislative flexibility between two levels of legislative authority under the constitution. Now, under the contemporary constitution including the Charter, the courts themselves have become active in adjudicating all legislative, executive, and administrative action, to provide the full benefit and protection of Charter rights and thereby acquiring a degree of quasi-legislative/executive competence themselves. Though not a court of appeal in Canada since 1949, past declarations by the JCPC can continue to be cited in cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, especially in Charter cases, notably Lord Sankey’s reference to Canada’s constitution as a “living tree capable of growth and expansion [given] a large and liberal interpretation.” The contemporary work of the JCPC can be examined via privycouncil.org.uk. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Federalism; Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada. Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive) Judicial rulings on the constitutionality of statutes and administrative behaviour. Until 1982, Canada’s legislatures were supreme within their areas of jurisdictional competence as specified in the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982 the Constitution Act), as adjudicated by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until 1949 and the Supreme Court of Canada. Since Confederation in 1867, judicial review of legislation in the context of federal and provincial jurisdiction has profoundly affected the nature of Canadian federalism and the extent of Canadians’ civil liberties afforded in common law. Since 1982, when the con-

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stitution was amended to include the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the actions of legislatures, executives, and administrative tribunals at all levels of government can be reviewed and tested in the courts against protection afforded by the Charter. It is therefore a matter for the courts to determine the constitutionality of government laws, regulations, and administra tive procedures, and, in the case of the Supreme Court, also to supply an opinion on the constitutionality of a proposed statute or government action referred to it by the federal government (references). With respect to Charter rights, the Supreme Court has generally adopted a non-interpretive role. Rather than seeking to understand the original intent behind constitutional documents, the court’s non-interpretive rulings involve an analysis of the specific provisions of the Charter in light of the larger purpose of guaranteed rights (Hunter v. Southam, 1984): Section 1 of the Charter “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The Charter is “first and foremost an effects-oriented document,” subject only to section 1 and regardless of whether the purpose of the legislation was within the constitutional jurisdiction of the relevant legislature (Big M Drug Mart, 1985). The task of the courts is to ensure “the full benefit” of Charter protection (Dickson, J.). “[P]lacing the analytic focus on the effect of legislation impugned under the Charter rather than on its purpose will impose a less heavy evidentiary burden on the plaintiff ” (Wilson, J.). Following Lord Sankey’s “living tree” metaphor, referring to the BNA Act in a JCPC decision in the 1930s, the Supreme Court is prepared to interpret the Charter permitting “growth, development, and adjustment to changing societal needs” so that freedoms and values in the Charter not become “frozen in time at the moment of adoption” (Dickson, C.J., et al., Motor Vehicle Reference, 1985), ensuring that legislation complements the “democratic values expressed” in the Charter (Dickson, C.J., Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen, 1988). The courts are also available under the Charter for Canadians to engage in remedial litigation, that is, to seek remedy from an alleged infringement or denial of a Charter right “as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances” (s.24:1). Critics of broad, non-interpretive judicial review argue that, especially since the Charter was enacted in 1982, the non-elected judiciary have effectively become public policy-makers. Non-interpretive judicial review is quasi-legislative/executive to the extent that there is less emphasis on rules of constitutional interpretation and more on specifying the meaning of constitutional generalities in a contemporary setting (for example, the phrase “principles of fundamental justice” in s.7), adapting the language of constitutions to changing social conditions (for example, reading in “sexual orientation” to the “Equality Rights” section 15 as a prohibited basis of discrimination). The Supreme Court has established guidelines allowing courts to “read in” words deemed missing from legislation, which would otherwise be unconstitutional, as an alternative to striking down the legislation entirely, thereby depriving anyone of its benefit. The court will also stay a decision, allowing a legislature time to bring its law into conformity with a ruling. From time to time in their rulings, various justices of the Supreme Court have noted that legislators, not justices, enacted the Charter along with the obligation

Judicial system

of the courts to deal with challenges to statutory law and subordinate legislation and procedures of public tribunals. Therefore, there will be cases where the court must not show deference to “the government’s choice of measure.” Writing in 2005 on the highly charged matter of restrictions in Quebec on private health insurance for services provided under the public health care system and long waiting lists under the provincial health care system, Justice Deschamps said: “The courts have a duty to rise above political debate. When…the courts are given the tools they need to make a decision, they should not hesitate to assume their responsibilities. Deference cannot lead the judicial branch to abdicate its role in favour of the legislative or executive branch” (Chaoulli v. Quebec [Attorney-General]). Parliament and provincial governments can protect their legislation under the Charter in two ways: first, by arguing that, though it violates a Charter provision, it is “saved” under section 1 as a “reasonable” limitation of the relevant Charter right “as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”; second, by legislative action invoking the “notwithstanding clause” (s.33), which explicitly, but conditionally, allows legislation to “operate notwithstanding a provision” in section 2 ( “Fundamental Freedoms”) and sections 7–15 (“Legal Rights”) of the Charter. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Notwithstanding (non obstante) clause (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.33); Supreme Court of Canada. Judicial system (judiciary) The process by which justice is applied in courts of law. In Canada, the judicial system involves integrated provincial and federal court jurisdictions. Under provisions of the Constitution Act (Part VII, ss.96–101), the federal government appoints and pays superior, county, and district court judges in the provinces, as well as federal court judges. Superior court judges can be removed only on an address to the governor general by both houses of parliament, but must retire at 75 years of age. The federal government is responsible for criminal law and procedure in criminal matters (s.91.27), while the provinces are responsible for appointments to lower provincial courts and for the administration of justice, including the constitution, maintenance, and organization of provincial courts and procedure in civil matters (s.92.14). The federal government can establish additional courts (s.101), as parliament created the Supreme Court of Canada in 1875 and the Exchequer Court in 1887, the latter replaced by the Federal Court of Canada in 1971. The law that the courts apply is based on legislative statute and on earlier judicial decisions, or precedents. The rule of precedence, or stare decisis, requires judges to take account of decisions that have been made in similar cases: courts may be guided by their earlier decisions, but are bound by the precedents of superior courts. However, especially with the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, but even before then, the “mechanical deference” involved in the principle of stare decisis was being challenged (Chief Justice Bora Laskin, in Harrison v. Carswell, 1976) and was finally displaced by a non-interpretive judicial review of the jurisdictional prerogatives of provincial and federal governments, but in the context of rights and freedoms guaranteed in the entrenched Charter (see Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [1982]; and Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive).

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The legal system in Canada is based on the common law tradition of England and the codified civil law: private law in Quebec is based on the Roman-French civil code and private law in the other provinces in the English common law tradition; criminal law, which is within the legislative competence of parliament (s.91:27), is applied uniformly across Canada. In respect of the civil law tradition in Quebec, judges of the courts in Quebec are selected from the Quebec bar (s.98) and there are similar statutory provisions for the appointment of justices to the Federal and Supreme courts of Canada. The lower level of courts involves provincial courts, surrogate courts, magistrates’ courts, and justices of the peace. The mid-level includes the supreme courts of the provinces, which include courts of original jurisdiction and courts of appeal. The highest level includes the Federal Court of Canada and ultimately the Supreme Court of Canada. There is also a territorial judiciary in the northern territories. Until 1949, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London was Canada’s final court of appeal, except in criminal cases, and effectively a constitutional court (see Judicial Committee of the Privy Council [JCPC]). The Supreme Court and the Federal Court are the major courts of general jurisdiction in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada comprises nine judges who sit in Ottawa and exercise appellate jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases. The Supreme Court is also required to consider references on the constitutionality of legislative initiatives. Some important rulings on references in recent decades concerned parliament’s ability, prior to patriation in 1982, to seek fundamental changes to the constitution by the British parliament either unilaterally or with minimal provincial support (1980), the withdrawal of a province from Confederation (1998), and amending the legal definition of marriage to include samesex couples (2004) (see Reference case [constitutional]; Secession Reference; Supreme Court of Canada). The Federal Court of Canada, established in 1971, and the Federal Court of Appeal, created from the Federal Court in 2003, hears cases against and by the Crown and claims against or concerning officers and servants of the Crown, by individuals seeking relief from decisions of federal boards, commissions, and other tribunals. The Federal courts also have certain jurisdiction in disputes between provinces or between Canada and a province (see Federal Court [Federal Court of Appeal]). The federal appointment of the senior judiciary in general, and of the Supreme Court in particular, has become an important subject given the increased political implications of judicial review under the Charter. Apart from the question of appointments as possible manifestations of government patronage, and despite an elaborate, professional process for recommending appointments, debate occasionally focuses on the constitutional monopoly of appointment power held by the federal government and the potential centralist or philosophical judicial bias that might pervade the courts—but especially the Supreme Court. Various constitutional proposals have been discussed since 1982, including the entrenchment of the composition of the Supreme Court subject to amendment with unanimous federal and provincial legislative agreement, and selection of Supreme Court justices acceptable to the federal government from lists submitted by relevant provincial or territorial governments.

King-Byng Dispute

The appointment process was modified in 2005–2006. In 2005, the federal Liberal government announced a four-stage appointment process involving a broad range of consultation initially with chief justices, provincial attorneys-general, and lawyers, and including an invitation for suggestions from the public. The minister of justice will submit a longlist of candidates to an advisory committee including a retired judge, lawyers, lay people, and a member of parliament of each recognized party, to assess candidates on merit and generate an unranked shortlist of candidates prior to the minister of justice and the prime minister completing their consultations and finally determining the preferred candidate. At that point, the minister will appear before a standing committee of the House of Commons to report on the qualifications of the appointee and the process of appointment. Several opposition parties expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny in a process that was intended to enhance transparency and accountability and include meaningful provincial and parliamentary participation, but within the constitutional framework, including the principle of meritorious appointments and preserving the integrity and independence of the judiciary. In 2006, the recently elected Conservative government set a precedent, when a committee of members of parliament questioned an appointee to the Supreme Court of Canada prior to his confirmation. Jurisdiction, constitutional Legislative authority granted under the constitution. In a unitary state, the national legislature is supreme; in a federal state, the constitution enumerates exclusive and concurrent areas of legislative jurisdiction between the autonomous national and subnational legislatures, including residual and emergency powers, subject to judicial review. Federal regimes, such as Canada’s, are always subject to federal-provincial jurisdictional disputes, as well as private court action, challenging the jurisdiction of legislatures. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada.

K King-Byng Dispute A constitutional dispute in 1926 concerning the role of the governor general in Canada and crown prerogatives. Following the federal general election in October 1925, the governing Liberals remained in office although the party had fewer seats in the House of Commons (99) than the Conservatives (116); a third party, the Progressives, held the balance of power (24) and there were six Labour and independent members of parliament. Not only, as in this case, does the prime minister and government remain in office after the dissolution of a Parliament and during the election campaign, but the prime minister—in this case William Lyon Mackenzie King—has the right to meet the new House of Commons regardless of the election results in order to seek its confidence. But eight months later, in order to avoid a vote of censure concerning a scandal in the customs department, King asked Governor General Lord Byng to dissolve parliament for another election. Byng refused the request, accepted the

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resignation of King’s government, and appointed Arthur Meighen, the leader of the Conservative party as prime minister. Meighen’s government, however, lasted only three sitting days before it was defeated in the house. Byng subsequently accepted Meighen’s advice for dissolution and, in the election of 1926, the Liberals were returned with a majority. King managed to turn the election campaign, which might have centred on a scandal under his government, into one that focused instead on the discretionary power of a non-responsible official exercising an imperial function of his office. Indeed, the governor general had, and continues to have, the right to grant or refuse a prime minister’s request for dissolution, as do the lieutenant-governors in their respective province with respect to the premier. At that time, the governor general, a Briton, not only represented the non-resident head of the Canadian state, but also the British government in Canada. King portrayed Byng’s discretionary action as an imperial function rather than the constitutional prerogative of the governor general as the Canadian sovereign’s representative. For his part, Byng clearly miscalculated the effect of his exercise of prerogative power. While King’s attempt to evade the vote of censure in the House may have been an abuse of power to be checked by the governor general, Lord Byng overestimated Meighen’s ability to carry on in a house in which the Progressives held the balance of power. Nonetheless, a governor general can still exercise discretionary power with reference to summoning and dissolving a Parliament, and even to request a prime minister’s resignation, but only to counter a clear violation of fundamental constitutional principles, and only when there is no reasonable doubt about the justification for such discretionary action. See Crown prerogatives; Governor general. Kitchen cabinet An informal and personal group of close advisors to a prime minister or premier. The term originated with United States President Andrew Jackson who, meeting with friends in the kitchen of the White House, often took their advice over the advice of his cabinet. The phrase continues to be used in the US with reference to advisors in the executive office, but has particular relevance in Canada where a head of government, prime minister, or provincial premier, has much less discretion than a US president in the selection and use of the cabinet, and is therefore more likely to gather together personal friends as a “kitchen cabinet,” notably in the Prime Minister’s Office. For example, both prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney came to office with little parliamentary experience or attachment to the parliamentary caucus they then headed, and not entirely confident in (perhaps even suspicious of) senior administrative officials in place around them inherited from the previous government. However, constitutional obligations required them to create a cabinet in which the parliamentary caucus was the source of cabinet personnel, and with the Privy Council Office the chief source of administration support. Each then used the Prime Minister’s Office as a point of entry for trusted friends and colleagues from university, law school, and private career—their kitchen cabinet.

Land claims and settlements

L Labour Conventions Reference (Attorney-General for Canada. v. Attorney-General for Ontario, 1937) A constitutional judgment by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that parliament could not acquire through international obligation legislative jurisdiction granted to provincial legislatures under the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982 the Constitution Act). Though the judgment was a reference to “treaty power,” it was also important in the development of provincial authority in significant class-related matters of public policy, specifically, labour law. In the particular reference, the Judicial Committee declared unconstitutional three federal statutes that were part of Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s “New Deal.” These dealt with limiting working hours, and establishing minimum wages and holidays from industrial work. The federal government had argued that the legislation was constitutional under section 132 of the Act, in that Canada was carrying out obligations incurred when Canada became a member of the International Labour Organization. The Judicial Committee’s earlier decision in the reference on radio communication (Radio Case, 1932) had encouraged the Conservative government to proceed with the labour legislation. According to Lord Atkin, however, the responsibility for a new subject such as radio as a result of a treaty obligation incurred by an independent Canada might fall to parliament under the residual power of the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause in the preamble to section 91; however, there was “no existing constitutional ground for stretching the competence of the [federal executive]…merely by making promises to foreign countries.…” The federal government has power to sign treaties, but the ability to implement them depends on subject matter and the division of power under the Act. The Judicial Committee declared the federal “New Deal” legislation unconstitutional as it was intended to be permanent rather than simply a temporary response to the emergency of the worldwide economic depression. Thus, labour legislation was protected as a field of provincial jurisdiction under section 92:13 (“Property and Civil Rights in the Province”), except for employees of the federal government and federally regulated industries. Lord Atkin asserted that Canada’s federal constitution comprised federal and provincial “water-tight compartments…an essential part of her original structure.” Because the federal government cannot use “treaty power” to enlarge its legislative competence in areas allocated to the autonomous provinces, it must be careful not to sign treaties that it does not have the power to implement under the division of legislative power in the Constitution Act. For example, Canada’s signature to the Canada-United States Columbia River Treaty in 1959 involving hydro-electric development in British Columbia, and to the environmental Kyoto Protocol on climate change of 1997, in force in 2005, raised the issue of federal and provincial roles in the matter of international agreements. See Treaty power. Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal) Negotiations since the 1970s between provincial and federal governments and Native groups on comprehensive claims to establish certainty of ownership of land and resources to allow economic development and environmental protection to the benefit of Native Peoples;

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and on specific claims of alleged non-fulfilment of treaties or other legal obligations. The Constitution Act, 1982 recognized “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” of Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples, including current and future land claims agreements (Part II). The federal government is responsible for Indian affairs, while the land and resources claimed are under provincial jurisdiction in each province and federal jurisdiction in the territories. In both comprehensive and specific claims, the federal government has assisted Native groups with grants and loans to research and negotiate their claims. Some specific claims on non-fulfilment of treaty or other legal obligations may be resolved administratively; some, on ministerial acknowledgement of a claim, require negotiation and settlement, including financial compensation and land transfer; others involve recourse to the courts. Comprehensive claims recognized by the federal government are those that arise from the traditional occupancy and use of lands by a claimant group (an Indian band or Aboriginal community within a geographic area) whose title has not been dealt with in treaty or other legal form, notably in Northern Quebec, British Columbia, the territories, and Labrador (Newfoundland). Treaties otherwise were negotiated before and after Confederation in selective parts of the country. The Quebec government’s plans in the 1970s to develop the hydro-electric potential of rivers entering James Bay, as well as forestry, mining, and tourism in the area, led to negotiations and settlement of land claims, financial compensation, defined Native rights, and a regime for dealing with relations between Native groups and non-Native governments in Northern Quebec (James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, 1975). Another major agreement was negotiated by the provincial government in 2002. Elsewhere, comprehensive claims affected most of British Columbia, as treaties in that province concerned only a small portion of southern Vancouver Island and the Peace River area in the northeast. The settlement of comprehensive claims in British Columbia, notably with the Nisga’a (1998), facilitates future investment in the province’s mining, fishery, and forestry industries. Comprehensive claim settlements have also taken place in Labrador. Agreements in the territories involve only the federal government. Settlements in the Northwest Territories included its division in 1999, with the creation of Nunavut in the central and eastern Arctic, Canada’s only jurisdiction with a predominantly Native population. In Yukon, agreements led to the sharing of the resource revenues and land, resource, fish, and wildlife management between the Yukon government and the territory’s First Nations. Specific claims, as opposed to comprehensive claims, involve alleged nonobservance of treaty obligations or dissatisfaction with treaties. Hundreds of such claims have been settled, with others pending. Court decisions have been important in the process of negotiating land claims, especially in cases where no treaties were signed. The Supreme Court of Canada recognized Aboriginal title based on traditional occupancy in Calder (1973), respecting the Nisga’a, although the Supreme Court was divided on whether that title had been extinguished. In Delgamuukw (1997), respecting the Wet’suwet’en and Gitskan in British Columbia, the Supreme Court admitted oral history as evidence in the determination of entitlement, granting Natives who had not signed

Language rights

treaties the right to claim Aboriginal title if their ancestors had lived exclusively on the land prior to European arrivals. It admitted the possibility of Crown infringement for valid legislative purposes, but groups with Aboriginal title had to have been involved in the process. The Supreme Court of Canada has also had a role in determining treaty rights, especially when they conflicted with federal and provincial laws. It ruled in Marshall (1999) that eighteenth-century treaty rights of the Mi’kmaq in Atlantic Canada allowed them fishing rights, subject to conservation measures, though the ruling and a subsequent clarification did not settle the ensuing dispute over fishing rights involving Native and non-Native fishers and the government. In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled that commercial trade in the eighteenth century between the Mi’kmaq and the British did not extend to lumber. As for Aboriginal title, evidence suggested the Mi’kmaq populations were settled around waterways in the eighteenth century and that occasional forays into forested areas for hunting did not qualify as exclusive possession and control (Marshall, et al. [Nova Scotia] and Bernard [New Brunswick]). The decision frames future negotiations with the governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and non-Aboriginal commercial loggers. In 2002, a Supreme Court ruling affirming constitutionally protected Métis harvesting rights on Crown land in part of Ontario established legal tests for similar rulings elsewhere: that the Métis community has existed continuously since control by Europeans was established in the area and that the activity, to be protected as a right, continues to be of significance to the community (Powley). In 2005, the federal government signed a Métis Nation Framework Agreement with the Métis National Council (metisnation.ca). See Indian Act; Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements; Northwest (Riel) Rebellions; Nunavut (“Our land”). Language ombudsman An informal name for the federal commissioner of official languages, who is responsible for ensuring the recognition of equal status for French and English in the operations of the government of Canada according to the Official Languages Act. See Bilingualism and Biculturalism; Commissioner of Official Languages. Language rights The rights of French- and English-speaking minorities to government services in their language, including education and justice, that is, of the francophone minority in provinces other than Quebec, and in the territories, and of the anglophone minority in Quebec, including in Quebec the use of languages in commercial signage. The debate over language rights is historic and touches on the substance of Canadian nationality: whether such rights are an intrinsic part of citizenship, that is personality-based, or are subject to variation across federal and provincial jurisdictions, that is territory-based. In the late-twentieth century, language became the chief characteristic and concern of French society in Canada. The debate over language rights focused on the conflicting policies of the federal government and the government of Quebec, the only North American jurisdiction whose population is predominantly French-speaking. The federal government promotes pan-Canadian minority personality rights in a program known as “official bilingualism,” including encouragement for provinces to adopt parallel minority rights-based legislation; the

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government of Quebec, whether of the federalist Liberal party or the sovereignist Parti Québécois, promotes the survival of French through provincial laws, limiting the use of languages other than French in the province. The federal government’s commitment to Canada-wide individual minoritylanguage rights was enacted in the Official Languages Act, originally in 1969, subsequently strengthened by amendments, but also entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution Act, 1982 (“Official Languages of Canada,” ss.16–22, including the status of New Brunswick as an officially bilingual province), along with “Minority Language Education Rights” (s.23). Sections 16–23 are beyond the use of, and therefore protected from, the legislative override, or “notwithstanding” clause (s.33). Freedom of expression is protected in section 2, but subject to section 1 (reasonable limits) and section 33. Quebec did not endorse the Constitution Act, 1982. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the provincial policy of preferential treatment for the use of French, enacted in the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) under the Parti Québécois government in 1977, was unconstitutional in important respects both before and after the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Before, concerning languages of government and the courts; after, concerning languages of instruction and commerce, though in commercial signage while prohibition was unconstitutional, requirement for the predominance of French (visage linguistique) was ruled valid. A restrictive language policy with respect to commercial signs was reinstated by the provincial Liberal government, invoking the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause. Bill 178 permitted bilingual signs inside establishments with the French language predominant, but only French-language signs outside. With the use of section 33 about to expire in 1993, Bill 86 amended the provincial language Charter further, without reference to section 33, allowing languages other than French on outdoor signs as long as French was predominant. In 1999 and 2000, courts in Quebec heard further cases on commercial signage, but the law was upheld. In 2005, majority francophone plaintiffs seeking access to minority English-language instruction in the province for their children, which was denied under Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, lost before the Supreme Court of Canada (Gosselin). See Bilingualism and Biculturalism; Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969); Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.-G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984). Law Commission of Canada (lcc.gc.ca) An independent federal law reform agency established in 1997 to advise parliament on improvements to Canadian law, comprising five commissioners appointed by the federal government. The commission is charged in its legislative mandate to develop new concepts of, and approaches to, law; to study ways of making the legal system more economic, efficient, and accessible; to stimulate critical debate about the law and encourage the elimination of obsolescence and anomalies in the law. The commission sponsors research, holds conferences and publishes discussion papers and reports on findings. Reports of the commission reflect its views and are tabled in parliament. Plans and priorities in 2005 included issues related to new immigrants, relationships between public police and private security companies, and possible benefits to the law from indigenous law and legal traditions.

Leaders’ debates

Leaders’ debates (election campaign) Since 1968, televised debates among party leaders during many federal and provincial election campaigns. In federal campaigns, the debates take place separately in English and French. There are no legal requirements for such debates, but as no political party wants to be seen avoiding them, are therefore virtually a permanent fixture in month-long campaigns. As the least party-controlled aspect of a campaign, relative to advertising and the leader’s tour, party strategists carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a debate, negotiating a time and format thought to be most beneficial to their party. For example, a governing party with a comfortable lead in public opinion polls might not be in a hurry to provide a platform for its opposition and an opportunity to diminish that lead, while the opposition might want an opportunity to challenge the front-running prime minister or premier directly, and the sooner the better. Third, or minor, parties are generally well disposed to debates as their leaders appear at least for that moment as equals among the major contenders. When debates are scheduled, party leaders prepare for them assiduously. Each party will have a strategic position and objectives in the campaign, and have developed campaign tactics, including an approach to the debates, to conform to the strategy. For example, in multi-party debates, there is a tendency for opposition leaders to “gang up” on the prime minister. In response, the prime minister will endeavour not be to be drawn into their “squabbling,” but to maintain a dignified posture. Otherwise, the leader of an opposition party that is leading the government party in the polls at the time of a debate might adopt a manner befitting a would-be prime minister, and receive the barbs of the other leaders, including the incumbent prime minister. In addition to opening and closing “set-piece” speeches, close attention is given to possible “one-liners” that might be inserted into the debate to catch an opponent off guard and be the focus of post-debate “spin” and “sound bites” in the mass media. Parties have so-called “war rooms” to monitor the debates (and other campaign activities) and prepare “instant responses” to opponents’ sallies. High-level party representatives, in this context “spin doctors,” try to influence media reporting of the debates. Sound bites comprise the few seconds of exchange that become the highlight from a lengthy debate repeated in news broadcasts; spin is the interpretive commentary afterwards, especially focusing on who “won” and who “lost” the debate and the likely effect the debate will have on the election outcome. Until the 1980s, it was generally held that the major effect of televised debates among the electorate was to reinforce established partisan preferences. Televised debates during the federal campaigns of 1984 and 1988, however, demonstrated that debates could have an important influence on a campaign. In 1984, with the governing Liberals’ campaign already faltering, the Progressive Conservative leader, Brian Mulroney, apparently delivered the knockout blow to Prime Minister John Turner over the issue of patronage appointments, reinforcing the Conservative theme that the recent change of Liberal leadership did not amount to change in government. Four years later, Turner effectively challenged Prime Minister Mulroney on the proposed Canada-United States free trade agreement. In this case, there was sufficient time remaining in the campaign for the Conservatives to alter their television advertising and campaign tactics, and for third-party business

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Leadership conventions advertising to overcome the Liberal advantage from the debate. In both cases, the lengthy debates were reduced to brief “visuals” and “sound bites,” which were replayed and discussed in newscasts and commentaries. There were no similar knockout blows in either the French- or English-language debates in the 1993 and 1997 federal elections. In 1993, the reinforcement hypothesis appears to have prevailed, to the advantage of the leading Liberal party and two new parties, the Bloc Québécois and Reform. In 1997, Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest and New Democratic party leader Alexa McDonough were apparently assisted by the debates, but only sufficiently for their parties to regain official-party status in the House of Commons, which they had lost earlier. In 2000, the debates were notable for the performance of the Progressive Conservative leader, Joe Clark, but the Conservatives lost eight seats and managed barely to win official-party status in the House of Commons with 12 seats including Clark’s. Nonetheless, his performance in the debates was apparently more creditable especially when compared to Stockwell Day’s, the new leader of the Canadian Alliance, which failed in its strategic objective of a significant electoral breakthrough in central and Atlantic Canada. In 2004, any “debate effect” was insignificant compared to the effect of Liberal “attack ads” in the waning days of the campaign. The advertisements apparently undermined first-place support in national public opinion polls enjoyed by the recently merged (Canadian AllianceProgressive Conservative) Conservative party under Stephen Harper, and resulted in sufficient last-minute voter decisions to elect a minority Liberal government under Paul Martin. Some polling results during the 2006 campaign indicated an increase in Conservative popularity shortly after the pair of debates. See Campaign (election); Electoral law (controls; subsidies). Leadership conventions (selection) Meetings of party members to select a parliamentary leader. Leadership conventions are a practice imported to Canada from the United States and adapted firmly, if awkwardly, to the parliamentary system of British origin. In the US presidential-congressional system, with fixed terms of office for elected officials and therefore fixed election dates, party conventions to select presidential and vice-presidential candidates are regular quadrennial events, reduced through the primary system to highly orchestrated televised events with predetermined outcomes. In Canada’s parliamentary system, however, there is no country-wide contest to fill the “prime ministership” and no fixed term for a government except for the constitutional five-year limit on Parliaments. (British Columbia and Ontario have fixed provincial election dates, but the legislatures can be dissolved earlier for a general election.) At one time selected by the parliamentary caucus, leaders have been selected by convention delegates since the early twentieth century. There are no legal requirements in Canada for the process of leadership selection and provincial and federal parties are free to set their own rules, but the Canada Elections Act was amended in 2003 to regulate the financing of federal party leadership campaigns. Until recently, leaders were elected only in conventions of party delegates. At the provincial level, several parties conducted balloting of all members by mail and by telephone, and also experimented with weighted balloting according to numbers of members in each constituency and primaries to

Leadership conventions determine, in effect, first-ballot results prior to a traditional convention. By the turn of the twenty-first century, all federal parties had adopted all-member or mixed membership-convention delegate procedures for selecting leaders. Some of these experiences were not successful for technical reasons, but also because they deprived the selection process of drama, and deprived the party of intensive mass media attention to its “renewal.” The federal Liberal party held the first leadership convention in 1919. The Liberals had held a convention when in opposition in 1893 to boost morale; the leader, Wilfrid Laurier, again in opposition in 1918, announced a convention for similar reasons to be held the following year. However, Laurier died in February 1919, and the parliamentary caucus, which would have normally selected a leader, decided to hold the convention to “First…draft, discuss, and adopt the platform…; Second…deal with…party organization; Third…select a leader…” (the official call quoted in John C. Courtney, The Selection of National Party Leaders in Canada [Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, Ltd., 1973], 64). However, after the selection of William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1919, no Liberal convention was held for any reason until 1949, after King announced his retirement and a successor had to be chosen. King had been prime minister for 22 of those 30 years; thus, on the occasion of his retirement while in office, a party convention for the first time selected not only a new leader but effectively the next prime minister. When King submitted his government’s resignation, the governor general asked the convention-selected leader, Louis St. Laurent, to form a successor Liberal government. The federal Conservatives adopted the convention model in 1927. The Ontario Conservatives had selected their provincial leader in convention in 1920. Therefore, by the time Arthur Meighen resigned as federal leader in 1926, the convention model was trumpeted as preferable to selection by a parliamentary “cabal.” The convention model by contrast appeared democratic and representative of the party, and the Conservatives could not afford to appear otherwise. The socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation not surprisingly adopted it at the party’s inception in 1933 and, as successor to the CCF, there was no question as to how the New Democratic party would select its leader. Although its leaders are chosen for a fixed term of two years, in practice, leadership changes have occurred only upon the incumbent’s retirement. The traditional convention format was expected to create an impression of openness, liveliness, and ultimately of unity behind the new leader. In the traditional leadership convention, delegates cast a secret ballot. If no candidate had a majority of the votes cast, further balloting took place, with the least popular candidate in the previous ballot disqualified and other candidates possibly withdrawing voluntarily, hoping to deliver their supporters’ votes to another candidate in subsequent balloting. Historically, the element of executive control was very strong, especially in the Conservative and Liberal parties. The party officials, the selection of whom the retiring parliamentary leader normally had influenced, were responsible for naming delegates to conventions. Appointed delegates-at-large and ex officio delegates frequently accounted for one-third to one-half of the delegates at federal Conservative and Liberal conventions. At NDP conventions, delegates from affil-

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Leadership conventions iated trade unions could usually be relied upon as a conservative brake on any “radical” activity from constituency-based delegates. The lack of fixed terms for Liberal and Conservative leaders, the concern of some party activists over leadership-dominated conventions, and arguably the bitter struggle within the federal Progressive Conservative party during the final years of John Diefenbaker’s leadership in the mid-1960s, led to the development in the 1970s in those parties of rules on leadership accountability. While the precise nature of the instrument of leadership review varies, the intent is to have the leader submit to a periodic vote of confidence at a convention, for example, within a certain period following a general election, especially if the party lost that election. In such a vote, usually on a motion to decide whether there should be a leadership contest, the party executive might be obliged to call a leadership convention within a specific period. However, regardless of the level of support required by the party’s constitution, a leader who does not obtain a certain personally declared level of confidence beyond the required level might decide to resign. Such a device, then, allows a party, whose leader is selected without a fixed term, to debate the leader’s future, which may be appropriate following electoral defeat. Despite forming a majority government after winning three consecutive elections in 1993, 1997, and 2000, it appeared that Jean Chrétien resigned as Liberal leader anticipating a less-than-acceptable leadership review vote scheduled for 2003. The Conservative party that resulted from the Canadian Alliance-Progressive Conservative merger in 2003 adopted the Progressive Conservative model of leadership review rather than the fixed term of office that automatically requires a vote of confidence in the leader. The change in leadership selection format—either to an all-member vote or a combined membership/convention delegate format—was occasioned by several factors. Criticisms of the convention model included the disproportionate numbers of very young delegates who could be relied upon for displays of enthusiasm and vigour, but perhaps not for the experience and prudence to make such an important decision; the increasingly intrusive nature of mass media coverage that, while providing the party with an image of youthfulness and vigour suitable for a process of leadership renewal, might also be influencing delegates’ decisions for reasons better suited to the requisites of the media than to those of the party; the increasingly “hot-house” environment of the convention floor from ballot to ballot, with exhausted delegates making last-minute decisions under considerable pressure; the requirement that the last-placed candidate be compelled to withdraw could deprive delegates of a “best” second-choice candidate to unite the party after a fractious struggle among first-choice candidates. Factors that led to changes to leadership contests arose during the 1980s included concern about the financial burden of leadership contests and dubious practices surrounding the selection of convention delegates. The federal Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties experienced the appearance of hundreds of “instant” or “one-day” Liberals and Conservatives for delegate selection, some of whom did not qualify for the electoral franchise, and there were media accounts of exorbitant expenditures by some leadership candidates, vote-buying, and the establishment of secret funds to encourage people to become candidates. The NDP, if only out of necessity, was the first federal party to establish rules pertain-

Legislation

ing to party membership, delegate selection, and candidate expenses. It organized pre-convention leadership candidate debates at party expense in various cities across Canada. Since 2004, prompted by the report in 1992 of the (Pierre Lortie) Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Finance, the Canada Elections Act controls the financing of federal party leadership contests. As in the case of general elections, leadership candidates, their financial agents, and auditors must register with the chief electoral officer. There are restrictions on contributions from trade unions and corporations to leadership candidates, and limits on the contributions of individuals, including the candidates themselves, to leadership campaigns. No income tax credits are given for contributions. All contributions and expenses, including contributions 18 months after the contest, must be reported, and the names and addresses of all contributors of more than a nominal amount are published. Any surplus funds must be given to a party or party association. Leadership review See Leadership conventions (selection). League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) A group of largely university-based intellectuals, which existed during the economic depression-era 1930s, from 1932 until the Second World War; it was the “brains trust” of the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor of the New Democratic party. Modelled on the British Fabian Society, the LSR published pamphlets and articles to educate the public on socialist approaches to the social and economic order. In 1932, members of the LSR met with Labour and some Progressive members of parliament in Ottawa to pass resolutions, leading to the founding of the CCF a few months later. The CCF’s Regina Manifesto, which was published in 1933, was the work of such LSR members as Frank Underhill (historian), F.R. Scott (constitutional lawyer and law professor), and Eugene Forsey (labour and economic historian). In 1935, the LSR published Social Planning for Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), its most thorough critique of Canadian society and the economic order. At the founding of the NDP, a group of primarily university-based intellectuals published Social Purpose for Canada (Michael Oliver, ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). See Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); New Democratic party; Regina Manifesto. Left, political See Class cleavage. Legislation (type; stages of) Bills introduced in a legislature. Once introduced, legislation might be removed or withdrawn from consideration, might be defeated, might “die on the Order Paper” when the legislature recesses or is dissolved for an election, might be amended, and might pass the legislature and then be proclaimed as law. When passed, bills become Acts of parliament (or of the provincial or territorial legislature) and, upon receiving royal assent, statutes or laws to be promulgated. Public bills are of a public or general nature and may be introduced by any member of the legislature. However, public bills introduced by private members (that is, legislators who are not in the cabinet) cannot involve the expenditure of

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money—that being the prerogative of the Crown and its ministers. Also, private members’ bills are often introduced for reasons of public education or for personal political reasons, and they are seldom enacted into law (see Private members’ legislation). Public bills introduced by a member of the cabinet—a minister of the Crown—constitute government legislation and take up the bulk of the legislature’s time. Government legislation is either financial (money bills) or non-financial. Financial legislation, which only a government minister can introduce, deals with the spending of money (supply or appropriation bills requiring the legislature to “grant supply” to the Crown) or with the raising of money (tax measures and ways and means legislation, again a Crown prerogative to introduce, but the legislature’s opportunity to debate government policies) (see Budget and budgetary process; Estimates). In the bicameral parliament, money bills must originate in the elected House of Commons; the power of the Senate to amend them is subject to debate, though it is generally agreed that it cannot increase expenditure proposals. Though many government bills involve amendments to current statutes, government legislation might involve new programs and the creation of administrative agencies to carry out the objectives of the legislation—enabling legislation. Enabling legislation delegates to the cabinet or a government agency the power to adopt “subordinate legislation,” that is, to make orders, rules, or regulations known as statutory instruments, which have the force of law (see Delegated power). Identical legislation must be adopted in both houses in order to receive parliamentary approval; thus, amendments accepted in one house following approval of the bill in the other house must be approved subsequently in the first house. Private bills are non-government legislation designed to alter the law relating to some particular interest, or to confer rights on or relieve the obligations of some person or group of people. For example, bills to incorporate private companies are private bills. In practice, such bills at the federal level are usually introduced and dealt with first in the Senate, receiving perfunctory examination by the House of Commons. Legislation must receive three readings in the legislature. The following describes procedure for the passage of most government bills in the House of Commons (otherwise, see Private bills; Private members’ legislation [bills]). The minister sponsoring the legislation introduces the bill, moving that it receive first reading. The house usually approves first reading automatically; the bill is now on the Order Paper (legislative agenda) and is then printed and distributed. Subject to the negotiation of the schedule of the house among the house leaders of each party, the minister later moves that the bill be given second reading and referred to a committee of the House. The vote on second reading represents approval in principle and is therefore preceded by extensive debate. Since 1994, some bills have gone to committee prior to debate on second reading. At the committee stage, a legislative committee comprising members of parliament from parties roughly in proportion to their representation in the house examines nonfinancial bills clause by clause and may call witnesses to testify in public for or against the legislation. Supply bills that authorize the spending of money go to standing committees where departmental “estimates” can be examined and then voted on by the house expeditiously to grant supply to the government. Otherwise, financial bills, and some other legislation agreed upon, are dealt with in commit-

Legislative process

tee of the whole house. Bills studied in committee of the whole proceed to third reading. However, following hearings on a non-financial measure, a legislative committee sends its final report, including suggested amendments to the legislation, back to the house for the Report stage. At the Report stage, the house can debate the bill further, providing the opposition with another opportunity to prolong debate and upset the government’s timetable, if not its legislation, subjecting the bill to time-consuming standing or recorded votes in the house on proposed amendments. The government might be tempted to invoke closure at some stage, allocating time for debate and bringing the measure finally to a vote (see Closure). After all amendments are voted on, the minister’s motion that the bill (as amended) be “concurred in” is voted on. Following the Report stage, usually at the next sitting, the minister moves third reading. Debate at this stage is usually limited. If the measure receives approval on third reading, it goes to the Senate for consideration and passage. If the Senate alters the legislation, the House of Commons must concur in the changes or the legislation may not proceed to the governor general for royal assent. A prolonged stalemate in the house or between the House of Commons and the Senate could result in a bill dying on the Order Paper, either at the end of a session or upon dissolution of the legislature for an election. Upon receiving royal assent following parliamentary enactment, the law is then proclaimed, taking effect immediately or at a later date. See House of Commons; Legislative committees; Standing (select, special, joint) committees (of the House and Senate). Legislative Assembly The official name for the elected legislatures of all Canadian provinces and territories, except the provinces of Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec. The legislatures of the first three are called the House of Assembly, and the legislature of Quebec, the National Assembly. Legislative override See Notwithstanding (non obstante) clause (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.33). Legislative process The consideration of bills by a legislature—federal, provincial, territorial or municipal—that may result in their passage, or enactment, to become statutory law. In federal, provincial, and territorial legislatures, the process takes place within a centuries-old framework of parliamentary privilege developed in Great Britain, involving respect for the institution of parliament, precedent, and individual parliamentarians’ privileges and immunities; however, daily business involves the ever-present and often-heated adversarial contest of wills among government and opposition parties, leading to the next election. The statutes that establish regulatory agencies and tribunals enable them to exercise quasi-legislative/executive power to enact and enforce subordinate legislation in the form of procedural rules, regulations, and orders. Some people would also describe the adjudicative role of the courts on federal-provincial disputes and on cases involving the Canadian Charter of Rights and freedoms, including the enforcement section 24.1, as quasi-legislative and executive. On the passage of legislation, see House of Commons; Legislation (type; stages of); Legislature. On prelegislative activities to encourage or discourage certain legislation, see Budget and

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budgetary process; Interest groups; Lobby(ist; -ing). On post-legislative activities that in turn might lead to pressure for further legislative proposals, see Judicial review; Policy (analysis; -making; public); Regulatory agencies (regulations). Legislature That part or branch of government that has the power to enact or amend laws. A legislature may be elected (as are the House of Commons and all provincial and territorial legislatures in Canada), or appointed (as is the Canadian Senate). Some government agencies perform quasi-legislative functions through orders, rulings, or regulations adopted under enabling legislation passed by a legislature. Because of the extensive nature of judicial review under the federal Constitution Act, 1867, but more so following the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, some observers say that the courts in Canada have a quasi-legislative role, especially under the enforcement section, 24.1, whereby a court can order remedial action that it considers “appropriate and just in the circumstances.” See Delegated powers; House of Commons; Judicial Review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Legislation; Senate. Letters Patent (1947) (solon.org/Constitution/Canada/English/LettersPatent.html) As Canada’s non-resident sovereign is represented by the governor general, the instrument defining the office of governor general, which Canada’s non-resident sovereign makes applicable to each governor general through the commission of appointment. In addition to the delegation of the Crown’s prerogative powers in right of Canada, the Letters Patent elaborate on the governor general’s statutory constitutional power described in the Constitution Act, 1867. The sovereign appoints a governor general on the advice of the federal cabinet, effectively the prime minister. There remains a distinction between prerogative powers exercised by the governor general as the Crown’s representative in Canada and those exercised by the sovereign on Canadian advice. Important prerogative powers of the governor general include the power to summon, prorogue, and dissolve parliament, and the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, including the prime minister. The governor general may also deputize people to act for the governor general. See Crown prerogatives; Governor general. Liberal party (liberal.ca) The federal Liberal party of Canada originated in the reform politics of mid-nineteenth-century Canada. In response to the dominant Tory element, the Reformers in Upper Canada or Canada West (now Ontario) and the Maritimes joined with the anti-clerical Rouges of Lower Canada or Canada East (now Quebec) in an uneasy alliance. The alignment was notably unsuccessful until the late-nineteenth century. The Liberal party initially lacked much FrenchCanadian support because of its extreme anti-clerical element in Quebec and its rural anti-Catholic, Protestant element elsewhere. Led by Alexander Mackenzie, the party came to office in 1873, in the wake of a financial scandal involving the governing Conservative party. It left office five years later, in the wake of an economic depression and under a wave of popular support for the Conservative’s National Policy of railway construction, immigration, and tariff increases. Edward Blake, Mackenzie’s successor as leader, failed to win elections in the 1880s.

Liberal party

Since 1896, however, the Liberal party has been pre-eminent in federal politics. Considerable credit for the change in party fortunes usually goes to Wilfrid Laurier, leader from 1887 to 1919. In contrast to the dour quality of Liberal leadership before him, Laurier’s style was one of moderation and “sunny ways.” From 1887 to 2006, the Liberals had only seven leaders, all of whom became prime ministers. Not surprisingly given the party’s dominance in government, four came into the position of prime minister as they assumed the leadership when the party was in power (Louis St. Laurent, Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, and Paul Martin), while the other three eventually became prime ministers (William Lyon Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, and Jean Chrétien), though all seven had held cabinet positions in their predecessor’s government. Laurier’s success, and that subsequently of his party, may be understood in terms of earlier Liberal failure and Conservative success based on bicultural and class strategies. The Liberals under Laurier developed a French leadership that was integrated in Quebec society and an English leadership that was at least sympathetic, if not purposively accommodative, to the contemporary political needs of French Canada. In federal elections since 1891, the Liberals have led the Conservatives in popular vote in Quebec in all but the 1958, 1984, and 1988 elections. Three of the leaders since Laurier have been French Canadians, while no French Canadian has formally led the Conservative party, although Jean Charest was designated interim leader following the election debacle of 1993 in which he was one of only two Progressive Conservatives elected, and the leader, Prime Minister Kim Campbell, was defeated in her own riding. When the Liberal party’s popularity in Quebec has slipped, the chief beneficiary has usually not been the Conservatives, but a more effectively nationaliste party such as, in chronological order, the Nationalistes, the Bloc Populaire, the Ralliement des créditistes, and the sovereignist Bloc Québécois. In the 2000 election, the Liberal party led in popular vote in Quebec for the first time since 1980, ahead of the second-place BQ, 44.2 to 39.9 per cent, but then lost that lead dramatically in the 2004 election (33.9% to 48.9%), and in 2006 fell behind both a resurgent Conservative party (20.7% and 24.6%, respectively), as well as the front-running BO (42.1%). In addition to a Québec solide, the Liberals have generally followed the earlier Conservative model of maintaining the goodwill of the economic elite as well as a progressive public image. The sole instances of clear alienation from the business community occurred with Laurier’s support for reciprocity in trade with the United States in 1911 and John Turner’s opposition to the Canada-US free trade agreement in 1988. The Liberals were later defeated in elections in those years. Since the rise of the industrial trade union movement in the 1930s, with its formal if occasionally tenuous link with the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and later the social democratic New Democratic party, the Liberals have seemed more right wing than left wing in leadership and in economic and social policy, but more progressive than the Conservatives historically, and certainly more so than the Reform party and its successor, the Canadian Alliance, with whom the Progressive Conservatives merged in 2003. Liberal governments can take credit for enacting redistributive programs, from old age pensions and unemployment insurance to universal health insurance. But major redistributive policies were usually enacted when Labour, then the CCF and later the NDP were

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improving their position in public opinion surveys at Liberal expense or holding the balance of power during minority Liberal governments. Liberal leadership seeks to balance pressure from the social democratic left yet maintain the “confidence” of the business community by maintaining a progressive image with nonredistributive social policies such as law reform, domestic programs to encourage private investment in economically hard-pressed regions, and an multilateralist foreign policy especially through the United Nations. In brief, the Liberal party’s success in wooing business support while maintaining popular support is a major key to its predominance since 1896, and having opposition parties positioned markedly both to its left and to its right has been strategically advantageous. As did the Conservatives in the nineteenth century, so the Liberals since then have also sought to project an image of their party as the most effective political vehicle of Canadian nationalism. However, especially since the 1940s, but with the exception of the free-trade election of 1988, the Liberals have seemed to identify national interest with the predominant views of the central Canadian economic elite. This patriotic image held as long as elite opinion in central Canada was effectively that of the national economic elite, as long as French Canada’s strategy for survival was largely internalized in Quebec and accommodated federally through cabinet portfolios and patronage, and as long as the population density of central Canada resulted in significantly more seats than any other region. A long-term problem for federal Liberals may be that the first two of these conditions regarding the economic elite and francophone Quebec no longer hold, and that the demographic factor is slowly changing. The Canadian West has developed strong, indigenous economic interests at odds with those of central Canada and better reflected in provincial government policy. French-Canadian nationalism is more aggressive than in the past and focuses on the enhancement of the Quebec “state” rather than on an Ottawa-centred federation with only traditional rights exercised by the government of Quebec. On the basis of population figures in the census of 1991, west-coast British Columbia and Ontario received additional representation in the House of Commons. On the basis of the 2001 census, the western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, along with Ontario, received additional seats. Increasingly since the 1980s, the Liberal party has appeared to be a regional, central Canadian and urban party, challenged, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, by a resurgent Conservative party following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative party, and in Quebec by the BQ, far removed from the party’s self-proclaimed image in the twentieth century as “the party of national unity.” Liberalism Political beliefs associated with the idea of human progress achieved primarily through the free play of each person’s innate drive for self-aggrandizement, subject only to the state acting as a “referee” to ensure “fair play” under the rule of law. Liberalism developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the context of political struggles against arbitrary government, notably monarchical and clerical regimes with an allied landed aristocracy. Liberal values were supported by European nationalists and a rising bourgeoisie with wealth based on trade, commerce, and industrial capitalism rather than on birthrights and the ownership of land.

Lieutenant-governor

A liberal views the state as the instrument to ensure “progress” through “equality of opportunity.” In the nineteenth century, the state’s role was to be minimal, but supportive of commercial enterprise unrestricted by monopolies or undue social obligations. In the twentieth century, however, liberals were more inclined to rely upon the social policy and the regulatory power of the state, rather than “free market forces,” to achieve this equality. Liberals define citizenship in terms of individual rights and freedoms rather than rights held on individuals’ behalf by the state. Contemporary liberalism has been more internationalist, and less supportive of the concept of national sovereignty. Having supported movements of national liberation from imperial bonds in the late-twentieth century, liberals are now generally supportive of the pursuit of national interest through multilateral political institutions such as the United Nations and supranational trade-related bodies such as the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. As a broad set of beliefs, liberal ideas are deeply rooted in Canada’s political culture, and evident in some form in all Canadian federal parties—in the laissezfaire individualism of some Conservatives, and such populist western movements as the Progressive, Social Credit, Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, in the mild reformism of the New Democratic party, successor to the Fabian socialist Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and in the Liberal party, architect of Canada’s welfare state as the party of power in the twentieth century. The constitutional entrenchment of the citizen-rights-based Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, with a broad power of judicial review of legislative, executive, and administrative behaviour, highlights the strength of liberalism in Canada. However, the Charter also subjects individual rights to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (s.1), permits legislatures to exempt legislation from the Charter (s.33), and allows for affirmative action programs to qualify equality rights (s.15), thus acknowledging other aspects, less individualistic and more collectivist, in Canada’s political culture. See Collectivism. Lieutenant-governor The representative of the Crown, or head of state, in each of the Canadian provinces. The lieutenant-governors act virtually always on the advice of their respective provincial ministers, the Executive Council (cabinet), formally as the lieutenantgovernor-in-council. However, the lieutenant-governor can exercise Crown prerogatives with respect to summoning, proroguing, and dissolving the provincial legislature, and appointing and dismissing a government. Because the office of lieutenant-governor is a federal office, under the Constitution Act, 1867 a lieutenantgovernor may refuse royal assent to provincial legislation, “reserving” it for consideration by the governor-in-council, the federal cabinet (ss.56, 90). While there are no legal restraints upon the power of reservation, the last case occurred in Saskatchewan in 1961 when the lieutenant-governor acted without first consulting the federal government. Since then, by constitutional convention, the power of reservation will only be exercised on instruction from the governor-in-council. Although federal governments since 1970 have considered the power of reservation negotiable in talks on a revised constitution, it was not removed when the constitution was patriated in 1982.

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As federal officers, lieutenant-governors are appointed by the governor-incouncil, that is, the federal cabinet and effectively the prime minister, for fiveyear terms, removable only for cause communicated to the governor general and to parliament in writing. Parliament sets and pays the lieutenant-governors’ salaries (Constitution Act, 1867, ss.58–60). Provincial legislatures have always been prevented from acting alone to amend their office of lieutenant-governor (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:1, until replaced by the “unanimous consent” amending formula in section 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982). See Crown prerogatives; Governor general; Reservation (of legislation). Lieutenant-governor-in-council The formal constitutional form through which a provincial cabinet (formally the Executive Council) exercises executive power. The lieutenant-governor appoints the council by selecting as premier the leader of the party that commands majority support in the legislature and accepting the premier’s advice on appointments to the council, or cabinet. Thus, the lieutenantgovernor-in-council is the lieutenant-governor acting on the advice of the cabinet; and the executive instrument of the lieutenant-governor-in-council is the order-in-council, or a minute of the council. The lieutenant-governor does not attend cabinet meetings, but signs the orders or minutes that are sent from cabinet. See Lieutenant-governor. “Living tree” Doctrine (constitution) One of two important, but opposing perspectives in decisions by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act). Expressing a liberal approach to interpreting Canada’s major constitutional statute, Lord Sankey wrote that “[t]he British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. [The JCPC does] not conceive it to be [its] duty…to cut down the provisions of the Act by a narrow and technical construction, but rather to give it a large and liberal interpretation…” (Edwards v. Attorney-General for Canada, 1930, the Persons Case that determined that the use of the male pronoun in the British North America Act, 1867 respecting the appointment of senators countenanced the appointment of women [ss.23, 24]). Apart from the tendency of formal documents to use male pronouns, when the BNA Act was created in the 1860s, women did not have the right to vote. Thus, the use of male pronouns was legally correct then, but only discriminatory by the late 1920s, when women did have the federal franchise on the same basis as men and one woman, Agnes McPhail, had been elected to the House of Commons. The liberal approach expressed by Sankey regarding a social issue was at variance with a strict view expressed by Lord Atkin in 1937 with respect to the federal system itself: “While the [Canadian] ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters, she still retains the water-tight [federal-provincial] compartments which are an essential part of her original structure” (Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario, 1937, on declaring unconstitutional aspects of Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s New Deal legislation). Since the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the scope of judicial review (since 1949 solely by the Supreme Court of Canada) has been expanded considerably. The Supreme Court adopted a non-

Lobby

interpretive approach of substantive review of legislation similar to Sankey’s “living tree” metaphor, to permit “growth, development and adjustment to changing societal needs” so that the freedoms and values in the Charter not become “frozen in time at the moment of adoption” (Dickson, C.J., Motor Vehicle Reference, 1985). See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Persons Case (Edwards v. A.-G. for Canada [1930]). Lobby (-ist; -ing) While “the lobby” is an area adjacent to a legislative chamber where legislators and guests can meet, “a lobby” refers to individual or collective action (or lobbying) to influence legislators or other decision makers in the executive and the administration of government. A lobbyist is a person whose business is to advance the interest of clients or employer in representations to parliamentarians and government officials. In the United States, weak party discipline among federal legislators, separation of powers, and the large and diffuse administration make lobbying a crucial and pervasive part of public policy making. By contrast, Canada’s disciplined party and parliamentary systems, along with the relative compactness and cohesiveness of the administration, result in less initiative and control by lobbyists in the legislative process, though not necessarily so in the regulatory process, than in the United States. Professional lobbying at the federal level in Canada increased significantly following the election of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in 1984, the first change in party government in 21 years, excepting the nine-month Conservative government of Joe Clark in 1979–1980. There already were lobbying firms in existence, assisting private interests in coping with increased regulation in increasingly complex government organizations. Now, however, they were competing with new firms involving people openly declaring their personal connections with the new Mulroney government and purportedly marketing their personal influence with the new ministers and ministerial aides rather than any expertise in public policy and the policy-making process in Ottawa. Former parliamentarians, including one-time cabinet ministers and a provincial premier, former ministerial executive aides, and former senior public administrators soon joined the “government relations” industry. At the same time, people in public office realized that there could be an apparently lucrative life after public service in the “government relations and public affairs consulting” business. In a case of role reversal in 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed a former military procurement lobbyist, now a newly elected member of parliament, as minister of defence in a government committed to increasing the defence budget to acquire improved materiel. The aggressive and well-publicized activities of some lobbyists with personal ties to the Progressive Conservative party and particular ministers, including the prime minister, and allegations of conflict of interest in the cabinet itself, led the government to enact the Lobbyists Registration Act, 1989. However, the Act did not regulate lobbyists beyond simply classifying them and requiring them to register. In the early 1990s, parliamentarians generally agreed in committee that the Act should be strengthened further to achieve “greater transparency” respecting the activities of lobbyists. The Liberal government of Jean Chrétien introduced

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changes to the Act in 1994, but the requirements remained less restrictive than those in the United States. The Act recognizes two types of lobbyists: Tier I lobbyists are those who may be hired by clients for a fee. Tier II lobbyists are those who work for a single company or, since the 1994 amendments, for a coalition of groups and lobby only for that firm or organization, but for whom lobbying is a “significant” part of their job. Initially, Tier I lobbyists were required to register the names of their clients and indicate the issue of concern by checking one of several areas listed on a form. Tier II lobbyists needed only to register annually their name, title, and employer. Shortly after the legislation was enacted in 1989, 295 Tier I firms were registered, many employing a large number of individuals, including, for example, recent senior policy advisors in the Prime Minister’s Office and the chief negotiator and deputy negotiator of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of 1989. By 1994, there were 3,000 lobbyists registered with the federal government and allegedly many unregistered, such as lawyers who can assert lawyer-client privilege. The 1994 amendments required lobbyists to provide more specific information than earlier about their clients and their activities: the names of their clients (if a single corporation, the name of the parent corporation and any subsidiaries that might benefit from the lobbying activity; if an organization, the name of each corporation or group that comprises the coalition); the specific matter, be it legislation, regulation, grant, contract, or any financial benefit, being sought; the government office being lobbied; any moneys being received from the government; whether contingency fees based on success are charged—Treasury Board regulations demand that contractors doing business with the federal government must not retain lobbyists whom they pay on a contingency basis, that is, compensation related to the value of the contract, nor should organizations seeking various forms of federal assistance pay lobbyists’ fees related to the value of any grant or contribution; finally, methods of both public and private communication. The registrar of the registry of lobbyists, who can audit information and issue advisory opinions, had the six-month limitation on proceedings of violations extended to two years. Finally, the role of registrar became the responsibility of an ethics counsellor, appointed to investigate any alleged violations of the Act as well as violations of the government’s conflict-of-interest guidelines for ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and senior public officials. The amendments, though requiring more information about lobbying techniques and activities, still fell short not only of earlier parliamentary committee recommendations, but also of the Liberal party’s campaign promises in 1993. Lobbyists are still not required to divulge their partisan activities, lobbying fees are fully tax-deductible expenses for lobbyists’ clients, contingency fees charged by lobbyists were prohibited only by Treasury Board regulations in matters mentioned above, and though the ethics counsellor’s reports were made public, the officer himself was accountable to the prime minister. Some commentators credit the activities of lobbyists themselves for this legislative shortfall. Despite some minor, but still important changes to the Act in 2003 and 2005, major loopholes remain involving, for example, the loose definition of lobbyists, general and vague categories of activity to be reported, and enforcement especially of failure to register (for instance, individuals being lobbied are not required to ascertain if the lobby-

Lobby

ist is registered). However, in 2004, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin replaced the ethics counsellor with an ethics commissioner accountable to parliament and separate from the office of registrar of the registry of lobbyists. Both the Act and the office of registrar were subjects of recommendations by the federal judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of illegalities respecting a $300-million sponsorship program. In 2006, Justice John Gomery recommended that the limitation period for investigation and prosecution under the Act be further extended from two to five years from the time when the registrar becomes aware of an infringement. He also recommended that the registrar report directly to parliament on application and enforcement of the Act, and that resources be provided to enable the registrar to publicize and enforce the law, including the investigation and prosecution of the registrar’s own staff. If the reports submitted under the requirements of the Act do not tell the full story of lobbying in Ottawa, the public is further assisted by the activity of the Advocacy Research Centre (arcpub.com). This private company maintains an internet website and publishes several titles that provide even more information than the Registry about lobbyists and their activities in Ottawa. Although lobbyists have worked strenuously to limit government regulation of their activities, they frequently benefit from learning about their competitors from both the official Registry and the work of the Advocacy Research Centre. Access to the federal Registry is via “Public Registry of Lobbyists,” via “Lobbyists Registration System” at: https:// strategis.ic.gc.ca. Traditionally the disciplined party and parliamentary systems in Canada have made it necessary for effective lobbying to take place largely within the private confines of the executive and administration. More frequently than not, majority governments are in office and therefore in control of the legislative process and committed to the passage of legislation once introduced in the legislature. While administrative agencies may hold hearings on changes to regulations, it is always best for private interests to understand the mood of the “regulator” so as to have some influence before the hearings and credibility during them. Lobbyists are most effective when they possess specialized information relevant to government policy-making and can also assist government decision-makers in legitimating and implementing their decisions. Thus, knowledge of, access to, and favourable interaction with senior administrative staff is crucial to successful lobbying. On legislative changes or any departmental business, a similar relationship with ministerial aides, both departmental officials, and political executive assistants, is also important. Individual backbench legislators and party caucuses on either side of the House of Commons are normally of much less importance as targets for lobbyists, except for possible long-term “political investment” (today’s opposition critics or government backbenchers might be tomorrow’s ministers) and to affect the general environment that might be relevant to anticipated government action. However, in minority situations, governments should be more attentive to the views of their backbenchers and their caucus generally, and sensitive to the need to bargain with opposition party leaders and even independent members of parliament. Even majority governments are well-advised to have canvassed their caucus in antici-

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pation of introducing controversial legislation, to ensure a solid phalanx of enthusiastic public defenders of government legislation against a strong private and public lobby of opposing interests. Since the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, a number of so-called single-issue groups, whose demands have been legitimized with particular reference to legal rights (esp. s.7), equality rights (ss. 15 and 28), Aboriginal rights (s.35), and multicultural heritage (s.27), have increased in prominence. Many of these rights-based groups (representing, for example, First Nations, environmentalists, peace activists, women, gays and lesbians, people of various ethnic origin, and the disabled) have joined with others in larger social movement organizations and networks to lobby effectively in non-traditional ways, using various forms of public demonstrations and court challenges. While in the short term such tactics can alienate executive and administrative decisionmakers, the potential for successful court action by these groups compels the political and bureaucratic elites to accommodate this more confrontational style of political representation. As social movement lobbies can influence policies that affect traditional private, sectional interests and groups, these latter groups, for example the pulp and paper, tobacco, and financial industries, have also had to augment their traditional “behind-the-scenes” lobbying of government officials with aggressive public campaigns. Also, studies suggest that corporations are very active compared to others in pursuing their interests through Charter rights litigation. While conflict of interest guidelines affect ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and senior officials, a grey area of lobbying involves other parliamentarians. Members of parliament represent constituencies that might contain a dominant private interest or a number of significant interests. When pursuing their constituency service function, some members may in fact be lobbying for a private interest. Because of the tendency of governments to appoint people with significant private business interests to the Senate, attention has been drawn to the activity of some senators, notably on the standing committee on banking, trade, and commerce, in establishing at a minimum a favourable legislative environment for business. Otherwise, senators can also claim to be exercising a constituency function when advising private interests how best they might pursue a legislative or administrative objective. In 2004, the Liberal government also created the parliamentary office of ethics officer for the Senate. See Conflict of interest; Ethics commissioner (Senate ethics officer); Interest groups. Lord Durham’s Report A report to the British government in 1840 on the affairs of British North America following the rebellions in 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec, respectively, after Confederation). The Report recommended the reunification of those separate colonies, which had been established earlier under the Constitutional Act, 1791, and the introduction of responsible government in the proposed United Province of Canada. The imperial government acted expeditiously on the first recommendation in the Union Act, 1840. However, the second recommendation, which was greeted favourably by the Reformers, was not acted upon. The most often recalled passage from the Report bears on the first recommendation: “I expected to find a contest between a government and a people,” wrote

Lower House

Durham. “I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state; I found a struggle, not of principles but of races; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English” (Report on the Affairs of British North America, Sir C.P. Lucas, ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912], II, 16). Clearly, Durham’s expectation was that the political union of the two Canadas would lead to “a complete amalgamation of peoples, races, languages, and laws” (122), an absorption of French society by the British.“I have little doubt,” Durham said,“that the French, when once placed…in a minority would abandon their vain hopes of nationality” (307). On responsible government, Durham wrote: “it was a vain delusion to imagine that…a [legislature], strong in the consciousness of wielding the public opinion of the majority…could look on as a passive or indifferent spectator, while [its] laws were carried into effect or evaded, and the whole business of the country was conducted by [an executive], in whose intentions or capacity it had not the slightest confidence” (76–77). Responsible government, however, did not come to the Province of Canada until 1848, and then by convention after its adoption first in Nova Scotia. See Bicultural cleavage; Responsible government. Lower Canada A colony in British North America from 1791 (until then Quebec) to 1840 (then Canada East), in which the French-speaking population outnumbered the English-speakers. Under the British Quebec Act, 1774, the colony extended west to include land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Its political system included provisions for freedom of worship and the right of Roman Catholics to hold public office, and for the use of civil law on non-criminal matters unless changed by the colony. In 1791, demands by British loyalists who migrated to Quebec following the American Revolution led to the Constitutional Act, which divided the colony into Upper and Lower Canada, so named given their relative position in relation to the St. Lawrence River system. This partition allowed for continuation of the protection of French law and society in predominantly French Lower Canada, while allowing the British majority in Upper Canada the common law and other familiar institutions. Thus, the prospects for French survival, albeit in the context of British colonialism, were enhanced. In 1840, the Union Act reunited the two Canadas once again, this time in a vain attempt to absorb the French into the English-speaking community. See Constitutional Act, 1791 (U.K.); Lord Durham’s Report; Union Act, 1840 (U.K.). Lower House In a bicameral legislature, the chamber with representation usually more popularly based than the upper house. In Canada’s bicameral parliament, the lower house is the House of Commons, to which members are elected on a modified principle of representation by population, each to represent one constituency, and the support of a majority of whom is necessary for a government to remain in office. The upper house is the Senate. All provincial and territorial legislatures are unicameral. See House of Commons; Responsible government; Senate; Upper chamber (house).

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M MHA/MLA/MNA/MPP Initials designating elected members of provincial and territorial legislatures: member of the house of assembly (MHA); member of the legislative assembly (MLA); member of the national assembly (MNA); member of the provincial parliament (MPP). MP Initials designating the elected members of the House of Commons: member of parliament. See Members of parliament (MPs). “Maîtres Chez Nous” “Masters in Our Own House,” a slogan of the Liberal government of Quebec in the 1960s, expressing the assertive French nationalism and statism of the Quiet Revolution. See Quiet Revolution. Majority government A government formed by a party that holds the majority of seats in the legislature. From 1921—when a multi-party system developed in Canada—to 2006, of Canada’s 26 elected federal governments (that is, excluding Arthur Meighen’s governor general-appointed government of 1926, John Turner’s of 1984, and Kim Campbell’s of 1993), 16 were majority governments (61.5%). Seven of nine elected governments from 1921 to 1953 (excluding Meighen’s) were majority governments (77.7%), while only nine of the 17 elected governments from 1957 to 2006 (that is, excluding Turner’s and Campbell’s), have been majority governments (52.9%). The electoral system, gerrymandering, and malapportionment have contributed to majority governments in multi-party contests in Canadian federal and provincial elections. The single-member constituency system with simple plurality wins tends to result in the most popular party winning a disproportionately larger percentage of seats in the legislature. In multi-party elections, parties with the largest percentage of the popular vote, but usually less than 50 per cent, often form governments with large legislative majorities. The drawing of constituency boundaries historically involved political gerrymandering, and rules that modify the principle of representation by population to favour sparsely populated provinces and rural areas over densely populated provinces and urban areas (malapportionment) also contribute to legislative majorities based on electoral minority support. See Electoral system; Gerrymander; Malapportionment. Malapportionment A situation in which the number of electors in electoral districts or constituencies is significantly unequal, in which representation of various community interests takes precedence over the equal representation of voters (representation by population). Also, the number of federal constituencies in the House of Commons allocated to each province and the territories is based less on representation by population than representation of “different interests, classes and localities” (Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1872, p. 926). The boundaries of federal constituencies are redrawn following each decennial census, in an attempt to deal with excessive malapportionment that develops over

Malapportionment

time because of population growth and internal migration patterns, yet maintain proportionate representation among provinces and territories. The original Confederation agreement in 1867 involved a fixed number of seats for Quebec, with other provinces entitled to a number of seats in proportion to its population and the fixed number of Quebec seats for that province’s population. Since then, various means of distributing seats among the provinces have been used. A so-called senatorial floor amendment (s.51A) to the British North America Act (since 1982, the Constitution Act) in 1915, provides that no province will have fewer members in the House of Commons than its number of senators. By this provision, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have more MPs than the size of their populations warrants. The Representation Act, 1985 guarantees provinces no fewer seats in the House of Common than they had in 1976, effectively benefiting Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. A minimum of representation from the three sparsely populated northern territories—Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon—is also guaranteed (Constitution Act, 1999). Added to these provisions, there are now limits on the number of MPs in the House of Commons. Thus, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario are provinces whose population growth is not fully reflected in additional constituencies. Malapportionment between densely populated urban constituencies and sparsely populated rural and northern constituencies in the country generally is also constitutional. It is argued that effective representation by a legislator is hampered when a constituency is too geographically large, and that the distinct interests of rural and far-flung communities would be poorly represented in a legislature if the criterion of representation by population were strictly observed. In partisan terms, malapportionment favours political parties with a rural base of support; many provincial party regimes in particular have been deliberately sustained by malapportionment favouring sparsely populated rural constituencies against opposing parties whose base of support tended to be in densely populated, and underrepresented, urban ridings. For some people, however, a strict reading of section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees voter equality despite well-established considerations that inevitably lead to under- and overrepresentation. In Carter v. Saskatchewan (A.-G.) (1991), the Supreme Court of Canada was divided 6–3 on an appeal of the Saskatchewan Supreme Court’s rejection of considerations other than population size in the province’s electoral boundaries legislation (Reference re Saskatchewan Electoral Boundaries, 1991). The majority in Carter that sustained Saskatchewan’s legislation supported a balance of population size and other factors (distinct community interests: minority representation, cultural, and group identity) in drawing constituency boundaries. Dissenting justices on the Supreme Court did not contest the recognition of factors other than population size, but opposed the Saskatchewan legislation because it mandated redistribution on rural overrepresentation and urban under-representation rather than on voter equality. They argued that the principle of voter equality should be mandated in law, leaving those responsible for drawing the boundaries to limit the application of the principle within reason. See Electoral system.

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Mandarin(ate) An informal and somewhat pejorative colloquial reference to senior public officials, implying a high level of cohesiveness, power, and privilege allegedly reminiscent of the traditional class of imperial Chinese officialdom. Mandate Support for a political program or a specific action, usually issuing from an election victory or from a resolution of a legislature sanctioning government action. In 1988, for example, the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was the focus of the federal election campaign. The FTA’s passage, obstructed by Liberal senators in the previous Parliament, was quickly adopted in the post-election Parliament as the Progressive Conservative government had received a mandate to proceed on the basis of its legislative majority in the newly elected House of Commons. An earlier example occurred in 1963 when the opposition Liberal party precipitated the defeat of the minority Progressive Conservative government and a subsequent election with an unexpected policy announcement to permit the arming of US missiles on Canadian territory with nuclear warheads. These were exceptional cases, as election campaigns do not usually focus on a single or generally acknowledged set of specific policies. Many election campaigns are fought on generalized issues such as “leadership” or “the economy.” In these cases, the victorious party has received only a general mandate to govern. In particular instances, though not constitutionally necessary, a government might seek a parliamentary resolution after the fact to mandate, or sanction, a particular policy or decision. In the 1990s, for example, the federal government received such parliamentary approval or mandates for its participation in the Gulf War following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and in military action by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Balkans. Manitoba Schools Question (and French language rights, 1890) The controversy that followed the abolition of public support for denominational schools, and therefore of predominantly French-language education in Manitoba in 1890 (Public Schools Act). Companion legislation abolishing constitutional guarantees on the use of French in government and the courts was also adopted at the time (Official Language Act). Because the denominational schools existed before Confederation, their existence was to be guaranteed under the British North America Act, 1867, section 93 (since 1982, the Constitution Act). The federal Manitoba Act, 1870, confirmed by the British parliament in 1871 and included as part of the Canadian constitution, contained guarantees for both denominational schools (s.22) and the use of French in government and the courts (s.23). The courts ruled that the Manitoba Public Schools Act was valid, but also that there was a right to appeal to the federal cabinet for a remedial order-in-council under the British North America Act (s.93:3). When the provincial government refused the federal Conservative government’s request to redress minority rights, Conservative Prime Minister Sir Mackenzie Bowell had a remedial order issued in 1896. When the Manitoba government refused to obey the order or negotiate a compromise, the federal government introduced remedial legislation (in accordance with the Manitoba Act, 1870 [s.22:3]; British North America Act [s.93:4]). The combined opposition of the Liberals and dissident Conservatives prevented

Maritime union

passage of the legislation. The Liberals, led by Wilfrid Laurier, a Quebec-based French Canadian, argued that federal action would infringe upon provincial rights. When the parliamentary five-year term expired, the legislation died. The subsequent election of a Liberal government in 1896, with majority support in Quebec, seemed to affirm the commitment of voters in that predominantly Frenchspeaking province to provincial rights over federal intervention to ensure minority-language and education rights in the provinces. Similar attacks on minority French-language education occurred in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan in the first 50 years of Confederation. On the use of French in government and the courts in Manitoba, in 1889 the government passed an order-in-council ending the publication of the Manitoba Gazette in French, and the following year the Official Language Act of 1890 abolished French as a language of the courts and of the legislature (that is, of the provincial government). Almost one century later, in 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the 1890 language law unconstitutional (Manitoba Language Reference). However, while they were being translated, English-only laws were granted validity to ensure the rule of law in the province. In the Manitoba Language Reference, 1992, the court had to establish guidelines for the translation of “instruments of a legislative nature.” Restrictions on the use of English in government, the courts, and the economy, and on English-language education in Quebec were enacted by the Parti Québécois government in 1977, and were challenged in the courts. In 1982, the constitutionally entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the PQ government of Quebec opposed, included a section guaranteeing publicly funded minority-language primary and secondary educational rights in all provinces “where numbers warrant” (s.23). In 1969, New Brunswick enacted its Official Languages Act, had it entrenched in the Constitution Act, 1982 (s.16:2), and moved to improve French-language education for the Acadian population. In Ontario, which has a large minority francophone population, successive governments have, with some exceptions, expanded access to government and judicial services in French, but shied away from declaring the province officially bilingual. See Bicultural cleavage; Charter of the French Language (Quebec); and other entries on matters discussed here. Maritime union A long-standing idea to amalgamate the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As a practical matter, union has not been high on the public agenda since the 1860s, when a conference was held in Charlottetown to discuss the matter. At that time, a delegation from the United Province of Canada encouraged consideration of a wider union including Canada. Meetings in Charlottetown led to a conference in Quebec City on the larger union. Ultimately, a federal union took place in 1867 of the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, with the Maritime holdout, Prince Edward Island, joining in 1873, two years after British Columbia on the west coast. While Maritime union is not now a foreseeable event, functional interdependence has been achieved as a result of negotiations since the 1960s. For example, the Council of Maritime Premiers was established by statute in 1972, partly as a result of a recommendation of the (Deutsch) Report on Maritime Union in 1965 for amalgamation of the three

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provinces, but perhaps also to forestall a formal union. See Council of Atlantic Premiers. Marketing boards A reference usually to the co-operative, but compulsory marketing of agricultural products in Canada. The marketing of many products is regulated by provincial boards. At the federal level, agencies such as the federal National Energy Board (NEB) (neb.gc.ca) and the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) (cwb.ca), are in part marketing boards, although the NEB also regulates the import and export of oil and gas, while the CWB is a joint producer-federal government agency that markets abroad westerngrown wheat and barley. The regulation of the marketing of products within a province is a provincial matter (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:13,“Property and Civil Rights in the Province,” s.92:16, “Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature…,” and other sections with particular regard to natural resources), but comes under federal jurisdiction when the marketing becomes interprovincial or international (s.91:2, “Regulation of Trade and Commerce”). Largely ignored until the 1990s has been the constitutional injunction of section 121 of the Constitution Act respecting Canada as a common market: “All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall…be admitted free into each of the other Provinces.” In constitutional discussions in the early 1990s, the federal Progressive Conservative government pressed without success for the “modernizing” of section 121, including the prohibition of domestic trade barriers with exceptions for reasons of national interest and for programs promoting regional development or equalization, and for new powers for parliament to manage the economic union. Although federal-provincial conferences subsequently affirmed a commitment to reducing provincial barriers to the free flow of goods, services, capital, and labour, the greatest challenge to economic protectionism in general, and to marketing boards and agencies in particular, has resulted from international free-trade agreements and subsequent disputes involving Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organization). See Economic union of Canada; Free trade; “Trade and Commerce” power; World Trade Organization (WTO). Mass media of communication A reference to television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and film as intermediaries in the political discourse between the public and politicians. Increasingly, the Internet has become a popular medium used by the traditional media but also by groups and individuals solely on websites and personal weblogs (“blogs”). On the assumption that no communication system or individual medium is neutral, scholarly inquiries pursue the question of bias on the part of both the senders and the receivers of information. The concern is to discover systematic and hence predictable (as opposed to random) patterns of bias or distortion in the transmission of information, and subsequent influence subsequently on public attitudes and behaviour. Investigations of mass media effects in Canada focus largely on television, radio, and newspapers, and the class, cultural, and geographic biases evident in

Mass media of communication

“agenda setting” (telling readers and viewers what to think about) and “gatekeeping” (telling readers and viewers what to think). Observing that most of the mass media in Canada are in the private sector and subject to ownership by corporate chains and interlocking conglomerates, some people identify a right-wing, ideological bias to the media, or at least a conservative bias consistent with profit making. On the other hand, observing the values of the working press, that is, reporters and commentators, others discern a left-wing bias, or at least a critical iconoclasm. Also, there are no national newspapers in Canada similar to those in most European countries, and Canadians tend to read either the English- or French-language daily press, and listen to or watch either, but not both, English language and French-language news and public affairs programming. Thus, the mass media tend to reinforce the geographic and bicultural cleavages in Canada, presenting a regionally and culturally differentiated treatment of issues on the public agenda and occasionally a significantly differentiated agenda. Because the broadcasting component of the mass media comprises large public and private corporations, observers also examine content for evidence of distinctive public-sector and private-sector values in media agenda setting and gatekeeping, expressed, for example, in news and public affairs broadcasting on the public Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada (cbc.radio-canada.ca) and private networks such as CTV (ctv.ca), part of the Bell Globemedia multimedia conglomerate. With respect to media effects on individuals, media scholars have also noticed the increasingly sophisticated techniques adopted by party strategists to manipulate public opinion, especially to achieve short-term shifts in opinion during election campaigns. Elections effectively take place on television and comprise advertising, daily reports on the party leaders’ activities, and televised leaders’ debates. All parties have adopted tactics associated with consumer-testing of products in the private sector in order to develop campaign strategies and day-to-day tactics for television coverage. Consequently, there tends to be a generic quality to party campaigns as well as media coverage, with a tendency of television to demand dramatic and brief daily “sound bites,” accompanied by public opinion surveys and commentary, treating campaigns as “horse races” and politics generally as a field of personal rivalries and conflict, instead of discussions about preferred choices in public policy. Recent years have seen important structural changes within the industry generally. Increasingly, the communications system is characterized by corporate responses to purported advantages in harnessing convergent technologies and integrated production and distribution systems. Corporate multimedia conglomerates may include newspapers, periodicals, publishing companies, over-the-air radio and television networks, cable and satellite companies, digital and analogue specialty television channels, digital radio, telecommunication common carriers and service providers, interactive Internet sites, and mass entertainment products including major league sports teams and venues. Bell Globemedia (bellglobemedia.ca), CanWest Global Communications Corp. (canwestglobal.ca), Rogers Communication Inc. (rogers.com), and Quebecor, inc. (quebecor.com) are Canada’s largest integrated multimedia communication conglomerates. Almost the entire Canadian population has access to communication via the Internet. Many have access at home or at work. Students have access at school, col-

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lege, or university, and the general public through public libraries. Traditional media, such as newspapers, can be accessed on their websites. In many cases the regular updates on their sites provide “visitors” with further written news and information accompanied by streaming video, as well as opportunities for interactive commentary. E-government initiatives include the on-line availability of a variety of public sector websites including legislatures, government agencies, and documents. Political parties and politicians use their websites for legislative and electoral purposes. Corporations, interest groups and associations, social movement organizations, and public interest groups all seek to reach and influence the public through the Internet. Finally, there is an increasing number of people and groups—weblogs and their bloggers in the “blogosphere”—using individualized websites of varying quality to encourage discussion on a wide range of issues and interests. With communication technology in constant flux, the federal government has been hard-pressed to regulate the ever-changing communication industry, notably through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (crtc.gc.ca), but also through legislative measures, especially regarding Canadian content and concentrated ownership. The CRTC has decided, for instance, not to attempt to regulate Canada-based management and content on the Internet. The government has also encountered difficulty in protecting the Canadian periodical industry from rulings of the World Trade Organization on so-called “split runs” of popular magazines from the United States that contain little Canadian editorial content, but considerable advertising from Canadian sources that might otherwise patronize Canadian magazines. It has encountered similar difficulties with respect to the Canadian film industry, faced with United States-based interests protecting their dominance in English-language film distribution and exhibition. See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio-Canada); Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission; Leaders’ debates (election campaign); Press gallery. Means test An administrative regulation or procedure that distinguishes those who are eligible for a social benefit on the basis of need from those who are not. Thus, the benefit is not “universal” but “needs-based.” Tests that require proof of eligibility are generally considered anathema, because they have often required people to make known personal, family, and financial affairs, or to arrange personal affairs disingenuously, if not dishonestly, so as to qualify for the benefit. Means testing thus also involves high administrative, investigatory, and enforcement costs. User fees to access public programs may amount to a kind of means test if level of income effectively determines usage. A more politically palatable way to effect a means test for a benefit is to make the benefit universal but taxable; hence, given a progressive income tax system, the benefit may be “clawed back” from people with high incomes. See Clawback. Medicare A popular term for the accessible, universal, comprehensive, portable, and publicly administered (single-payer) medical insurance plans operated by provincial governments on a shared-cost basis with the federal government under the federal Canada Health Act (hc-sc.gc.ca/medicare/home.htm) and provincial legislation.

Medicare

Health care was designated a provincial responsibility under the Constitution Act of 1867 (s.92:7), a time when the policy field was considered of local concern and also a matter of private charity. Health care then did not entail a great burden for the provincial level of government with little access to revenue-generating powers of taxation relative to the federal government. However, by the end of the twentieth century, health care was a major and costly policy field that involved the federal government exercising its spending power to establish country-wide conditions for provincial administration of health care. The public plan had also become arguably the most popular government program, but beset with debate about cost, lengthy waiting lists for some services, de-listing of others in various provinces, and gradual privatizing of some medical services. The ongoing debate has included the (Romanow) Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care, a Senate committee study (Kirby), both reporting in 2002, and federal-provincial and territorial meetings in 2003 and 2004 to establish a 10-year finance plan to sustain the program, but with jurisdictional flexibility regarding standards for medically acceptable wait times for specific services. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada heightened debate on the subject when it sustained a challenge under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to the ban on using private insurance to pay for services covered under public health care (Chaoulli v. Quebec [AttorneyGeneral]). Granted a one year stay of the ruling, the Quebec government responded in 2006, guaranteeing a six-month waiting-time limit for selected surgical operations that had the longest waiting lists, and paying patients who use for-profit private “affiliated”clinics in Quebec if necessary to meet the guarantee; should that option fail within a further three months, the province will pay for out-of-province surgery. There would be a limited amount of private health care and private insurers, though doctors could not work in both the private and public systems. Universal, comprehensive, and public medicare was first introduced in Canada in the 1960s by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government in Saskatchewan. At that time, most doctors in the province withdrew their services and the government brought doctors from elsewhere to provide medical services. The strike was eventually settled and, although the government was defeated in a subsequent election, single-payer public health insurance was effectively established in Canada. In 1968, a federal Medical Care Act set standards by which the provinces, which are responsible for health care, would qualify for federal sharedcost funding. By 1972, all provinces had medicare plans that met the criteria. Because of rising costs, the federal government has sought since the 1970s to reduce its financial obligations while continuing to impose its conditions on provincial administration of medicare. By 1980, some provinces had allowed underfinancing of their medicare plan, leading eventually to the proliferation of user fees and a potentially less-than-universal health care program. In 1984, the federal Liberal government passed the Canada Health Act, which effectively abolished extra-billing and user fees by doctors and hospitals. Ontario’s compliance with the federal legislation led to an abortive doctors’ strike in 1986. Federal underfunding continued despite provincial objections and, in 2000, the Alberta government permitted surgery and overnight accommodation in private clinics, leading people in the industry and among the public to express concern about a potential two-tier health care system based on ability to pay.

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As mentioned above, in a 4–3 decision in 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec’s ban on private insurance for services covered under the provincial health care plan violated section 1 of Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms requiring “proper regard” to “democratic values, public order and the general well-being of the citizens of Quebec” (Chaoulli). With an abstention, the court was equally divided (3–3) on whether the ban violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“…the right to life, liberty and security of the person [and] not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”). Chief Justice McLachlin felt that it did: “Failure to deliver health care in a reasonable manner thereby increasing the risk of complications and death [has] interfered with the interests protected by s.7.” Dissenting, Binnie J., et al. ruled “‘health care to a reasonable standard within a reasonable time’ is not a legal principle of fundamental justice.…It will be very difficult for those designing and implementing a health plan to predict when judges will think its provisions cross the line from what is ‘reasonable’ [to] what is ‘unreasonable.’” As the court ruled in the case on the basis of the Quebec Charter, rather than the Canadian Charter, the ruling was applicable only to Quebec; also, as mentioned above, the Quebec government responded in 2006 with a policy far short of a full, two-tier private and public health care system that advocates of public health care feared. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive). Meech Lake Accord (1987) An agreement on amendments to the Constitution Act reached by the 11 federal and provincial heads of government to accommodate Quebec’s opposition to the Constitution Act, 1982, which patriated the constitution with domestic amending formulae and included the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Accord failed to be ratified by all legislatures within three years of its initial adoption by a legislature, despite last-minute, high-level, and high-pressure political negotiations in June 1990. Not only was the failure of the Accord a serious blow to the federal Progressive Conservative government, which had staked its political future on accommodation with Quebec, but it revived Quebec nationalism, which had been politically dormant since the defeat of the sovereignty referendum in 1980. The Accord’s defeat also called into question the political and bureaucratic elite-dominated style of executive federalism as a means of achieving political accommodation, especially on something as fundamentally important as the constitution. The constitutional amendments of 1982 had left Quebec with less power than before. It lost its informal veto over constitutional change, there was no redistribution of federal powers, Quebec legislation—especially its language law—was now subject to challenges under the Charter unless the notwithstanding clause (s.33) was periodically invoked and, of considerable importance, provincial autonomy with respect to education was compromised by section 23 (minority-language education rights), which is beyond the reach of the notwithstanding clause. To add insult to injury, the 1982 amendments represented the “renewed federalism” promised by Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau during the provincial referendum campaign of 1980, and which very likely accounted for the defeat in that campaign of the Parti Québécois government’s proposal to negotiate sovereignty-association.

Meech Lake Accord

Following the Progressive Conservative victory in 1984, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made Quebec’s accommodation to the constitution a matter of priority in a Quebec round of negotiations. The provincial Liberal government of Robert Bourassa, elected in 1985, presented five demands: the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society; a veto for Quebec on amendments to the constitution; a limitation on federal spending power; a role for Quebec in the appointment of justices on the Supreme Court of Canada; and a role in immigration policy. In 1987, an Accord was negotiated at Meech Lake near Ottawa that satisfied the Quebec government, yet apparently maintained the principle of provincial equality. On four of the five issues, the Accord granted similar powers to all provinces: unanimity among the legislatures would be required for any constitutional amendment affecting federal institutions; provinces would be allowed to opt out of new federal-provincial shared-cost programs with compensation if they established programs with similar objectives (as opposed to standards); the federal government would appoint Supreme Court justices and senators acceptable to it from lists of names submitted by the relevant provinces; all provinces were given the right to share immigration powers with the federal government. The proposal on Quebec’s constitutional distinct society status agreed to by all heads of government was the most contentious part of the Accord. The constitution was to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the recognition of Frenchspeaking Canadians, centred in but not limited to Quebec, and English-speaking Canadians concentrated outside Quebec but also present in Quebec, as “a fundamental characteristic of Canada,” and that “Quebec constitutes within Canada a distinct society.” Parliament and the provincial legislatures were “to preserve the fundamental characteristic of Canada” while, in addition, Quebec specifically was “to preserve and promote the distinct society of Quebec.” In addition, nothing in the proposed constitutional amendment was to derogate from the “powers, rights, or privileges” of parliament, including those relating to language. While none of the amendments was to affect the Aboriginal and multicultural clauses of the Constitution Act, 1982, there was no similar provision regarding women’s rights. Public debate subsequently centred on the implications of the distinct society provisions, whether they granted Quebec powers not held by other provinces and would set Quebec legislation regarding the promotion of distinct society above provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There were also objections to increasing the number of constitutional amendments subject to unanimous consent, especially discrimination against the territories respecting the establishment of new provinces; the appointment process respecting the Supreme Court, but especially the Senate that fell short of significant reform; and the opting-out clause that critics said would create a patchwork social security system and make new country-wide programs such as child care unlikely. Some people also objected to the entrenchment of first ministers’ conferences including an agendasetting procedure seemingly controlled by provincial premiers. All federal parties supported the Accord in ratification by parliament, and eight provincial legislatures, excepting Manitoba and New Brunswick, also approved the Accord. However, three provincial governments that had supported the Accord were subsequently defeated. In Newfoundland, the new Liberal government of Clyde Wells rescinded the province’s approval. Following federal-

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provincial negotiations clarifying the Accord in June 1990, Liberal Premier Frank McKenna obtained quick approval of New Brunswick’s legislature in which all the seats were held by his Liberal party; the Manitoba delegation, headed by minority Progressive Conservative Premier Gary Filmon and including the opposition party leaders, also accepted the agreement and promised to introduce the Accord in the legislature; Premier Wells only promised to introduce the Accord in the Newfoundland legislature. In Manitoba, a Cree member, New Democrat Elijah Harper, daily refused unanimous consent for the Accord to be introduced. When he refused consent on the last sitting day before the deadline for the Accord’s adoption and the Manitoba legislature adjourned, the Newfoundland government then adjourned that legislature during its debate on the Accord, without holding a vote and despite considerable last-minute pressure on Wells by the federal government. The fallout from the defeat of the Accord was widespread. French nationalist sentiment revived and the political currency of federalism in Quebec fell precipitately. The Quebec government announced that it would henceforth only deal unilaterally with the federal government and join multilateral talks only on its terms. Many public-based groups representing labour, women, Native Peoples, the disabled, non-Native Canadians of ethnic origin other than British or French, welfare activists, and cultural nationalists, which opposed the Accord for various reasons, called for fundamental change to the process of constitutional negotiations: the country’s constitution and its future was not to be solely the preserve of “11 middle-aged white men in business suits” meeting behind closed doors. The adoption of the Charter in 1982 had led to increased public support for and political action by “Charter groups” with a vested interest in constitutional negotiations that might affect their new-found political legitimacy. The criticism of executive federalism was intensified following references by supporters during the period of legislative ratification to the Accord as a “seamless web,” of which not even a comma could be changed. Some provincial governments had their legislatures adopt the Accord with no committee hearings, while others held only perfunctory hearings. Prime Minister Mulroney also suffered personally from his injudicious reference to his own leadership in the negotiations in which the country’s future was subject to his “roll of the dice.” Subsequently, the Quebec government announced another referendum on the province’s constitutional future for 1992, the federal government and several other provinces introduced referendum legislation, the federal government established a Citizen’s Forum on the constitution, published proposals for parliamentary study, and held several nationally televised forums on the constitution with participation by various public interest group leaders. Thus ensued a so-called Canada round of negotiations. Two months before the Quebec referendum, federal, provincial, and territorial government leaders, and Aboriginal leaders negotiated the Charlottetown Accord, which was then submitted to a country-wide referendum. In addition to revisions of the Meech Lake Accord respecting Quebec as a distinct society and limitations on federal spending power, the Charlottetown Accord proposed radical reform of the House of Commons and Senate, a framework for the implementation of Native self-government, a revised provision on regional disparities, equalization and regional development, and a non-justiciable statement

Members of parliament

on social and economic policy objectives. However, the Charlottetown Accord was rejected in the referendum. See Charlottetown Accord (1992). Members of parliament (MPs) Persons elected to the House of Commons in electoral districts, ridings, or constituencies. While MPs might be the most widely recognized link between the public and the federal government, the disciplined nature of the party system makes their actual role in determining public policy, but for a few of them, at best minimal. There is an important distinction between those who are members of the cabinet and the broader ministry and therefore ministers of the crown, the political executive in the legislature, and those who are “private members.” Each party has its parliamentary leader: the prime minister, the leader of the official opposition and leaders of “third” parties, and their deputies. On the government side, some MPs will be parliamentary secretary to a minister. Within each caucus, there will be a house leader, chief whip and deputy whips. Some MPs will chair their party’s caucus or chair a regional caucus. Members of parliament are political representatives of the country’s electoral constituencies, but collectively they are not fully representative of the country’s population in terms of ethnicity, gender, education, occupation, or age. In terms of social background, Canadians of British or French descent, and high-status Canadians tend to be “over-represented” among MPs. Among MPs elected in 2006, most were from business (for example, with ownership, managerial, sales, or consultancy backgrounds), law or education professions. By contrast, relatively few were, for example, health care professionals, farmers, commercial fishers, or union officials. A discrepancy is also evident regarding gender, with women comprising approximately 20 per cent of MPs. Slightly fewer women were elected to the House of Commons in 2006 than in 2004, 20.7 per cent (64 of 308 MPs). The percentages varied considerably among the parties, with the two largest caucuses—the governing Conservative and the official opposition Liberal caucuses—having the smallest percentage of women. The fourth-ranking NDP caucus comprised the largest percentage of women: 41.3 per cent; 12 of 29 members. The Bloc Québécois was next: 33.3 per cent of caucus; 17 of 51 members. The official opposition Liberal party caucus of 102 members (reduced from 103 following the post-election defection of a male MP) included 21 women: 20.5 per cent. The Conservative government caucus comprised the smallest percentage of women: 11.2 per cent; 14 of 125 members (including the Liberal defection). An independent male candidate was also elected. With a few exceptions MPs are middle-aged or older. Also, because MPs are elected in constituencies whose boundaries are generally related to population distribution, most MPs come from the densely populated parts of the country, notably Ontario and Quebec. Only a few MPs could be described as career professional politicians. Although many would have been affiliated with their party prior to their candidacy and election to the House of Commons, few have had prior experience as provincial legislatures. Athough still a minority, many MPs have held elective municipal office. And while some MPs hold parliamentary office for lengthy periods, the career of an MP is usually short-lived. Electoral defeat is the most common rea-

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son for an MP to leave the house, while diminishing job satisfaction over time with little prospect for advancement to the cabinet, and eventual qualification for a full parliamentary pension constitute encouragements to retire voluntarily from legislative politics. Government MPs in particular may be offered a post-parliamentary career in public service as a reward for loyal party service and, incidentally, as an inducement of loyalty from others in the caucus. Most MPs do not as a rule have a significant personal influence on policymaking. The parliamentary system and the disciplined party system necessarily relegate MPs to a predictable and theatrical “reactive” role to government policies that are determined in private by the cabinet and the senior public officials. Subject to discipline by the party whip, government MPs will almost always support the government on division; opposition MPs will almost always criticize it. Backbench government MPs toeing the government line will claim that their influence on policy occurs in their privileged access to ministers’ offices and in the regular private meetings of the parliamentary party caucus; opposition MPs toeing their respective party’s line will assert some personal effectiveness in representations to ministers’ office, but also point to their work in committee, examining the shortfalls in government measures. Since the 1980s, there have been efforts to improve the policy role of MPs by establishing relatively permanent membership on standing committees. Also, some private members’ bills are also allowed to come to a vote and proceed to committee. Backbenchers, who might not have many opportunities to participate in debate on government legislation, might have opportunities to address the house during general and wide-ranging debate on the Throne Speech, which opens each session of the legislature, and on the budget. Backbenchers can also make brief statements during the daily 15-minute period devoted to “statements by members.” Otherwise, among private members, the representative role is more often one of constituency service, redressing constituents’ grievances or obtaining service from some administrative body. See Caucus; Cabinet; House of Commons; Parliamentary indemnity; House of Commons committees; Parliamentary privilege (immunities); Private members’ legislation (bills). Merit system (in the public administration) The principle of recruiting and promoting career public officials on the basis of objective and published criteria and open competition. Prior to 1918, and especially in the nineteenth century, the federal civil service was based on patronage appointments by the party in power. Since then, a central agency—since 1967 called the Public Service Commission (PSC) (psccfp.gc.ca), which reports to parliament—has been responsible in the main for recruitment, training, promotion, and discipline in the federal administration (except at the most senior levels and in certain crown corporations and agencies). Since 2003, more hiring responsibilities have been delegated by the PSC to department and agency heads, still maintaining the merit principle. Provisions of the Official Languages Act are an important qualification to appointment and promotion with respect to the merit system. The “free” operations of the merit system tended in the twentieth century to create a unilingual, predominantly anglophone federal administration. Since 1969, apart from providing federal government services in both official languages in selected parts of the country and where numbers warrant service in the minority language, there have

Ministerial responsibility

been efforts to attract French Canadians to the federal public administration and to recruit bilingual candidates to make the federal service in Ottawa functionally bilingual. In line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the PSC has made efforts since the 1980s to recruit people from other under-represented groups, such as women, to senior management and technical positions, without compromising the merit principle. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969). Ministerial responsibility The principle that cabinet ministers are individually responsible legally, politically, and morally to the legislature for actions and policies within their portfolios, and also responsible collectively to the legislature as the government-of-the-day. These constitutional conventions are central to responsible government, that is, the requirement that the political executive, the cabinet that comprises members of the legislature, must retain the legislature’s “confidence,” first to be appointed, and then to remain in office. The convention that a minister can be questioned only on current and not former responsibilities somewhat insulates particular ministers and the cabinet from opposition criticism. However, the current minister is responsible retrospectively for government activity in the relevant policy area. If a cabinet minister has been derelict, that minister, if abandoned by the prime minister or provincial premier whose party usually dominates the legislature, may be censured by the legislature. In the event of an effective opposition charge against a minister, a “voluntary” resignation from the cabinet is a more likely outcome. Depending on the circumstances, departure from the cabinet may be only short-lived. As long as a majority of legislators, but effectively a prime minister or premier, ignore an evasion of, or delinquency in, ministerial responsibility, there is no way to enforce it, at least not until the next election. Prime ministers and premiers in minority governments will be more circumspect in dealing with ministerial indiscretions. The creation of an ethics commissioner in 2004 as a parliamentary officer of the House of Commons made life potentially more difficult for ministers subject to allegations of misconduct. The first federal ministerial resignation following such charges occurred in 2004, with the commissioner’s report published in 2005. Ministerial responsibility was a major focus of recommendations in 2006 of the judicial commission of inquiry into abuses respecting a $300-million federal sponsorship program. According to Justice John Gomery, a rebalance between parliament and government was necessary, including clarification in law of the respective responsibilities of ministers and their senior public officials, with oversight by the comptroller general in the Treasury Board Secretariat and the auditor general (www.gomery.ca). A cabinet can be divided in private, but is always united in public. The privy council oath that ministers take upon their swearing-in as privy councillors, to keep secret all matters of cabinet, is the instrument to maintain cabinet confidentiality and external unity. Even after departure from cabinet, former ministers remain privy councillors and bound by their oath. The concept of ministerial responsibility, both individual and collective, in a parliamentary system does not readily distinguish between matters political and administrative. While it may be unrealistic to hold a minister and government responsible for every administrative

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act in a department, clearly ministers are answerable to the legislature, and implicitly the public, for errors of commission or omission related to government policy or instructions. See Accountability; Cabinet; Collective (cabinet/ministerial) responsibility; Ethics Commissioner (Senate Ethics Officer); Responsible government. Ministers (of the Crown) Members of a cabinet, collectively the governmentof-the day, whom the governor general (or a provincial lieutenant-governor) appoints on the advice of the prime minister (or provincial premier). By convention, cabinet ministers must hold seats in the legislature—in the bicameral parliament, almost always the House of Commons rather than the Senate. A federal cabinet requires at least one senator—the government’s house leader in the Senate without any departmental responsibilities; otherwise, a prime minister might use senatorial appointments to cabinet for some particular representative or policy purpose, as Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced for his cabinet in 2006. (In the 1890s, Conservative senators John Abbott and Mackenzie Bowell each served briefly as prime minister.) In appointments to their cabinets, prime ministers or premiers seek to acknowledge electorally significant groups and interests. For example, prime ministers usually like to have a cabinet minister from each province, in some cases even several from particular cities and regions within a province. Francophone Canadians have tended to be prominent in Canadian cabinets, either as prime ministers or as close confidants (“lieutenants”) of anglophone prime ministers. Until the 1970s, anglophones monopolized important economic and financial portfolios, and francophones frequently held portfolios such as Justice and Public Works. Some portfolios, such as Agriculture, Fisheries and Oceans, and Transportation, are usually assigned to members from regions particularly sensitive to federal policy in those fields. Some ministers have an occupational affinity with the portfolio to which they are assigned; for example, a lawyer usually holds the Justice portfolio. Prime ministers also like to include representatives from ethnic groups other than British and French, as well as a good proportion of women, without subjecting the government to the charge of tokenism. Cabinet-making is normally finetuned to include an anglophone from Quebec, a francophone from outside Quebec, and members of minority ethno-cultural communities. Fortunate is an ambitious government member of parliament who can satisfy several of these qualifications. Prime ministers and premiers are also sensitive to their own political future. More often than not, likely successors are to be found in their caucus, and a wise leader might be one who appoints them to the cabinet to keep them close by, well occupied with government duties and, in the context of cabinet secrecy and collective responsibility, obligated to defend the government’s policies and be held responsible for them. Political allies who were important in the leader’s rise to high party and electoral office might also expect to be ministerial material. Finally, competence in management, policy expertise, but especially debating skills cannot be ignored as ministerial assets. Individual and collective ministerial responsibility is effected in the obligation of ministers to have seats in the legislature and be present to answer questions, defend policy, and obtain approval for departmental estimates. Ministers are

Ministry of state

bound for life by their oath of office as privy councillors not to discuss cabinet matters publicly. They may publicly dissociate themselves from a government policy only by resigning from the cabinet, thereby ceasing to be a minister, but remaining bound as a privy councillor never to disclose cabinet confidences. Individual ministerial responsibility and accountability to parliament was the subject of a federal judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of illegal mismanagement of a $300-million sponsorship program. In 2005, Justice John Gomery reported on the refusal of ministers, as well as senior political and public administration officials, to acknowledge responsibility; his final report in 2006 included several recommendations involving statutory delineation of responsibilities between ministers, their political staff and public officials (www.gomery.ca). Theoretically, political parties and the legislature itself are training grounds for future ministers. However, especially following the Second World War, a frequent route to the federal cabinet of Liberal governments was from the leadership of groups outside the legislature and the party system in business, academe, and public administration. Many of the prime ministers since 1957 have been lawyers or business people, some with little parliamentary experience before becoming cabinet ministers—indeed some with little experience, if any, as cabinet ministers before becoming party leader and prime minister. Appointment to an administrative office, the Senate, the judiciary, or a business career commonly follows a minister’s exit from the cabinet. It is rare for federal cabinet ministers to tolerate post-cabinet careers in the back benches of the government or the opposition. Most ministers are heads of particular departments of the government and are responsible for the exercise of duties within the particular department or designated government agencies. Other ministers may be ministers with special parliamentary responsibilities, ministers of state responsible for designated purposes or to aid a departmental minister. A cabinet might also include ministers without portfolio to satisfy some representative or other political requirement. See Cabinet; Cabinet organization; Collective (cabinet/ministerial) responsibility; Executive assistant; Inner cabinet; Ministerial responsibility; Ministers (of the Crown). Ministry A term that can refer either to a particular government department or more broadly to the government-of-the-day, the political executive. Whether full members of the cabinet, or ministers of state to develop policy or assist cabinet ministers who only attend cabinet meetings when required, or even in the case of Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government, parliamentary secretaries, all are sworn into the privy council and subject to the conventions of cabinet secrecy and responsibility. See Cabinet; Ministers (of the Crown). Ministry (minister) of state Areas of special ministerial responsibility at the federal level, each established (and some disbanded) by order-in-council, the designation of ministers of state, adjunct to the full cabinet proper, appointed to develop new and comprehensive policies or to assist ministers in selected areas of their portfolios. In the 1980s and 1990s, ministers of state were styled secretaries of state. The federal ministry-of-state system for designated purposes was a device established in 1970 to achieve coordinated policy development and implementation across departments, or for someone with ministerial status to carry out a task for the prime minister, unencumbered with administrative responsibilities.

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Often the ministries of state were associated with policy areas to which the government attached some electoral importance. Some, such as the ministry of state for urban affairs, were short-lived, while others, such as multiculturalism, remain. Generally these cabinet assignments had no direct control over departments established by statute and no budgets of their own, although during the Liberal government of the 1980s, an attempt was made to create central agencies out of ministries of state dealing with economic and social development. Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government from 1984 to 1993 included numerous secretaries of state, for example, for grains and oilseeds, seniors, small businesses and tourism, privatization, youth, and fitness and amateur sport. Some of these responsibilities were held by ministers with departmental portfolios. Subsequent Liberal government’s of prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin designated secretaries or ministers of state for various regional development agencies and areas of policy interest. Ministers of state in Prime Minister Martin’s cabinet concerned Western Economic Diversification, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Quebec, Northern Development, the Francophonie, multiculturalism, human resource development, public health, sport, families and caregivers, infrastructures and communities. Full departmental ministers had responsibilities for Federal Economic Development for Initiatives for Northern Ontario, official languages, housing, status of women, and democratic renewal. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet in 2006 involved “double duty” for many of the 27 ministers, including democratic deficit, Pacific Gateway and VancouverWhistler Olympics, in addition to the regional economic development agencies (except Northern Development), Francophonie and official languages, infrastructure and communities as part of Transport, status of women, and sport. See Cabinet; Ministers (of the Crown). Minority government A government formed by a party that holds only a minority of seats in the legislature. Thus, the government’s survival depends on the support of at least one other party or some members of another party and independent members of parliament who then hold the “balance of power.” There have been 11 minority federal governments as a result of elections, most occurring since the late-1950s, and one unelected minority government appointed by the governor general in 1926. The important political difference between a minority and a majority government is the relationship of the cabinet to the legislature. The Liberals under William Lyon Mackenzie King formed two minority governments: one lasted from 1921 to 1925; the other minority government elected in 1925 ended the following year in the midst of scandal, with the governor general’s appointment of Arthur Meighen’s minority Conservative government, which collapsed after only a few sitting days. In the minority Parliament of 1957–1958, the electoral momentum was with the governing Progressive Conservatives. Thus, the government “toyed” with the House of Commons until it felt it propitious to have parliament dissolved in the reasonable and realized expectation of winning a majority in 1958. Subsequent minority Progressive Conservative (1962–1963 and 1979–1980) and Liberal (1963–1965, 1965–1968, 1972–1974, 2004–2006) governments possessed no such momentum and the House of Commons became an effective

Minority government

forum for policy debate and, excepting the short-lived 1979–1980 Parliament, at least temporary political accommodation on legislation. Following the election of the minority Liberal government in 2004, and its defeat and the election of the minority Conservative government in 2006, at least initially no party was anxious to be responsible for yet a third election in a short period of time. Assuming mutual interests of most parties to sustain a minority government in office, such governments can last as long as party house leaders and party whips ensure that no vote in the legislature will deny confidence in the government. In 1968, a parliamentary precedent was established regarding “accidental” defeat, a high risk for minority governments. The federal Liberal government was defeated on the third reading of a money bill, clearly a matter of confidence. However, instead of resigning at once, Prime Minister Lester Pearson argued that the defeat on a normally perfunctory third reading was accidental, and argued privately to the Progressive Conservative leader of the opposition, Robert Stanfield, that a winter election in difficult economic times, was not in the national interest. Perhaps more significant was the fact that Pearson had already announced his resignation as Liberal leader and the party was in the process of selecting his successor. The House of Commons resumed sitting following Pearson’s announced intention to introduce a motion of confidence as the first order of business. When the house met, the government won the vote of confidence and thereby remained in office. Within a few months in 1968, the Liberals selected Pierre Trudeau to succeed Pearson as leader and formed a majority government following a general election. By contrast, in 1979, the federal Progressive Conservative government clearly lost a vote on a New Democratic party sub-amendment to a Liberal amendment to the government’s motion to approve the budget. Prime Minister Joe Clark might have delayed the vote and negotiated support from the fourth party in the House, the Ralliement des créditistes, but he did not. Clark immediately accepted the vote as want of confidence in the government and advised the governor general to dissolve parliament and issue writs for an election in early 1980, an election that he lost. Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority government elected in 2004 initially remained in office despite determined attempts by the opposition Conservative party, only recently formed from a merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties, to defeat it. To avoid defeat, the government depended variously on negotiated support of the New Democratic party over the budget; of the NDP and Bloc Québécois to terminate budget debate; of a prominent front-bench defector from the Conservatives to the Liberals and into the cabinet, and of independent members of parliament on budget votes; and of the NDP, the Bloc, and independent MPs on a free vote on legislation to re-define the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples when several otherwise loyal Liberal backbenchers voted against the government. The boisterous first post-election session for the minority government was overshadowed by public testimony to a judicial inquiry into a serious sponsorship scandal involving the Liberal party and the gross misuse of public funds in the late 1990s. During the session, the prime minister announced that he would have parliament dissolved for a general election one month after the report of the Justice John Gomery’s inquiry.

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However, his government was brought down sooner, in 2005, defeated in the election of 2006, and succeeded by a minority Conservative government. As already mentioned, at least initially following the 2006 election, no party was anxious to be responsible for a third election so soon after those of 2004 and 2006. Though most minority governments are relatively short-lived, they are not necessarily less productive than majority governments. Indeed, in the 1960s and 1970s, some minority governments pursued very significant policy agendas, for example concerning medicare, bilingualism and biculturalism, and review of foreign investment. Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority Liberal government of 2004–2006, which included, for example, a significant health care agreement with the provinces, was generally overwhelmed by charges of corruption related to the earlier Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Although Martin served as minister of finance in the Chrétien government, Justice Gomery exonerated him of any responsibility in the sponsorship scandal. Monarchy (constitutional) A political system headed by a monarch in whose name the government acts, but whose actions are subject to the constitution, in Canada that of a parliamentary democracy. Thus, it is said that the monarch reigns, but does not rule. See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; Crown; Crown prerogatives; Sovereign, the. Monetary policy The policy of a national government or central bank in varying the amount of money in circulation and the availability of credit, thus affecting levels of economic activity. The objective of monetary policy is to pursue economic growth with price stability, that is, with a low rate of inflation. Major devices to achieve desired policy on money supply, however, are normally under the independent indirect control of the Bank of Canada: interest rates charged by banks and other financial institutions and purchasing or selling of government securities, all designed either to restrict or expand the amount of money in circulation, either to decrease an inflationary trend (“tight money” policy to encourage saving) or to encourage economic growth when the economy has “slowed down” (encourage investment and spending). There is regular consultation between the federal minister of finance and the governor of the central bank who is term-appointed by the federal government, but can be dismissed within term only by a resolution of both houses of parliament. In the event of a disagreement, the government may issue a directive to the Bank of Canada; however, a government would presumably want to avoid an ensuing controversy. See Bank of Canada (central bank). Money bills Financial legislation that deals with the spending of money (supply or appropriation bills) or with the raising of money (tax measures, ways and means). In Canada, only the government can introduce money bills; and in the bicameral parliament, money bills must be introduced first in the elected House of Commons. Though they must be approved by the appointed Senate, the upper house cannot amend money bills to increase revenue or expenditures. This treatment of money bills reflects the historic relationship between parliament (especially, the elected lower house) and the Crown or government that can raise revenue and spend it only with the legislature’s approval and for purposes

Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen

approved by the legislature. The legislative voting of supply (or its denial) is a fundamental requirement of the constitutional convention of responsible government. Responsible government, or the political accountability of the executive to the legislature, is implied in the government’s sole responsibility for introducing revenue and expenditure legislation, but the necessity as well for the government to receive legislative approval for its money bills. See Budget and budgetary process; Estimates; Legislation; Responsible government. Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen (1988) A decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that struck down provisions in the Criminal Code respecting the voluntary termination of pregnancies as a violation of “liberty and security of the person” guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.7). Section 251 of the Criminal Code had required the approval of a therapeutic abortion committee of an accredited hospital in order to obtain or perform an abortion. The court found that the requirement imposed an undue hardship on women that could not be deemed a “reasonable” limitation “justified in a free and democratic society” (s.1). The majority did not judge the issue of abortion, thus leaving parliament the authority to legislate further in the matter. Apart from the moral aspect of abortion, the case was important for several reasons. It highlighted concerns expressed prior to the Charter’s adoption about the extent of judicial review in a parliamentary democracy like Canada’s, whose system of responsible government and the supremacy of parliament values the accountability of legislators for public policy. Judicial review of legislation against rights guaranteed in the Charter, by appointed and tenured judges, acknowledged, the case illustrated the nature of such judicial review: comprehensive, non-interpretive review on substantive grounds, including the admission of social facts on the effect or consequences of the legislation relative to its objectives or purpose. Also, although the court did not deny parliament legislative competence, the court was nonetheless an important actor, participating in an intense political debate over access to therapeutic abortions that continued. Two years after the 1988 decision, the Senate defeated government legislation that might have survived a Charter challenge when a vote free of party discipline resulted in a tie. At that point, the government abandoned further efforts to legislate on the matter and no federal government since has introduced legislation on the subject. Thus, abortions in Canada became subject not to federal legislation, but to provincial and territorial government and hospital administration regulations pertaining to availability of the medically insured operation in hospitals or free-standing, so-called abortion clinics, regulations that are also subject to Charter rights-based litigation. Prior to the Charter’s adoption in 1982, the Supreme Court relied on “adjudicative facts,” that is, facts referring to events directly pertaining to the parties involved in the legal action, including the jurisdictional competence of the relevant legislature under the Constitution Act, 1867. Under the Charter, the courts must also test government action against “social facts,” that is, evidence pertaining to the consequences of a government statute or administrative regulation as they affect Charter rights and freedoms. Some questions are beyond the fact-finding capability of the Supreme Court, for example, on the effect of cruise missile testing by the United States over Canada in Operation Dismantle v. The Queen, 1985: not with

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the adjudicative fact of executive responsibility for international agreements, but with social facts regarding threats to “security of the person” from the testing of missiles that, when operational and in location, would carry nuclear warheads. In considering the constitutionality of the section of the Criminal Code respecting the procurement and provision of abortions, the Supreme Court relied on findings of federal government and professional medical reports that access to abortion was uneven and delayed, and connected the delay to “increased physical and psychological trauma” (Dickson, C.J.) among women seeking the operation, whose health the Criminal Code’s section on abortion was intended to protect. Although the action of the court in declaring legislative policy unconstitutional comes after the fact, rulings such as Morgentaler, 1988 clearly have had an inhibiting effect on governments and legislators. Writing of the role of the judiciary under the Charter, Chief Justice Brian Dickson wrote in Morgentaler: “Although no doubt it is still fair to say that courts are not the appropriate forum for articulating complex and controversial programmes of public policy, Canadian courts have the crucial obligation of ensuring that the legislative initiatives of our Parliament and legislatures conform to the democratic values expressed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” While the intent of those who framed the Charter might have been otherwise, the court had earlier determined, in Justice Antonio Lamer’s words, that the meaning of the Charter should not be “frozen in time to the moment of adoption with little or no possibility of growth, development and adjustment to changing societal needs” (Motor Vehicle Reference, 1985). The Supreme Court had already acknowledged their enlarged scope of judicial review given the possibility of “saving” legislation otherwise violating the Charter with reference to section 1. In 1986, the court established criteria for such limitations: the objectives of the law must be “pressing and substantial,” and the means to achieve the objective must be a minimal violation of rights “rationally connected” to the objective, and result in a benefit greater than the cost of the limitation to the individual concerned (Oakes). The Supreme Court has also reviewed provincial policies against rights protected by a provincial charter. In 2005, the court ruled against Quebec’s ban on private insurance payments for medical services approved in the public health care plan, given rights accorded under the province’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (Chaoulli v. Quebec [Attorney-General]). Quebec was granted a one-year stay of the ruling, and in 2006 announced a policy to satisfy the ruling yet maintain the public health care regime, avoiding a fully two-tier public and private health care system. There would be a limited amount of private health care and private insurers, though doctors could not work in both the private and public systems. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Medicare; Oakes test (Oakes, [1986]); Supreme Court of Canada. Movement parties Political parties that were created in society outside the parliamentary environment in times of social stress and crisis when significant numbers of citizens felt that neither of the two major parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, one forming the government and the other the leading opposition party, were worthy of support.

Movement parties

Especially in the first half of the twentieth century, movement parties were a grassroots response to the failure of the established parliamentary parties to deal effectively with serious social tensions associated with immigration and western settlement, and with economic dislocation. Such movements also received support as defenders of a valued lifestyle seemingly being undermined by “outside” forces. While such parties rose in the first half of the twentieth century, the popular attitudes that sustained them continue to be manifested in support for so-called third parties. In the post-First World War period, the western-based Progressive party was the first movement party to gain significant electoral support, particularly in western Canada, winning the second-largest number of seats in the House of Commons in 1921. Refusing, however, to accept the role of official opposition because of its populist “anti-party” views, it at once began to decline. In the 1930s, the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the conservative, populist Social Credit party rose during the economic depression, also with electoral success largely in the West. In the 1960s, the CCF was transformed into the moderate social democratic New Democratic party in an attempt to forge electoral success in central and eastern Canada. Many westerners supported the Progressive Conservative party for many years during and following its leadership by westerner John Diefenbaker in the 1960s. Diefenbaker’s success spelled electoral doom and gradual dissolution of the Social Credit party, although there was a brief period when a Quebec wing—the Ralliement des Créditistes—sent members to the House of Commons under the leadership of Réal Caouette and Fabien Roy. However, dissatisfaction particularly among Albertans with successive federal Liberal governments and eventually with the Progressive Conservative party and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government in the 1980s, led to the formation in Calgary of the conservative and populist Reform party in the late 1980s. The seeming breakdown of traditional social values and institutions, and recurring opposition to national political organizations that seemed out of touch with western interests, spurred support for Reform, which displaced both the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP in the 1993 election as western “voices,” and formed the official opposition in 1997. However, Reform failed to “break through” east of Manitoba, and in order to improve its electoral fortunes as a national party, Reform was reorganized as the Canadian Alliance in 2000. But it, too, failed in the election later that year to make significant electoral gains east of Manitoba. Subsequently, it merged with the moderate, cadre-style Progressive Conservative party in 2003 as the Conservative party, though many people saw the merger as an Alliance takeover given the merged party’s choice of Alliance leader Stephen Harper as leader and subsequent electoral miscues in the 2004 election. Movement parties traditionally combine educational and electoral activities, stressing grassroots involvement in party affairs and a desire to alter radically some aspects of the economic and political order. Some movement parties, such as the Progressive, Social Credit, and Reform/Alliance parties, promising systemic political change (for example, less party discipline in the legislature, and instruments of direct democracy such as popular legislative initiatives, recall and referendums) are leader-dominated right-populist parties; others, such as the CCF-NDP, for whom redistributive economic and social issues are important,

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are democratic socialist, left-populist parties. However, the direct democracy proposals were excluded from the program in 2005 of the Conservative party that issued from the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. The disciplined parliamentary party and federal systems in Canada have encouraged and sustained movement parties. In a parliamentary system in which the government party is normally the one with the largest number of elected members, legislators vote along party lines, suppressing public dissent among sectional representatives who may be in a permanent minority in the government caucus. The rise of “third” parties in the Canadian West has been caused in part by the central Canadian dominance of the federal Conservative and Liberal parties. Governments in a parliamentary system are formed on the basis of the number of constituencies won in an election. Thus, governments are usually based on political support in densely populated parts of country, notably central Canada, which has most of the country’s constituencies. At the same time though, the election of only a few members legitimizes a new party by giving it a parliamentary forum in which to criticize both government and leading opposition parties, and a base from which to achieve further electoral gains. The Reform party provides an outstanding example: It won no seats in the 1988 election, but won a by-election in Alberta a few months later. In the 1993 election, it came close to forming the official opposition, winning 53 seats, and did so in 1997 with 60 seats. The federal system also contributes to the rise of “third” parties. It legitimizes sectional elites in the provincial political systems who can claim to represent the interests of the region better than the region’s members of parliament, even including federal cabinet ministers, who are outnumbered by central Canadian MPs in the party caucuses and in the cabinet. Certainly the appointed Senate, created in part to represent regional interests in parliament, does not perform that task. Early and sustained success of both the Social Credit and the CCF-NDP, as well as their precursors in various farmer movements, occurred in provincial political arenas in the West and in Ontario. The NDP has remained influential in provincial politics in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, while its electoral support in recent federal elections has been minimal. Although the Reform party never included provincial parties, it was essentially the creation of Preston Manning, the son of a former Social Credit premier of Alberta. Manning can also be credited with Reform’s electoral success in the 1990s and with the transformation of the party to the Canadian Alliance. But apparently many party members also held him responsible for the party’s inability to garner significant support east of Manitoba. In 2000, Manning was defeated in the contest for leadership of the Canadian Alliance by Stockwell Day, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister from Alberta whom party supporters presumably saw as combining both their social conservative and populist values, and potentially having more electoral appeal than Manning, to central and Atlantic Canadians. Following Day’s failure in the 2000 election, he was succeeded as Alliance leader by Stephen Harper, also Alberta-based. In 2003, Harper successfully managed the merger of the Alliance with the Progressive Conservative party, and though retaining only official opposition status to a minority Liberal government in the 2004 election, became prime minister, forming a minority Conserv-

Multiculturalism

ative government following the 2006 election. See Cadre parties; Canadian Alliance party; Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); New Democratic party (NDP); Social Credit party; Ralliement des créditistes; Reform party; Third parties (political). Multiculturalism Policy begun by the federal Liberal government in the 1970s, and continued by Progressive Conservative governments, to encourage the expression of the cultural heritage of ethnic groups in Canada, within a context of shared Canadian citizenship: thus integration rather than assimilation to encourage tolerance of diversity in a country of minorities. The federal government historically has encouraged immigration for economic growth and development. According to the 2001 census, Canada is arguably one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, with almost 20 per cent of its population born outside the country. Canada’s cultural diversity is most evident in the cities, and in Toronto and Vancouver in particular and, to a lesser extent, in Montreal. Approximately one half of the population of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, was born outside the country. The challenge of multiculturalism, and the debate surrounding the policy, is such that Canada’s historic identity as an accommodative bargain among a settled British, Protestant and French, Catholic population, with at best an assimilationist approach or one of benign neglect of an Aboriginal population, is now outdated. Since the 1960s, native-born francophone Quebeckers have maintained cultural unity, but been required to accommodate francophone migrants from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia in their cultural milieu. Acadians in Atlantic Canada, whose roots are in the French colony of Acadie have experienced a cultural renaissance. Canada’s First Nations have also experienced an improvement in their collective sense of self-worth. Most immigrants live among anglophone Canadians who now comprise a very heterogenous cultural mix. Canadian identity has increasingly been characterized then, as neither British nor French, but “multicultural.” The federal government in the 1960s initially provided financial assistance for various projects by organized ethnic groups to foster appreciation of their cultural heritage and their contribution to Canada. Originally carried out within the federal portfolio of secretary of state, the Liberal government established a nondepartmental ministry of state for multiculturalism and the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism, later renamed the Canadian Ethnocultural Council (ethnocultural.ca), a coalition of ethnocultural organizations, to encourage the preservation and sharing of Canadians’ cultural heritage and the full participation of all Canadians in society, and in particular to combat racism. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, a federal crown corporation financed on income from an initial endowment fund, was established in 1996 to assist in the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (crr.ca). Multiculturalism was entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982: “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians” (s.27). The equality-rights section 15 also includes “race, national or ethnic origin” as prohibited bases for discrimination. The Conservatives enacted the Canadian Multiculturalism Act in 1988, establishing a statutory basis for federal multicultural

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policy and enumerating implementation measures, including the creation of the Canadian Multicultural Advisory Committee. In 1991, the government created the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, later made part of the Canadian Heritage ministry by the Liberals. Although the policy of promoting multiculturalism is formally a recognition and encouragement of the cultural mosaic of Canadian society, an important partisan, electoral motive lay behind the developments listed above. The Liberal party in particular was very quick to appreciate the electoral potential of support among immigrant families, especially in the last half of the twentieth century when the Liberal party was usually in office. Immigration prior to the Second World War had come largely from the northern and eastern Europe. Soon after, migrant populations tended to come from southern Europe, and later, from virtually all parts of the world. In the 1990s, Asia displaced Europe as the primary origin of migrants. Among political parties, only the western-based, social conservative Reform party opposed “official multiculturalism” while the Progressive Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats, acknowledging the growing importance of the “ethnic” factor in Canadian politics, especially in densely populated urban areas in and around Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, supported federal multiculturalism. Although there were several years when the number of migrants sought by the federal government had not been met, Reform argued that the number should nonetheless be lowered. In 2000, the Canadian Alliance replaced Reform in an attempt to improve its electoral fortunes. Perhaps sensitive to Reform’s public image, the Canadian Alliance adopted a more accommodating attitude toward multiculturalism, but fared little better than Reform in the 2000 election. The Alliance-Progressive Conservative merger in 2003 has been at times an uneasy alliance between Alliance supporters in western Canada and moderate Progressive Conservatives, and building electoral bridges in particular to minority ethnocultural communities in central Canada has been problematic. Like Reform and the Canadian Alliance, the merged Conservative party’s leadership is concerned that its critique of “official multiculturalism” that is, government-sponsored and financed as opposed to privately initiated and financed heritage programs, not be seen to tolerate let alone encourage racism. While support for federal funding of multicultural policies and programs naturally comes primarily from the leadership of minority ethnic groups, there are several legitimate sources of criticism. Throughout the twentieth century, many francophones were wary of a federal immigration policy that would diminish their political influence, if not threaten their cultural survival, as migrants tended to be socialized into the majority anglophone culture. In the late-twentieth century, the federal and Quebec governments negotiated an agreement, establishing a particular quota of migrants whose initial destination would be Quebec and for whom the provincial government would provide settlement services normally provided by the federal government. Other provinces are able to negotiate joint immigration policies with the federal government under the Constitution Act, 1867 (s.95). There is also criticism from Canadian-born anglophones who argue that multiculturalism has been accompanied by a diminution of their longstanding cultural symbols and practices, which “new” Canadians should respect and

National energy policy

adopt as part of their identity. Finally, some Canadians, immigrants of non-European descent, argue that far from encouraging integration, multicultural policies and programs reinforce ethnic distinctions that constitute barriers to social compatibility with the larger society. For example, major sources of cultural variability concern the treatment of women and attitudes toward marriage outside the particular ethnic community. See Racism.

N National Assembly (Quebec) The unicameral provincial legislature of Quebec. From 1867 to 1968, the legislature was named the Legislative Assembly. The change of name reflected the assertive nationalism associated with the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. See Quiet Revolution. National energy (oil) policy; program (NEP); Board (NEB; neb.gc.ca) Federal policy related to oil supply and pricing, variously in support or in conflict with the provinces, especially with the major oil-producing province of Alberta. Although policy was first established by the Progressive Conservative government in 1961, policy in the 1970s and early 1980s under the Liberal government, later dismantled by the Conservatives, became an extremely divisive political issue touching on Canadian federalism and resulting in constitutional amendments. For all provinces, resource development generally represents an opportunity for economic diversification. For western and Atlantic Canadian provinces and the northern territories, in particular, resource development provides an escape from economic dependency in an economy where, along with various protectionist trade policies, cheap energy produced elsewhere has historically benefited the economy of central Canada. The Constitution Act, 1867 granted jurisdiction to the provinces over natural resources (s.109), but to the federal government over interprovincial and international trade (s.91:2). However, section 109 did not apply to Alberta, Manitoba, or Saskatchewan when they were established as provinces from federal territory in 1905, 1870 and 1905, respectively, until the constitution was amended in 1930. In the Constitution Act, 1982, section 92A, “Non-renewable Natural Resources, Forestry Resources and Electrical Energy,” clarifying concurrent federal and provincial jurisdiction and enhancing provincial taxation power in non-renewable resource industries, was added to the constitution as well as The Sixth Schedule (“Primary Production from Non-Renewable Natural Resources and Forestry Resources”) defining production from natural resources. Federal policy in the 1960s encouraged the sale of Alberta-produced oil to the United States and guaranteed the domestic market to the Ontario-Quebec border. In addition, federal and provincial tax concessions to the private, predominantly multi-national petroleum industry bolstered the economies of the oil-producing provinces. The decision of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1973 to raise the international price of oil provided Alberta with windfall revenue, but challenged the federal government, given the impact in oil- consuming provinces, especially in central and Atlantic Canada. At the time of the OPEC

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decision, political support for the then-minority federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was largely in central and Atlantic Canada at a time when economic nationalist sentiment was particularly strong and the democratic socialist New Democratic party had successfully popularized a “corporate welfare bum” theme in the 1972 election. The federal Liberal government imposed a temporary price freeze in Canada and an export tax on Canadian oil equal to the difference between the domestic and world prices; this prevented “windfall” revenue either to the private oil companies or to the oil-producing provinces, notably Alberta. Later, the federal government proposed sharing the additional revenue with those provinces. The federal government also committed itself to the completion of an oil pipeline to Montreal and a guaranteed outlet for domestic oil east of the Ontario. A federalprovincial conference in 1974 established the policy of a single price for oil throughout Canada, to be modified by transportation costs and the taxation policies of individual provinces. Canadian oil would be made available at a price below world levels, and the federal government would subsidize the costs of imported oil in part through revenue from the export tax on Canadian oil. In 1975, the now-majority federal Liberal government created Petro-Canada, a crown corporation designed to participate actively at all levels in the petroleum industry, from exploration to retailing, and thus influence private-sector behaviour. Also, parliament passed the Energy Supplies Emergency Act and the Petroleum Administration Act, allowing the federal cabinet to fix the price of domestic oil and gas in interprovincial trade in the absence of a negotiated agreement with the producing provinces. The Liberal National Energy Program of 1980 included these and additional provisions to “Canadianize” the oil and gas industry, divert a larger share of oil revenue to the federal treasury, and encourage exploration in the federally controlled territories. Oil policy and other energy and resource questions became the subject of bitter interregional, federal-provincial, and government-industry disputes. Alberta, for example, consistently opposed the export tax on oil and the subsidized domestic price. Nonetheless, the revenue accruing to the oil-producing provinces was so considerable that the federal government periodically revised the formula by which equalization grants to provinces were calculated, especially as Ontario, with one of the highest per capita income levels in Canada, was on the verge of qualifying as a “have-not” province. In 1979, a one-dollar-a-barrel increase in the price of domestic oil was estimated to cost the federal treasury an additional $60 million in equalization payments to all provinces except Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Other post-1973 disputes included a federal proposal to end the exemption of royalties paid to provincial governments from corporate income taxable by the federal government. In 1982, the Liberal government’s goal of constitutional patriation with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was facilitated by agreement to a constitutional amendment, section 92A on non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources, and electrical energy, along with the Sixth Schedule, clarifying federal and provincial jurisdiction. Interprovincial trade of non-renewable resources became a concurrent federal and provincial jurisdiction, with federal paramountcy in the event of conflicting laws, and the taxation power of the provinces in non-

National Housing Act

renewable resource industries was enlarged, legitimizing the right of both levels of government to participate in national resource policy. The constitution thus sets a framework within which the oil- and gas-producing provinces can better pursue their interests and the federal government national interests, including those of energy consumers. Following its election in 1984, the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, committed to reduce the level of government involvement in the economy and to respond to western grievances, incrementally dismantled the Liberal National Energy Program and privatized PetroCanada. Also the Conservative-negotiated Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1988 significantly affected national energy policy by establishing a continental market for energy. Canada cannot discriminate between domestic energy prices and export prices to the US of oil, gas, or electricity. Also, if emergencies require a reduction in Canadian energy production, production for domestic use must be reduced in the same proportion as production for export to the United States. Opposition at the turn of the twenty-first century to the federal Liberal government’s commitment to the international Kyoto Protocol on climate change concerned the impact on the petro-chemical industry of requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused primarily by burning fossil fuels. Once again, the Alberta government in particular was in opposition to federal policy. The National Energy Board is the federal regulator of the energy industry. In addition to offering policy advice to the government, it regulates the construction and operation of international and interprovincial pipelines and international and designated interprovincial power lines, the import and export of gas and oil, and frontier gas and oil activities. As part of the federal government anti-terrorism program, the Public Safety Act, 2002 included amendments to the statutory powers of the NEB to secure the country’s energy infrastructure. See Natural resources; Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004). National Housing Act (NHA) Originally the Dominion Housing Act, 1935, the often-amended legislation under which the federal government provides funds to assist the housing construction industry (comprising financial intermediaries, architects, engineers, planners, and realtors, in addition to land developers, manufacturers and builders, construction equipment companies, and trades unions), home-buyers, home-owners and renters, and municipalities. Its policies deal with mortgage insurance, middle- and low-priced private and co-operative, non-profit, and public housing; residential rehabilitation and neighbourhood improvement; elimination and prevention of water and soil pollution; land assembly for new communities; site clearance for areas outside the neighbourhood improvement areas; research and standards for the construction industry, especially promoting energy efficient housing and sustainable development. The NHA is largely responsible for the postwar creation of the construction industry. Its provisions, administered since 1945 by a crown corporation, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (cmhc-schl.gc.ca), were designed to complement the private construction industry. However, through housing policy, as well as ownership and control of harbours, railways lands, airport development, military installations, and other forms of land ownership, the federal government has acquired a major policy role in urban development, while con-

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stitutional jurisdiction over municipalities lies with the provinces (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:8: “Municipal Institutions in the Province”). This is a major field of federal-provincial relations and partisan political interest, as almost 80 per cent of Canada’s population resides in metropolitan areas, and most of that urban population in the three largest metropolitan areas, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Many programs under the NHA involving direct federal assistance to municipalities, the industry, and home-owners, take place under bilateral federal-provincial agreements. See Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). National Policy (NP) A policy for national development, which Sir John A. Macdonald and the Conservative party advocated in the 1870s and 1880s; it involved railway construction, large-scale immigration and western settlement, and an increase in the protective tariff. The National Policy, which initiated an active developmental role in the economy for the federal government, was motivated in part to thwart the expansionist ambitions of the United States, which coveted Canadian territory in the west. The NP is generally credited for the business and popular support that returned the Conservatives to power in the general election of 1878 and re-elected them in 1882. Though the NP had lost much electoral potency by the 1887 election, nonetheless the Conservatives were returned to office. At this time, the Liberal party was weak; however, under the leadership of Wilfrid Laurier from 1887, the Liberal party won the election of 1896, adopted Macdonald’s development policy, and eventually appropriated the Conservative party’s position as Canada’s “national” party for much of the twentieth century. As regional consciousness developed and persisted in western Canada throughout the twentieth century, “national policy” became a pejorative term in that region, as federal government policy, for example in trade, transportation, and natural resource fields, was more clearly linked to the interests of the central Canadian economy, or “the East.” National Security Certificate (NSC) Under the federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and on the basis of a security intelligence report provided by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), a government order for the deportation of a permanent resident or foreign national (but not a Canadian citizen). The use of NSCs, especially since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, has led to considerable controversy over the extraordinary procedures for their execution. Upon issuance of an order, the person can be immediately arrested and detained pending a hearing before the Federal Court of Appeal begun within 48 hours and reviewed at least once every six months pending an outcome as the process can be very prolonged. The court hears evidence and rules either to affirm or dismiss the order for removal without further appeal. It can hear the evidence in camera in the absence of both the subject person and counsel, without cross- examination of witnesses, later providing the person with a summary of evidence, who has an opportunity to provide evidence in open court. Such certificates have long been a part of Canada’s immigration policy. The Supreme Court of Canada validated the law in 1992 in a case involving a criminal

Nationalistes

conviction concerning organized crime. In Chiarelli, the court distinguished between citizens’ and non-citizens’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remain in Canada (s.7), and ruled that it was not necessary, under section 7 of the Charter (“life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”), to provide the subject person with details of intelligence investigation techniques and sources used to acquire information on which the certificate was issued. Between 1991 and 2003, there were 27 certificates issued. Three were dismissed, and a second certificate was issued in one case against the same individual. However, in 2004, the detention of five suspected terrorists raised opposition, including from Amnesty International Canada (amnesty.ca): five allegedly at risk of torture if deported, four of them detained without charge, and one released under strict conditions. One person detained in 1999, his order quashed, but a second upheld, was still in Canada in 2005 because of alleged risk of torture in Egypt; another detained in 2000 and ordered deported in 2003 was granted a stay by the Federal Court in 2005 on the grounds that he faced torture in Egypt; another detained in 2001 whose order was affirmed in 2003, was granted a stay in 2005, when an initial assessment claiming he was not at risk in Syria was deemed to be error-prone; a man detained in 2002 whose deportation was affirmed in 2005, faced deportation to Algeria where, according to Amnesty International Canada, he was at risk of torture; finally, a person detained in 2003 was still under review in 2005, released on bail with electronic monitoring, facing deportation to Morocco where, again, Amnesty International Canada asserted he was at risk of torture. In 2006, a United Nations working group on arbitrary detention, established under the UN Commission on Human Rights, expressed concern about the use of the security certificates. These cases attracted public attention in the context of the case of a naturalized Canadian, Maher Arar, who was detained by United States authorities in 2002 and, in a case of “extraordinary rendition,” was removed to Syria without formal legal procedure, where he was imprisoned before his eventual release and return to Canada without charge. The role of CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were subjects of a federal commission of inquiry, headed by Justice Dennis O’Connor, begun in 2004, and for which a fact-finder for the inquiry concluded in 2005 that Arar had been tortured during his imprisonment (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar; www.ararcommission.ca). Nationalistes, the A political movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century whose most prominent representative as legislator and journalist was Henri Bourassa. The movement articulated the concerns of French Canadians at a time when industrialization, large-scale immigration and imperial foreign policy, notably support for the war against the Boers in South Africa, posed threats to French-Canadian society. In his encouragement of a pan-Canadian policy of bilingualism, Bourassa was evidently 50 years ahead of his time. A successful Liberal member of parliament and a possible successor to the party’s leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Bourassa nonetheless abandoned the Liberals over his disagreements with the government. He sat as an independent member of parliament until 1908, winning an election and sitting in the Quebec legislature as a Nationaliste from

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1908 to 1912. The Nationaliste movement eventually constituted an electoral threat to Laurier and the federal Liberal party. In the 1911 federal election, the Nationalistes and the predominantly anglophone Conservatives struck an electoral anti-Liberal alliance in Quebec. In that election, the pro-Conservative sentiment in English Canada, which was generated by business opposition to the Liberal proposal for trade reciprocity with the United States, and the split vote among francophones in Quebec between the Liberals and the Nationalistes resulted in a majority Conservative government. The Nationalistes thus helped to defeat the Liberals, but they did not hold a balance of power as they had hoped. In the century’s second decade, French nationalist sentiment was fostered by further attacks on French-language rights in education, particularly in Ontario, and in the bitter, polarized bicultural politics surrounding Canada’s participation and military conscription in the First World War. In the wartime election of 1917, French Quebeckers returned to the Liberal party, while many anglophone Liberals took part in the Conservative-dominated Union government that won the election. Bourassa returned to the House of Commons from 1925 to 1935, sitting as an independent member. By then, his influence in politics was reflected largely in the pages of Le Devoir, a newspaper, which he established in 1910 and edited until 1932, and which remains an editorial “voice” of French nationalism, sometimes federalist and sometimes sovereignist. See Fragment (splinter) parties. Nationalization The acquisition by government of ownership rights of privatesector companies. The nationalization of key sectors of the economy, such as the resource industry, banking, transportation, and primary industries, is usually associated with the socialist political agenda of the mid-twentieth century, designed to make government planning in the public interest the fundamental framework for economic activity. However, in Canada, non-socialist party governments have also nationalized industries for developmental, cultural, and social purposes, for example in the production and distribution of electricity, transportation, in fostering cultural industries, including broadcasting (see cbc.radio-canada.ca) and film (National Film Board of Canada: nfb.ca), and in the provision of basic health insurance. Since the Second World War, all political parties have acknowledged the socalled managerial revolution, recognizing that management of the economy through regulation may be more cost-effective than through outright ownership. At the same time, there was an appreciation that public-sector managers were not necessarily more sensitive to the public interest than their private-sector counterparts. Thus, many parts of the Canadian economy include both private- and public-sector companies regulated by one or more government commissions or agencies established and retained by both socialist and non-socialist party governments. The Canadian economy generally is frequently described as a mixed public-private enterprise economy. See Regulatory agencies (regulations). Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements The constitutional recognition of the rights of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, including Aboriginal self-government, acknowledging the existence of self-governing Aboriginal, or First

Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements

Nations long before European settlement in America, and their continued lawmaking authority. Indian nations are found throughout Canada, the Inuit population is located in the northern territories, and the Métis population of French and Aboriginal descent is found predominantly in Northern Ontario and the prairie provinces. The demand among First Nations for self-government resulted in the recognition of Aboriginal rights in Part II (s.35) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Specifically, “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” of “Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples” were “recognized and affirmed,” including “rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired,” and guaranteed equally to men and women (s.35). Also, section 25 specifically acknowledges Aboriginal “rights or freedoms” recognized by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and any “that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.” The defeat in 1990 of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord, which was fundamentally motivated by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s desire to accommodate Quebec to the constitutional changes of 1982, focused attention on Native demands for self-government. As the three-year deadline for unanimous approval of the Accord by provincial and federal legislatures approached, the daily refusal of Elijah Harper, a Cree, and a New Democratic member of the Manitoba legislature, to grant unanimous consent for the Accord to be voted on delivered the coup de grâce. In 1991, the federal Conservative government proposed entrenching a justiciable right to Aboriginal self-government, with the expectation that the courts would recognize differential circumstances and needs among Native Peoples; and that enforcement not take place for 10 years from the adoption of the constitutional amendment, pending federal, provincial, and municipal negotiations with Aboriginal groups on issues such as land and resources, language, education, the administration of justice, health, and social and economic development. Native groups rejected the proposal, demanding instead an inherent right to self-government and participation on equal footing with the heads of government at subsequent constitutional talks. In 1992, the constitutional Charlottetown Accord was negotiated by Native representatives and federal, provincial, and territorial government leaders. Though it was defeated in a country-wide referendum, it remains a landmark in discussions over Aboriginal self-government. The Accord included a statement that “the Aboriginal peoples of Canada have the inherent right of self-government within Canada,” and that their governments be recognized “as one of three orders of government in Canada” (Part IV: First Peoples), though self-government would be achieved only following negotiations with federal and provincial governments over legislative jurisdiction. The Charlottetown Accord included a “contextual statement” on the legislative authority of Aboriginal governments. The government and Native leaders agreed that justiciability of the entrenched right be delayed for five years without prejudicing the right, and that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to Aboriginal governments as to federal and provincial governments, but in a manner “appropriate to the circumstances of Aboriginal peoples.” The Accord encouraged the non-Native governments and Native Peoples (Inuit, Indian, and Métis)

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to negotiate in good faith to conclude agreements on the relationship among the three orders of governments and outlined a process of negotiation, including a dispute settlement mechanism. The Accord committed Aboriginal governments to social, economic, and cultural policy objectives, including reducing “disparities in opportunities” and public services between Aboriginal and other Canadians, and the other two orders of government to assist “with fiscal or other resources, including land”; to affirmative action programs respecting languages and cultures; and to gender equity. It committed the other governments to future conferences on matters related to Native self-government and to an assurance that division of power agreements among them would not derogate from the rights of Native Peoples and their governments, and that future constitutional amendments that directly refer to Aboriginal peoples should have their consent. The five westernmost provincial governments agreed with the Métis National Council to negotiate binding and enforceable agreements on Métis issues including self-government, land and resources, jurisdiction in programs and services for Métis, and costsharing agreements. Finally, the Charlottetown Accord countenanced guaranteed Aboriginal representation in the Senate with a possible double majority requirement in matters “materially affecting Aboriginal people.” The Accord was rejected in a country-wide referendum for various reasons, but there appeared to be serious opposition over the proposal among treaty Indians, including, for example, opposition from the Native Women’s Association of Canada, fearful that women’s rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be jeopardized. Following the public rejection of the Accord, people who had participated in formulating the proposals urged federal and provincial governments to pursue implementation of the Accord concerning First Peoples, notably those sections that did not require constitutional amendment, such as ones respecting the Métis nation. Since the 1980s there have been notable agreements between the federal and some provincial governments involving self-governance: for example, among Native parties to the James Bay Agreement with the Quebec government in 1984 (Cree-Naskapi Act), the Sechelt Indian Band Self-Government Act, 1986 in British Columbia, and in 1998, the BC government’s comprehensive treaty with the Nisga’a. In 1999, the federal Northwest Territories was divided, with the creation of Nunavut in the eastern Arctic, the only political jurisdiction in North America with a predominantly Native population (gov.nu.ca). The federal Department of Indian Affairs has delegated much of its funding of programs to Native authorities. In 1997, the federal government agreed with the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia to transfer authority over education. Generally, Native authorities now deliver many services of federal responsibility involving, for example, education and culture, policing, health care, and social services. The courts have also been a site for the pursuit of Native claims. In Sparrow (1990), the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a British Columbia decision, affirming section 35 rights in the Constitution Act, 1982 against provincial legislation, in this case fishing rights of the Musqueum. Also in Sioui (1990), the Supreme Court upheld a Quebec court decision affirming a treaty between the British and the Hurons signed three days before the fall of Quebec in 1760, granting “free exercise of their Religion [and] their customs,” in this case fishing and cutting

Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements

wood for a purification ritual in provincial parks, contrary to provincial law. In 1999, the Supreme Court further affirmed Aboriginal rights pre-existing European settlement in Delgamuukw, admitting oral history as evidence in a case acknowledging rights of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia. The Supreme Court ruled in Marshall (1999) that eighteenth-century treaty rights of the Mi’kmaq in Atlantic Canada allowed them fishing rights, subject to conservation measures, though the ruling and a subsequent clarification did not settle the ensuing dispute over fishing rights involving Native and non-Native fishers and the federal government. In 2005, however, the Supreme Court ruled that commercial trade in the eighteenth century between the Mi’kmaq and the British did not extend to lumber. As for claims of Aboriginal title, evidence suggested the Mi’kmaq populations were settled around waterways in the eighteenth century and that occasional forays into forested areas for hunting did not qualify as exclusive possession and control (Marshall, et al. [Nova Scotia] and Bernard [New Brunswick]). The decision frames future negotiations with the governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and including non-Aboriginal commercial loggers. In 2002, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling affirming constitutionally protected Métis harvesting rights on Crown land in part of Ontario established legal tests for similar rulings elsewhere: that the Métis community has existed continuously since control by Europeans was established in the area and that the activity, to be protected as a right, continues to be of significance to the community (Powley). In 2005, the federal government signed a Métis Nation Framework Agreement with the Métis National Council (metisnation.ca). There have been occasions when mistreatment of Natives by police, or botched police investigations involving Native victims in several provinces have reinforced Native demands for a parallel justice system as an element of self-government. In addition to a high proportion of Native people in correctional institutions, there have been court cases and judicial inquiries, for example, resulting from the incarceration of Donald Marshall for 10 years for a murder in Nova Scotia that he did not commit, the investigation of the rape and murder of Helen Betty Osborne in Manitoba, and the death of Neil Stonechild and others abandoned by police in freezing winter weather outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Violent conflicts over Native rights have included death in Oka, Quebec in 1990 and Ipperwash, Ontario, five years later. In Oka, the death of a police officer accompanied an armed standoff between Mohawk warriors and Quebec Provincial Police (QPP), following a decision by municipal authorities to expand a golf course on land claimed by Mohawks as traditional, sacred land. Sympathetic Natives blockaded roads through a nearby reserve leading to and from Montreal. Given outbursts of violence and the potential for more, Canadian Armed Forces were sent to bolster the QPP. In another dispute over land claims, an Ontario Provincial Police officer killed Dudley George, an unarmed Native demonstrator at Ipperwash in 1990, when police action was allegedly directed from the office of the provincial Progressive Conservative premier. A commission of inquiry was established in 2003 by the successor Liberal government. There have been some experiments in some provinces with Aboriginal methods of justice, such as healing circles and temporary banishment to an isolated wilderness, and the Criminal Code was amended in 1995 encour-

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aging judges to consider sanctions other than imprisonment “with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders.” Responding to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and the armed confrontation at Oka in 1990, the federal Progressive Conservative government established the (Dussault-Erasmus) Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1991. In its final report five years later, the commission made recommendations in four areas: Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal relationship based on mutual respect and reconciliation; Aboriginal self-government within Canada; Aboriginal economic self-sufficiency; and self-healing from the effects of neglect and maltreatment by non-Aboriginal authorities (via ainc-inac.gc.ca). The immediate response of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government was an apologetic statement of reconciliation and renewal. In 2002, the federal Liberal government introduced a “First Nations Governance Bill” that was denounced by several Native organizations as paternalistic, with Aboriginal self-government being treated as municipalities rather than as nations (Bill C-61, later C-7). The measure died on the Order Paper when parliament was dissolved for the 2004 election. In 2005, Canada’s first ministers, including the federal Liberal government, signed the multi-billion dollar Kelowna Agreement with Native representatives: $5.1 billion over five years for improved housing, health, and education; and a $2.2 billion compensation for abuse suffered in residential schools. During the federal election campaign held shortly after the signing of the Agreement, there were mixed signals from the Conservative party, which subsequently formed a minority government in 2006, about the Agreement. To clarify the party’s position, leader Stephen Harper—later Prime Minister Harper—said the party supported the objectives and targets of the Agreement, but would support “Aboriginals and taxpayers” in an agreement that “clearly lays out both responsibilities and targets for all stakeholders,” and a Conservative government would “work closely to develop a responsible fiscal plan to meet [the] objectives” (conservative.ca). See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Indian Act; Land claims and settlements (Native; Aboriginal); Northwest (Riel) Rebellions; Nunavut (“Our land”). Natural resources Commodities involving “Lands, Mines, Minerals, and Royalties,” which, within the provinces, are under provincial jurisdiction (Constitution Act, 1867, s.109), but, before section 92A was adopted in 1982, interprovincial and international marketing of natural resources was solely within the federal domain (“The Regulation of Trade and Commerce,” s.91:2). The eastern provinces and British Columbia had jurisdiction over their resources upon Confederation, but when the prairie provinces were created from federal territory (Manitoba in 1870; Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905), natural resources remained in the hands of the federal government, purportedly to assist western development, until enactment of a constitutional amendment in 1930. As part of the process of constitutional patriation in 1982, section 92A of the Constitution Act (“Non-Renewable Natural Resources, Forestry Resources and Electrical Energy”) was adopted, establishing concurrent jurisdiction in interprovincial trade, though an exporting province cannot discriminate among importing provinces in pricing, and there is federal paramountcy in the event of

Natural resources

conflicting laws. The provinces also acquired increased taxation powers in nonrenewable resource industries. Exports of non-renewable resources from Canada remain the jurisdiction of the federal government, although those to the United States are regulated by the “continentalist” provisions of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of 1989. Other relevant sections of the Constitution Act pertaining to provincial jurisdiction include: 92:5 (“The Management and Sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province…”); 92:13 (“Property and Civil Rights in the Province”); and 92:16 (“Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province”). The federal government is prohibited from taxing public land and property owned by the provinces (s.125). Conflicts related to jurisdictional competence have historically involved conflicts between resource-rich provinces and the federal government acting on behalf of the “national interest,” notably people and economies in relatively resource-poor and high resource-consuming regions. Of contemporary importance are resources such as oil, gas, and water that are related to energy production and, before the adoption of section 92A, involved serious regional, federal-provincial, and government-industry conflict. Provincial jurisdiction historically meant the power to determine the manner in which the resources were developed and to determine the prices that would be charged for the resources in the province. With its “Trade and Commerce” power, however, the federal government could still establish conditions under which the resource commodities (once they were made available) moved beyond a province in interprovincial and international trade. Thus, the volume, price, and means of transportation of oil and natural gas in cross-border trade, for example, were subject to federal control. The federal government could also use its declaratory power (s.92:10[c]) or emergency powers under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause (preamble, s.91) effectively to nationalize a resource industry. In 1967, the Supreme Court of Canada declared offshore mineral rights on the west coast to be under federal jurisdiction, thus giving the federal government an advantage in negotiating with provinces on the east coast. With the steep rise in world oil prices in the 1970s, following the creation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel, the ensuing debate over natural resources and energy policy was so divisive as to have dramatic partisan, electoral reverberations in western Canada, with profound consequences for the federal party system. The oil-producing provinces of Alberta notably, and Saskatchewan, hoped to use revenue from oil to diversify their economies. The national economy’s manufacturing sector was located chiefly in central Canada, whose economy and society had always benefited from an abundant supply of cheap energy. The federal government had historically defined “national policy” in terms of the prosperity of manufacturing and responded politically to opinion in densely populated Ontario and Quebec. It also felt obliged to develop a resource policy that protected the poorer Atlantic region from the significant impact of oil price increases. In addition to questions of jurisdiction, the distribution of wealth, regional disparities, and equalization agreements, the debate over national oil and energy policy in the 1970s and 1980s touched on foreign ownership in the Canadian economy, the appropriate role of the state in economic enterprises, the rights of Native peoples, conservation of energy, and preservation of the environment. See National energy (oil) policy; program (NEP); Board (NEB).

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New Deal (R.B. Bennett’s) Labour-related and agricultural marketing legislation that Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s Conservative government proposed in 1935 during that decade’s economic depression to “ensure a greater degree of equality in the distribution of the capitalistic system” (Speech from the Throne). The legislation, styled “New Deal” after United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s program, was announced in the final year of the Parliament elected in 1930. It is usually cited as an unsuccessful, last-minute attempt to save the government from almost certain electoral defeat. Some people have interpreted it in part as an example of Red Tory politics in Canada. Bennett announced the program in radio speeches written by close aides and without the knowledge of most of the cabinet. Following the election of 1935, Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King referred several of the New Deal measures to the courts to determine their constitutionality. In 1937, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) invalidated statutes respecting hours of work, holidays, minimum wages (Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario [Labour Conventions Case]), and unemployment insurance (Attorney-General for British Columbia v. Attorney-General for Canada). The judicial decisions involved restrictions of federal authority regarding of the implementation of international treaties (Constitution Act, 1867, s.132), federal emergency powers under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause (s.91; preamble) and federal power in “Trade and Commerce” (s.91:2). Concomitantly, the JCPC’s decisions strengthened provincial legislative competence under “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” (s.92:13). The JCPC’s view at the time was expressed in Lord Atkin’s metaphor describing Canada’s federal system as a ship with “water-tight compartments” of federal and provincial jurisdiction to be steadfastly maintained despite the “larger ventures” and “foreign waters” on which “the ship of state now sails” (Labour Conventions Case). See Emergency power; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review; Red Tory(-ism); Treaty power. New Democratic party (NDP) (ndp.ca) Founded in 1961, the social democratic successor to the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The New Democratic party’s program was founded on the Winnipeg Declaration of 1956, which advocated a relatively mild reformism dedicated to improving the quality of life through government regulation of the economy. The transformation from the electorally moribund CCF to the NDP was designed to facilitate greater involvement in the party by trade unions, notably industrial and public-sector unions, and to increase electoral support among the younger, upwardly mobile population of urban Canada and among French Quebeckers. This moderation of the socialist agenda within in Canada, which mirrored similar change taking place elsewhere in the West, was described, especially by left-wing critics, as an “embourgeoisement” of international socialism. The party has been more successful than the CCF, but its impact has been in provincial and territorial more than in federal politics. The party has formed governments in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Yukon, and the official opposition in Alberta. In federal elections, the party has fared better in popular vote percentages than the CCF; however, the NDP has never gained

New Democratic party

more than 25 per cent of the vote, and has failed to become an electoral force in Alberta, Quebec, and much of Atlantic Canada. In the 1960s and from 1972 to 1974, it exercised considerable and important influence on health care, pensions, and foreign investment policies when it held the balance of power during minority Liberal governments. Between the elections of 1984 and 1988, the party led in national public opinion polls, but this was more a manifestation of lack of support for the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives than firm support for the NDP. In the 1988 election, the party elected its largest cohort of MPs ever—43 seats (20.2% of the popular vote)—nonetheless still far removed even from forming the official opposition. In 1993, it suffered its worst defeat, winning 6.9 per cent of the popular vote and only nine seats, less than the minimum required to achieve party recognition in the House of Commons. It regained official party status in the 1997 election, winning 21 seats, including new-found strength in Atlantic Canada, but received only 11 per cent of the popular vote. In 2000, the party’s representation was reduced to 13 with 9 per cent of the national popular vote and, following the 2004 election, it initially had some influence on the minority Liberal government’s budget, although its 19-member caucus did not hold the balance of power by itself. With 17.4 per cent of the vote in 2006, the NDP won 29 seats, still insufficient to hold by itself the balance of power during the minority Conservative government. While focusing on traditional redistributive economic and social justice policies, the NDP itself has also sought to improve representation of women in politics. It was the first federal party to select women as leaders—Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 2006 federal election, for example, it led the other parties in terms of percentage of women among its candidates (35%), and women comprised 41.3 per cent of its caucus (12 of 29 members). By contrast, only 12 per cent of Conservative candidates were women, and only 11.2 per cent were successful (14 in the government party caucus of 125 [including a post-election Liberal defection]). Traditional federal voting habits for the Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties and the weak perception of the NDP on the powerful bicultural cleavage partly explain the NDP’s weak electoral performance. Also, since the 1960s, the Progressive Conservative party and then the Reform party (later the Canadian Alliance and, since the 2003 merger, the Conservative party) has had the support of many “aggrieved” westerners on the geographic cleavage, a source of political tension from which the NDP (and the CCF before it) had traditionally benefited. The strongest perception of the NDP is that of a left-wing party on the class cleavage. Class-based issues and support for the NDP, however, tend to be more prevalent in provincial politics—where responsibility for matters such as resource development, housing, medical and hospital insurance, social assistance, education, and labour law assist the New Democratic party in particular provinces. In the 1970s, the federal NDP failed in its efforts to benefit significantly from disaffection with federal wage and price controls policy, resource development, and the domination of foreign ownership in the economy. More seriously, in the 1980s, public support for traditional state interventionist solutions to economic and social problems flagged in the wake of support for market liberalism and reduced state activity to eliminate budget deficits and reduce the public debt. The laissez-

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faire liberal agenda (often described by the United States term “neo-conservative”) was ascendant: privatization of crown corporations; reduced social expenditures; government deregulation of business; and encouragement of free trade to improve the competitiveness of Canadian business. In the 1990s, public opinion became less enamoured with the so-called “neoconservative” economic agenda, but still suspicious of a statist “tax and spend” agenda. Federal voters were inclined to shun all three established parties and either vote for new regional parties—the Reform/Canadian Alliance in the West and the Bloc Québécois in Quebec—or not vote at all, as voter turnout in federal elections steadily decreased from 75.3 per cent in 1988 to a low of 60.9 per cent in 2004, rebounding in 2006 to 64.9 per cent. The CCF-NDP’s contribution to Canada’s social security system, either when holding provincial office or when constituting a threat to the federal Liberal party’s dominance, had ever-diminishing electoral significance. Even important elements within the labour movement questioned the efficacy of their formal relationship with the NDP, especially when provincial parties in office appeared to adopt a neo-conservative approach to public finance. In the 2006 federal election campaign, the influential head of a leading union, who would have been expected to campaign vigorously for the party as in the past, appeared on public platforms with Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, to encourage union members and New Democrats generally to vote strategically, that is, to vote Liberal in constituencies where only the Liberal candidate was most likely to defeat the Conservative. Party strategists of both the left and the right have also had to accommodate themselves to a public agenda which, in addition to the traditional issues of class, region, and culture, now included citizen-rights demands based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 and concern for postmaterialist qualityof-life and personal identity issues, for example women’s, Native, and gay and lesbian rights, environmental protection, urban community, and international development. Some commentators argue that, as such concerns are thought to be congruent with left-wing social activism and the grassroots organization of the NDP, the party is well positioned to respond to a rights-based and postmaterialist political agenda. However, “progressive” social movement organizations have generally been reluctant to support any political party. The NDP’s continued weakness federally, and its limited strength even in provinces where it has been wellestablished, continues to foster debate on the future of Canada’s political left. See Co-operative Commonwealth Federation; Movement parties; Postmaterialism; Socialism. Nomination The formal designation of a person as a candidate for elective office. The Canada Elections Act establishes qualifications for candidacy in federal elections and regulates the financing of campaigns for nomination. Canadian citizens resident in the country, but not necessarily in the constituency for which they are seeking the nomination, are eligible for nomination. Nomination requires the written support of at least 100 electors resident in the relevant constituency (50 in the case of very large and sparsely populated constituencies) and a deposit of $1,000, one half of which is returned upon candidates filing their financial statement and the remainder returned only if a candidate wins at

Non-governmental organizations

least 15 per cent of the vote in the constituency. Candidates endorsed by the leaders of officially registered parties will have the party name included with their name on the ballot. Governments are formed following elections, based on the number of constituencies won by candidates put forward by each of the political parties. Therefore most nominees are candidates of established parties registered under the Act. Apart from electoral law on financing candidate nomination campaigns, the procedure for each party is regulated by party rules and supervised by party officials. In some constituencies the executive of a party’s constituency association may have difficulty finding a candidate. But elsewhere there will be highly competitive nomination contests—usually in constituencies where the party’s nominee is expected to win in the general election—and there may be serious internal conflict, including challenges regarding the qualifications of people voting, the conditions under which they might have been recruited to the party, and the manner in which the nomination meeting was conducted. Such challenges have involved participation by children, the purchasing of memberships by supporters of particular candidates and participation by so-called one-day party members, conflict among ethnic groups supporting different candidates, and attempts by supporters of single issues to control party nomination meetings. Because the leaders of parties registered with the chief electoral officer legally designate their candidates and official agents, occasionally party leaders reject a local association-selected nominee, and federal Liberal party rules allow its leader to forgo a constituencybased nomination entirely and “parachute” a preferred candidate into a constituency. It is more usual, however, for a party’s central office to be involved “behind the scenes” in the nomination process to ensure a desirable outcome in a marginal constituency, or prevent the selection in any constituency of a candidate likely to focus adverse publicity on the party. Prompted in large part by the report in 1992 of the (Pierre Lortie) Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, the Canada Elections Act was amended effective 2004 to regulate the financing and expenditure of funds for local federal nomination contestants. A citizen or permanent resident can contribute a limited amount annually adjusted for inflation to a registered political party, its local associations, nomination contestants, and candidates. Contributions by trade unions, corporations, and unincorporated associations are permitted, but are subject to lower ceilings. Unincorporated associations that contribute to nomination contestants must also furnish the names of individuals who supplied money to the association, the amount, and the date of their contribution. Other aspects of the law include regulations on goods and services supplied, cases where two elections might take place within one year, and the transfer of funds. Finally, there are limits on expenditures, instructions on the disposal of surplus funds, and requirements for an audited report to be made public. Non-confidence motion See Vote of confidence (want-of-confidence motion). Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Transnational organizations that, especially in the current period of globalization, promote interests and policies frequently associated with social interests such as human rights, personal health and welfare especially of women and children, and environmental protection. As such,

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they apply pressure to domestic political and corporate decision-makers with reference both to domestic and foreign policy. While there has been conflict between governments in Canada and some NGOs, especially some that are lead organizations in domestic social movements (for example with respect to animal culls, logging practices, the environment, and Native rights), there have also been occasions when the Canadian government and NGOs have joined forces in, for example, the international treaty banning land mines and efforts to eliminate the exploitation of children in workplaces, the sex trade, and as soldiers. Amnesty International (amnesty.ca), the Canadian Red Cross (redcross.ca), CARE Canada (care.ca), Development and Peace (devp.org), Friends of the Earth (foe.ca), Greenpeace Canada (greenpeace.ca), Médecins sans frontières (msf.ca), and Oxfam (oxfam.ca) are examples of prominent Canadian NGOs that are part of global organizations and operations. See Globalization; Social movement organizations. North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) An integrated United States-Canada continental air-defence system involving military surveillance and warning systems, and anti-submarine defence, to protect the nuclear force of the United States for retaliatory purposes if attacked. The NORAD agreement, which was designed for protection against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, was negotiated by the Liberal government in the 1950s and signed by the Progressive Conservative government in 1957. The executive agreement, which has been reaffirmed periodically, calls for a joint command headed by an American, with a Canadian deputy commander. It represents a culmination of Canadian military collaboration with the United States which began in 1940 when Canada was at war with Germany, but before the United States formally became an allied belligerent. The end of the Cold War, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its military allies in eastern Europe around 1990, called into question Canada’s future military role in Europe under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as the NORAD agreement. Liberal governments have generally reduced defence spending and preferred to concentrate military resources to protect Canadian sovereignty, notably in the Arctic, and contribute to peacekeeping ventures of the United Nations, usually successfully, but some not without controversy. While not eschewing peacekeeping operations, the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1993 had a decidedly proUS attitude in foreign and defence policies. For instance, Canada publicly supported the US invasion of Panama in 1989. In 1990, Canada participated in the multilateral, but essentially US-led Gulf War against Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait (as Canada had under the Liberals participated in a protracted US-led, though formally United Nations-sponsored, war in Korea in the early-1950s). Later, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien committed Canadian forces to NATO’s involvement in the Balkans in response to genocidal communal conflict, and in Afghanistan in 2002 as part of the United Nations-mandated NATO International Security Assistance Force, but refused to be part of the US assault on Iraq in 2003. In the late 1990s, the Liberal government was divided on the US policy respecting construction of a ballistic missile air defence system, but renewed the NORAD

North American Free Trade Agreement

agreement in the hope of influencing the direction of US policy. After the terrorist attacks on the US using civilian air planes on internal flights in 2001, the US renewed its missile defence plan in 2002 and wanted Canada to participate in a fullblown continental defence arrangement. In 2004, the Canadian government signed an agreement authorizing NORAD to make its missile warning function available to US commands conducting ballistic missile defence but, in 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that Canada would not take part in the missile defence system itself. His successor in 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was prepared initially at least to increase expenditures for procurement of materiel. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992) A trade agreement negotiated by Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 1992 to create a continental trading bloc to protect national interests yet compete effectively internationally. Mexico initiated talks with the United States in 1990 and Canada joined the negotiations essentially to protect and improve its position under the CanadaUnited States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1989, notably regarding the dispute settlement mechanism to neutralize domestic protectionist US trade laws. The North American agreement was approved by the Canadian and US governments following “side agreements” and clarifications concerning environmental protection and labour. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation was established under NAFTA, with headquarters in Montreal, to investigate alleged non-enforcement of laws. The Commission for Labour Cooperation, with headquarters in Dallas, Texas, requires provincial co-operation for full Canadian participation. Both the Canada-US and the NAFTA agreements were negotiated by the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. However, the opposition in Canada to NAFTA was much less intense than the debate and opposition over the earlier Canada-US agreement. The earlier agreement had been a major issue in the 1988 election for the opposition Liberals under John Turner’s leadership and for the New Democratic party as well. However, following the 1993 election campaign in which the opposition Liberals, now led by Jean Chrétien, promised to renegotiate NAFTA, the victorious Liberal government acceded to the agreement without any significant changes. Initially there appeared to be more organized opposition to NAFTA in the United States than in Canada. However, as Canadian exports remained subject to US protectionist laws despite rulings through the dispute settlement mechanism, particularly in prolonged disputes over the importation of Canadian beef cattle and softwood lumber, the Canadian government was encouraged to retaliate, not just by longstanding critics but even by senior negotiators of the earlier Canada-US agreement. NAFTA, then, had critics in both the US and Canada. Objections in the United States to the agreement parallelled those in Canada to the FTA of 1989, for example, the loss of US jobs to low-wage labour and lower environmental standards in Mexico. Canadian critics of the FTA renewed their earlier concerns, now respecting NAFTA. Criticism focused again on the treatment of Canadian energy resources as a “continental” resource. Canada could not discriminate in distribution and pricing between Canada and the United States. Already dependent on Canadian exports of oil, especially after the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the

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US has shown interest in Canada’s oil reserves as well as using Canadian territory for transmission of oil from Alaska to the lower states. Also, under NAFTA, private companies can sue governments for alleged restraint of trade. For example, Canada Post’s operations have been challenged by private US delivery firms. In 2005, it appeared that the US decision to ignore a series of Canadian victories in the dispute over softwood lumber, and US law that even allocated countervailing duties to the American complainant firms, threatened the future of NAFTA. At the same time, Canadian beef cattle farmers had suffered from successful lobbying by the US industry to prolong a prohibition on Canadian imports following a single case of “mad cow” disease. Even prominent Canadian free trade negotiators described US action on softwood lumber as “bullying” and called for retaliation by the Canadian government. Others counselled that, given the congressional role in US trade policy and the nature of congressional politics, the Canadian government should shift its focus from the executive with arguments about international law to focus on mobilizing sympathetic American domestic interests to effect congressional attitudes. However, a former Liberal foreign affairs minister urged Canada to consider terminating NAFTA, and adopting a global strategy, developing trade with such emerging economic forces as China and India and relying on the rules of the World Trade Organization. See Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989); Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NAFTA); Environmentalism; Globalization; World Trade Organization (WTO). North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (nato.int) A military alliance now of Canada, the United States, and 24 European countries, including Turkey; it was established in 1949 and designed for mutual defence against the former Soviet Union and its European allies during the Cold War following the Second World War. In the early years, Canada attempted unsuccessfully to promote non-military functions within the alliance (Article 2). Domestic critics opposed Canada’s involvement in NATO as contributing to the Cold War environment, while critics on the other side of the issue have described as insufficient Canada’s commitment of forces in Europe and national defence generally. Earlier, federal governments defended Canada’s involvement in NATO with reference to maintaining good relations with the United States and opposing the expansion of Communism in Europe. Conflict within NATO usually centred on disputes between some European member-states, notably France, and the United States, although there were tensions among European members, notably between Greece and Turkey. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its satellite regimes in eastern Europe, and the break-up of Yugoslavia, NATO was expanded to include some post-Communist countries. A NATO-Russia Council was established in 2002 to consider joint operations, notably against terrorism following the attacks in the United States in 2001 and ongoing separatist insurgencies in post-USSR Russia. Although the original purpose for NATO is no longer relevant, Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments argued that Canada’s continued military involvement in Europe was necessary in order to benefit from economic, scientific,

Northwest (Riel) Rebellions

and technological relations with Europe. Also, NATO has since been engaged in military action in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has been engaged in military and peace making efforts in the Balkans, in a UN-mandated NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and provided assistance to the African Union’s efforts to deal with violence in the Darfur region of Sudan. As for Canadian defence policy in general, the federal government’s defence posture has shifted to Canada’s territorial interests. Canada’s assertion of sovereignty over the land and waters of the Arctic archipelago is contested by many countries, including the United States and other NATO allies. Continued global warming will likely mean that the historic Northwest Passage between Europe and Asia, as well as the land and resources, will once again be a matter of international interest. See North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Northwest (Riel) Rebellions Armed uprisings by Métis (people of mixed European and Native origins) and Indians in the Northwest Territories in the early post-Confederation period, seeking acknowledgement of land and political rights from the federal government. The first rebellion in 1869–1870, the Red River uprising led by Louis Riel, resulted in the declaration of a provisional government of Manitoba, the taking of prisoners, and the execution of a land surveyor from Ontario. As an expeditionary force approached Fort Garry (Winnipeg), the insurrection collapsed and Riel fled. Parliament established the province of Manitoba in 1870. Riel was elected to the House of Commons in 1874, but was prevented by other members of parliament from taking his seat. He led another rebellion of Indians and Métis in 1885 in an area of present-day Saskatchewan, demanding that the Canadian government grant them recognition and representation as a province, acknowledging their right to the land. Several engagements took place between the rebels and government troops. Riel surrendered, was tried, found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and hanged. Riel’s fate continued to resonate more than a century after the failed rebellions and his execution, but at the time it created a political storm between British and French Canadians and religionists in Ontario and Quebec. Anti-Catholic, British Protestants in Ontario demanded his execution while French Catholics saw Riel as a patriot, defending French Catholic communities from English encroachment. Riel refused to plead insanity to avoid the death penalty, although he was portrayed as something of a mystic and possibly subject to periods of mental disorder. Under considerable pressure from his Ontario supporters, Conservative Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, assuming that Quebec’s support for his government would hold, refused to stay Riel’s execution in 1885. Ultimately the prime minister and the Conservative party could not overcome the bitterness engendered in Quebec. Nor did Riel’s death diminish the extreme anti-Catholic, anti-French sentiment among Macdonald’s supporters in Ontario. In the federal election of 1887, Conservative representation from Quebec was drastically reduced. Wilfrid Laurier, who had publicly sympathized with the rebels, became leader of the Liberal party later that year. These events and others preceded the historic realignment of electoral support among French Canadians from the federal Conservative party to the federal Liberal party in the 1890s.

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Riel’s leadership among the Métis for political recognition is now generally acknowledged as a Native Peoples issue. In 1982, the Métis were constitutionally recognized in the Constitution Act (s.35:2). In 2002, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling affirming constitutionally protected Métis harvesting rights on Crown land in part of Ontario established legal tests for similar rulings elsewhere: that the Métis community has existed continuously since control by Europeans was established in the area and that the activity, to be protected as a right, continues to be of significance to the community (Powley). The Louis Riel Institute, established by an Act of the Manitoba legislature, promotes the history and culture of the Métis (louisrielinstitute.com). Otherwise, although he still has detractors, Riel has become a folk hero of mythic proportion. His birthplace in St. Boniface (Winnipeg) is an historic site. He has been the subject of books and an opera, his image has been depicted on a postage stamp, and there are numerous schools (even a high-end hotel in Winnipeg) named after him. His trial has been dramatized on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with the home audience subsequently voting as a “jury” for his acquittal. In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin suggested that Riel’s place in Canadian history be re-examined and, in 2005, the federal government signed a Métis Nation Framework Agreement with the Métis National Council (metisnation.ca). Notwithstanding (non obstante) clause (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.33) Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows federal and provincial legislatures to enact legislation that violates, limits, or overrides specific sections of the Charter: fundamental freedoms (s.2), legal rights (ss.7–14), and equality rights (s.15) without recourse to the courts. The notwithstanding clause, or legislative override, does not apply to democratic rights (ss.3–5), mobility rights (s.6), or linguistic rights, including minority-language educational rights (ss.16–23). When expressly invoked, a law operates notwithstanding the circumvented sections of the Charter for only five years, or for a shorter period if specified or repealed, subject to legislative debate and re-enactment which is also limited to five years. The inclusion of section 33 in the Charter in 1982 was a compromise between some provincial premiers, who were concerned to protect the principle of parliamentary sovereignty over otherwise constitutionally entrenched Charter rights, and the Charter’s main advocate, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Section 33 has only been used by provincial governments. The section was invoked first by the Parti Québécois government routinely and symbolically, as that province’s National Assembly had not approved the constitutional changes of 1982. A Progressive Conservative government in Saskatchewan used it in 1986 to compel striking public employees to return to work. In Quebec, a Liberal government abandoned the routine invocation of section 33, but used it effectively and significantly to protect revised sections of Quebec’s official-language policy on commercial signage. The Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that while the objective of the law was acceptable, its provisions banning all languages but French was an unjustifiable violation of the Charter’s section 2, freedom of expression. The revised sign law, which permitted signage in other languages along with dominant French usage inside commercial establishments, still prohibited outdoor signage in any but the French language. Anticipating nullification by the courts, the provin-

Nunavut

cial government invoked section 33. Later, the Liberal government further amended the law on commercial signage, permitting any language on outdoor signage as long as French was included as the dominant language, but now anticipating affirmation in the courts, did not invoke section 33. The Supreme Court had earlier ruled against the province’s language law respecting education, as a violation of section 23 of the Charter that is beyond the reach of section 33. A convention might be developing that the notwithstanding clause not be used. In 1998, the Alberta government briefly considered invoking it in two instances, but did not. In one case, the government introduced, but later retracted, legislation that would have overridden Charter rights, limiting a court’s ability to award compensation to over 500 dependent adults, victims of the province’s involuntary, eugenics-inspired sterilization program begun in the late-1920s (Sexual Sterilization Act, 1928; repealed in 1972). The other instance followed a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, reading in sexual orientation to Alberta’s Individual Rights Protection Act as a prohibited basis of discrimination. Among federal parties, the western-based and social conservative Canadian Alliance, successor to the Reform party, was the only party to advocate the use of section 33, to counter court interpretation of laws on child pornography. During debate in 2005 to revise the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, Stephen Harper, former leader of the Alliance and now leader of the new Conservative party—following the merger between of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties—supported invocation of section 33 to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. In the 2006 election campaign, following which he formed a minority government, he promised to have parliament revisit the issue, but was equivocal on the use of section 33. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charter of the French Language (Quebec). Nunavut (“Our land”) (gov.nu.ca) A self-governing territory established in the eastern Arctic region of the Northwest Territories (NWT) in 1999, whose capital is Iqaluit, on Baffin Island. Comprising approximately 2.2-million square kilometres, Nunavut contains about 29,000 people, 85 per cent of whom are Inuit. Thus, Nunavut—“Our land” in Inuktitut—is Canada’s first political unit governed predominantly by Native People. Nunavut extends west and north of Hudson’s Bay to the north pole. Its widely separated 26 communities, ranging in population from about two dozen to 6,000, are linked by air transportation and satellite communication. The division of NWT was narrowly approved in a territorial plebiscite in 1992. It had support of 90 per cent of voters in the eastern Arctic, but was opposed in the western Arctic where the territorial capital, Yellowknife, is located. Opponents in the western region feared loss of jobs from the division, and the Dene population claimed that the proposed boundary of Nunavut included part of their land. Under an agreement between the federal government, which is responsible for territorial government, and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Inuit have ownership of one fifth of the land and the right to hunt and fish throughout Nunavut. The federal government agreed to provide $1.14-billion over 14 years and transfer some mineral rights to Nunavut. The territory’s economy is based on the harvesting traditions of a nomadic people, but with development potential in natural resources and oil and gas reserves.

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As in the case of the NWT, Nunavut has a parliamentary system adapted to Aboriginal cultural and geo-political circumstances and needs distinctive to the North. The non-partisan political system, with four official languages (Inuktitut, Inuinnqtun, French and English), involves consensus decision making in the context of responsible parliamentary government. Following a general election, the members of the legislative assembly meet to elect a premier and ministers, and the premier assigns portfolios to the ministers. Nunavut’s formal head is the federally appointed commissioner. The government is guided by the Bathurst Mandate, a founding statement “That which we’ve set out to do,” highlighting healthy communities, simplicity and unity, self-reliance, and continuing learning. See Provincial (territorial) government (legislatures)

O Oakes test (Oakes [1986]) A ruling in which the Supreme Court of Canada established guidelines to effect section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees rights and freedoms subject “to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The specific case involved a reverse onus provision in the federal Narcotics Control Act which conflicted with the Charter’s section 11, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a fair and public trial. In the trial, the accused, found guilty of possession of a proscribed substance, was then obliged to establish innocence of the charge of trafficking, guilt being assumed. Appealing acquittal in the Ontario Supreme Court, the Crown argued before the Supreme Court of Canada that the reverse onus provision of the Act was a reasonable limitation under section 1. In its unanimous seven-member panel decision, which has become known as the Oakes test, the court ruled that for a limitation of a Charter right to be “saved” by section 1, it must pass two tests: a sufficient-importance test and a three-part proportionality test. First, the legislature’s objective in limiting the right in law must be of sufficient importance, pressing and substantial. To pass the second test, the limitation must be rationally connected to the objective, it must represent a minimal impairment of the right in the achievement of the objective, and the effect of the limitation must be proportional, not greater than the purported social objective. Thus the Oakes test “operationalized” section 1 of the Charter, which requires the courts to weigh the collective right of society against the rights of individual members of that society. In the particular case, the court declared that the Narcotics Control Act passed the first test—“curbing drug trafficking by facilitating the conviction of drug traffickers” was of sufficient importance. However, the court declared that the Act failed the first part of the second test—rational connection between limiting the presumption of innocence and curbing drug trafficking. As the Act failed the first part of the proportionality test, the court did not rule on the remaining two parts. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada.

October Crisis

Occupational (functional) representation Electoral representation in legislatures by occupational groups, rather than by conventional political parties. This anti-party, corporatist notion of representation had public support , particularly in rural Ontario and western Canada in the early twentieth century. Advocates of occupational representation saw the conventional disciplined party system as representative only of those business interests that financed the established Conservative and Liberal parties. However, the United Farmers governments in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario after the First World War made no serious attempts to reform the system of representation. Support for occupational representation among western Progressives in the 1920s also came to naught. Although the movement elected the second-largest groups of members of parliament in the 1921 election, they declined the official opposition role and subsequently had little influence in the House of Commons. The Social Credit party, whose support was based largely in Alberta from the 1930s to the 1950s, also argued that large, central Canadian financial and manufacturing interests controlled MPs through the disciplined party system. Constituency versus party control over elected MPs and demands for more “free votes” in the House of Commons, a variation on the anti-party theme, still remains an issue, especially in western Canada, among supporters of the former Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, since 2003 an important element of the new federal Conservative party. However, in 2005 the direct democracy instruments of legislative initiative, recall, and referendums were excluded from the Conservative party program. See Delegate theory of representation; Initiative (legislative); Recall; Referendum. October (FLQ) Crisis (1970) The kidnapping for ransom under the threat of death of a British trade commissioner, James Cross, and of a provincial cabinet minister, Pierre Laporte, in Montreal by two cells of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ)—an action that led to the declaration of an “apprehended insurrection” and the invocation of the War Measures Act by the federal Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau. Shortly after the Act was invoked, Laporte was killed by his captors. The police eventually discovered Cross’s location and negotiated his release in return for his kidnappers’ safe passage abroad. Judicial proceedings took place against members of both cells, including those who had been in exile, upon their return in 1979. While the Act was in effect, approximately 500 Quebeckers were detained without charge and without counsel. Virtually none had any connection to the terrorist organization, but only sympathy with Québécois nationalism. However, these events effectively ended the sporadic terrorist activity that during the 1960s had been directed against the federal government’s presence in Quebec. The federal government insisted during and after the crisis that, on the basis of provincial government and police advice, the constitutional government of Quebec had been seriously threatened. And although public opinion in Canada was largely supportive of the federal government at the time, later the government was criticized for not providing evidence that the eventual location and apprehension of the kidnappers and murderers depended on using the extraordinary powers of the War Measures Act. Prime Minister Trudeau’s response at the time to his critics was that if he as an innocent person had been detained

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under the Act, his enmity would have been directed not towards the government, but towards those who were responsible for the events that had caused the government to invoke the Act. Prime Minister Trudeau was primarily responsible for the entrenchment 12 years later of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to which all government legislation must conform. In 1988, emergency legislation was brought into conformity with the Charter. The Emergencies Act replaced the War Measures Act, distinguishing public welfare, public order, and international and war emergencies, but in all cases with automatic expiry of the invocation if not renewed. The Emergencies Act requires government explanation and lists specific types of regulations appropriate to different emergencies, applies them to relevant parts of the country, and provides for more effective parliamentary supervision during the emergency, an appeal procedure for compensation, a parliamentary review of the exercise of emergency powers, as well as a government report following the termination of the emergency. Following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the federal Liberal government enacted the Anti-Terrorism Act, which created new law enforcement measures to identify and disable, and prosecute and convict suspected terrorists before a terrorist attack can take place. After considerable and protracted opposition to its initial form, the federal government also enacted the Public Safety Act, 2002 in 2004, which deals with additional powers respecting security in transportation, marine shipping, energy infrastructure and dual-use biological agents. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers); Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004); War Measures Act (Canada; emergency powers). Official agent (party; candidate) Under election finance legislation, the person designated responsible for maintaining proper accounts of candidate and party finances. Federal legislation, for example, allows for limited tax credit for financial contributions to registered parties and their candidates. It also defines and limits election expenses, requires the filing of public returns accounting for election contributions, including services, and expenses, and allows for some reimbursement of candidates’ expenses. Official agents for the parties and their candidates are legally responsible for adherence to the law. Comparable federal laws pertain to people standing for nomination as a party candidate in an election, and people standing for party leadership. See Electoral law (controls; subsidies). Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969; 1988) The federal statute establishing French and English as the official languages of Canada, under which the use of both languages have equal status in the federal public administration. The Act was the chief recommendation of the (Dunton-Laurendeau) Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1967. Where demand warrants, the Act allows public employees to work in their preferred language, English or French, and for the public to be served similarly. The substance of the Act was entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, along with the designation of New Brunswick as a bilingual province (ss. 16–22). The Act created the office of the commissioner of official languages (language ombudsman), to ensure compliance with the Act within the federal public administration.

Official-party status

The Official Languages Act represents the individual rights-based, or personality strategy of the federal government to make francophone Canadians feel “at home” across Canada, as opposed to the territorial rights-based approach that would leave the matter of French or English minority-language rights to be determined by each province. The chief example of the territorial rights-based approach is found in Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, designed to protect French as the dominant language of the provincial government, economy, and society, which has generated considerable controversy both in and outside the province. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Commissioner of Official Languages. Official opposition The party that usually holds the second-largest number of seats in the legislature and represents the likely alternative to the government-ofthe-day should it resign following defeat in the legislature, or is the likely alternative were the government party to be defeated in the next election. As the leading opposition party to the government, it is sometimes designated as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” to “Her Majesty’s Government.” However, there have been notable exceptions in the House of Commons. In 1921, the Progressives elected the second-largest number of members, but they refused to accept the role of official opposition, which fell then to the third-ranking Conservatives. Though the Liberals elected fewer members than the Conservatives in the 1925 federal election, the Liberal government remained in office briefly with the support of the third-ranking Progressives; thus, the Conservatives were the official opposition although they had the largest caucus. In 1993, the sovereignist Bloc Québécois formed the official opposition, but with electoral strength solely in Quebec, it was not an alternate party of government. All parties other than the government party are generally known as “the opposition,” but the official opposition party holds specific resource and procedural advantages over the other opposition parties. At the federal level, for example, the leader of the official opposition has a publicly owned and subsidized residence, and receives the salary of a cabinet minister. The office and party of the leader of the official opposition receive more money for research purposes than the other opposition parties; and, of great importance in parliamentary debate, the official opposition party’s questions, motions and amendments to government motions, and its replies to ministerial statements, take precedence in debate over those of the smaller opposition parties. See Opposition parties. Official-party (recognized party) status Under standing orders of the House of Commons, a designated number of seats that a party caucus must hold in order for its members to be recognized in house proceedings, including committee membership, and for the party to receive public funding for research and party offices such as the leader, house leader, whips, and caucus chair. Although general elections involve the election of legislators, House of Commons business is subsequently conducted on the basis of party organization. For several elections, 12 members has been the minimum requirement for a party to be recognized in the Commons. Otherwise, members of a party with fewer than 12 MPs will normally not be recognized in question period, not be allowed to

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comment in the house on ministerial statements, and not be recognized in general debate and allowed to make amendments to government bills including nonconfidence motions. Nor will members of parties not officially recognized be given membership on house committees. Without house recognition, such parties will also be deprived of public funding that recognized parties receive to assist in their legislative duties. Otherwise, such party members do have access to the mass media outside the chamber itself. In the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties both failed to win sufficient seats to obtain official party status. The relevant standing order of the house was not amended and both parties were thus virtually invisible in the 1993–1997 Parliament. Official Secrets Act See Security of Information Act (Canada). Ombudsman A public officer, appointed by and responsible to the legislature, who investigates and reports on citizens’ grievances against the public administration. The concept, originally established in Scandinavia, has spread to many Western parliamentary democracies, where offices have been established with varying powers. Canada’s first ombudsman was appointed in Alberta in 1967 and ombudsmen now exist in most provinces. At the federal level, there is no ombudsman as such, but there are commissioners for official languages, privacy, information, the military, and correctional services operating effectively as ombudsmen under the terms of their respective statutes. There is also a Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). These complaint bodies usually receive little public attention; however, complaints about the privacy commissioner did lead to a House of Commons investigation and ultimately the commissioner’s resignation in 2003. See Commissioner of Official Languages (language ombudsman); Information Commissioner; Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). One-party (single-party) dominance A phrase denoting a two- or multi-party system, but with one party being historically dominant. The Liberal party has been dominant in federal politics since 1896. The House of Commons contained at least four party caucuses from 1935 to 1957, but Liberal majorities dominated the house during that period, having already governed through most of the first and third decades of the twentieth century. Except for a nine-month minority Progressive Conservative government, the Liberal party also formed federal governments from 1963 to 1984, and following a Progressive Conservative interregnum that ended in 1988, until 2006. One-party, or single-party-dominant, systems have occurred frequently at the provincial level. For example, the Progressive Conservative party retained power in Ontario’s three-party system from 1943 to 1985 and was returned to office for two terms in the 1990s. The Social Credit governed in British Columbia from 1952 to 1991, with a three-year break in the 1970s. The CCF-New Democratic party qualifies as a dominant party in Saskatchewan and the Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, the oldest one-party-dominant provincial system is Alberta’s. There, the United Farmers dominated a provincial multi-party

Operation Dismantle v. The Queen

system from 1921 to 1935, Social Credit from 1935 to 1971, followed by the Progressive Conservative party well into the twenty-first century. See Party system. Opening of Parliament (of the legislature) Ceremonies and procedures at the beginning of a newly elected Parliament or a new session of parliament (similarly respecting provincial legislatures). Following their summons to Ottawa by the governor-in-council after a general election and prior to the opening of a new Parliament, elected members of parliament sign the roll and take an oath of office administered by the clerk of the House of Commons. Also prior to a new Parliament, members of parliament elect a Speaker, following which the symbol of the Speaker’s authority, the Mace, is placed on the table in front of the Speaker’s chair. At the opening of a new Parliament or a session of parliament, the governor general causes MPs to be summoned to the bar of the Senate to hear the Speech from the Throne. In addition to senators, members of the Supreme Court of Canada and the diplomatic corps are in attendance. The governor general’s Speech from the Throne (in Quebec, the premier’s “Inaugural Address”) is a government-drafted review of the state of public affairs and an outline of the government’s program, usually stated in general terms, for the next session of the legislature. Operation Dismantle v. The Queen (1985) A decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on appeal from the Federal Court of Canada that an executive agreement between the federal government and the United States to permit unarmed cruise missile testing over Canada did not violate “the right to life, liberty and security of the person” guaranteed under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Operation Dismantle argued that the testing of cruise missiles to establish their effectiveness over terrain similar to that of the Soviet Union heightened international tensions and the possibility of nuclear war involving Canada, thus jeopardizing Canadians’ section 7 rights. This early Charter decision was important in at least two respects. It affirmed, first, that such cabinet or executive agreements, though Crown prerogatives, were nonetheless subject to judicial review under the Charter (ss. 24; 32:1); second, the Supreme Court indicated that it was prepared to entertain “social” in addition to “legal,” facts in its fact-finding capacity regarding challenges under the Charter. The court has deemed this necessary in determining the “principles of fundamental justice” according to which a person can be deprived of section 7 rights or determining whether rights limitations can be “saved” under section 1 (“reasonable limits…as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”). Legal facts are events between parties in the action subject to the law; social facts refer to patterns of behaviour or consequences of policy decisions. The chief justice et al. held in this case that “the causal link between the actions of the Canadian government, and the alleged violation of appellants’ rights under the Charter is simply too uncertain, speculative and hypothetical.…” See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); and Supreme Court of Canada.

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Opposition days In the House of Commons calendar, approximately 21 days extending over three supply periods during which opposition motions rather than government business are debated and voted on. On opposition days, that are associated with supply periods to fund government expenditures, the opposition can introduce motions forcing the government to debate matters on which the opposition thinks it can embarrass the government. Opposition days illustrate the opposition’s surveillance role and duty to criticize government policy. However, they are particularly important when a minority government is in office and might be defeated on a vote of no confidence. The limited number of opposition days, and therefore the choice as to which matters are to be debated, are shared proportionately among the opposition parties. Otherwise, the parliamentary timetable is dominated by the government’s agenda. See Budget and budgetary process. Opposition parties Parties in the legislature that do not constitute the government-of-the-day. Normally, the opposition party with the most seats is designated the official opposition. The historic origin of parliament as a check on the prerogative powers of the Crown is exemplified in the opposition parties’ constitutional obligation to hold accountable the government, appointed usually from the largest party in the elected house. The rights and obligations of opposition parties in Canada are formalized in the respective Standing Orders or procedures of the provincial legislatures and the two houses of parliament. The Standing Orders usually set a minimum number of legislative seats to qualify a party for recognition in legislative proceedings. Although in theory the official opposition provides the clearest and most likely alternative to the governing party, all opposition parties tend to react critically to government initiatives or alleged shortcomings without necessarily providing comprehensive policy alternatives. Apart from issues of moral conscience that tend to cut across party lines, the range of public discourse in Canada is narrow compared to other western countries. Opposition party research efforts frequently extend to funding public opinion surveys and articulating alternatives proposed by interest groups and research institutes or “think tanks.” As for election campaign platforms, federal Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments have been known to adopt important policies that, as the official opposition party, they had earlier criticized in the previous election campaign: for example, the opposition Progressive Conservatives in the 1980s on free trade with the United States and the opposition Liberals in the 1990s on the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and the goods and services tax. See Official opposition; Official-party (recognized party) status. Opting-out formula See Contracting (opting) out. Order of Canada (via gg.ca) An association of Canadians honoured for their lifetime achievement and service to the nation or to humanity generally, established in 1967, the centenary of Confederation. A comparable order of military merit for members of the armed forces was created in 1972.

Order-in-council

Controversies have arisen from time to time as a result of three levels of membership in the Order of Canada: Companion, for “a lifetime of outstanding achievement and merit of the highest degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity in general”; Officer, for a lifetime of merit and achievement and merit “to a high degree”; Member for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.” Members may use the initials CC, OC, and CM, respectively, after their names, but otherwise there are no attendant rewards or privileges. Members can be “promoted” in the levels of membership, though there are not to be more than 165 living Companions in any given year. Federal and provincial politicians and judges are not eligible while in office. Non-Canadians are eligible to receive honorary membership. The governor general makes the awards on the advice of an advisory council chaired by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, which considers nominations from the public. Several provinces also have a comparable system of honours. There are prescribed grounds in the Constitution of the Order of Canada, following a multi-stage procedure, for the governor general to terminate membership in the Order of Canada on the advice of the advisory council. The termination process has been invoked in two cases. Order (Notice) Paper The common name for Order Paper and Notice Paper, the daily agenda of the House of Commons, and for similar publications in provincial legislatures. The Senate’s Order Paper appears as a section of its Minutes of the Proceedings of the Senate. The Commons’ Order Paper includes all items that may be considered during the day, that is, government business, private members’ business, and questions. Notices include items that members wish to introduce, including questions, private members’ business, the production of papers, and notices respecting the report stage of legislation. Items that remain on the Order Paper, or the legislative agenda, when parliament or a provincial legislature is dissolved for an election are said to have “died on the Order Paper.” Business that remains unfinished when a session is prorogued or ended also dies unless specifically held over on a government motion, to be introduced in the next session at the same legislative stage attained when the session ended. Order-in-council A recorded executive or subordinate legislative action determined by the cabinet and proclaimed in the name of the governor-in-council (lieutenant-governor-in-council at the provincial level), an instrument possessing legal force. Much less frequent are orders relating to a Crown prerogative exercised solely by the governor general. Federal cabinet actions by order-in-council include appointments, for example, of senators, diplomats, and certain judges and senior public officials. Some dismissals may also be effected by executive order-in-council. The disallowance and reservation of provincial legislation, and the power of clemency, are other federal executive acts effected by order-in-council. Subordinate legislative actions of federal and provincial cabinets by order-in-council constitute delegated legislative power, which exists only when permitted under specific statutes. Such orders-incouncil are legion; they range from matters of administrative routine to major political decisions. Federal orders-in-council are published in the Canada Gazette

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and selectively examined by a joint Senate-House of Commons committee on the scrutiny of regulations as part of the surveillance function of parliament. They can also be accessed through the Privy Council Office, the cabinet secretariat (pco-bcp.gc.ca). See Statutory instruments. Organic law A statute that is considered to be a basic law, comprising part of the constitution, because of its purpose and content. The Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended is Canada’s fundamental constitutional statute. Beyond that Act, however, the federal statute that established the Supreme Court of Canada can be cited as part of Canadian organic law. Indeed, the Supreme Court Act has been entrenched in important respects in the Constitution Act, 1982 (ss.41, 42). Federal Acts establishing provinces and British statutes applying to Canada were included in the Schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982 (“Modernization of the Constitution”), clearly defining them as constitutional documents. A federal statute such as the Citizenship Act, that defines citizenship—how it can be acquired, denied, or repealed—and federal and provincial statutes on the conduct of elections, though more readily subject to amendment than the Supreme Court Act, can also be broadly considered part of the country’s organic law. Organization of American States (OAS) (oas.org) A regional organization founded in 1890 as the Pan-American Union, renamed in 1948, comprising 35 nation-states in the western hemisphere, including Canada. For most of its century-old existence, the organization comprised independent, republican states led by the United States, institutionalizing the principles of the US Monroe Doctrine. Ostensibly the unilaterally declared Doctrine promised mutual assistance in repelling European threats to the independence of member states; however, the effect was to leave the states of Mexico, Central and South America subject to US influence. Canada remained outside the OAS until 1990, not so much because it was a constitutional monarchy, but largely to minimize conflict with the United States, which frequently used the OAS as an agency through which to pursue its aggressive hemispheric foreign policy objectives. A notable example since the 1960s involves Cuba, a member-state whose government has been excluded from participation since 1962. Elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America, the United States has intervened in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, was instrumental in the military overthrow in the 1970s of Chile’s democratically elected Marxist government of President Salvadore Allende and the installation of a brutal military regime; the United States invaded Grenada in 1983 to overthrow a pro-Cuba regime and Panama in 1989 to overthrow the government of Manuel Noriega and take him to the United States for trial on drug and related charges; nor did the United States pay much heed to multilateral attempts by other governments at this time to resolve violent conflicts in several Central American states in which it was effectively participating. By the turn of the twenty-first century, though ostensibly promoting democracy worldwide, the US apparently condoned a short-lived military coup in 2002 against President Hugo Chavez, the elected left-wing president of Venezuela.

Parachuting

Canada joined the OAS in 1990 when several English-speaking Commonwealth states in the Caribbean were already members, and at a time when the government had negotiated a free-trade agreement with the United States and there was talk of a trilateral agreement with Mexico. Member-states have various policy concerns expressed within the OAS. Some Latin American states are concerned to have their international debts renegotiated or written off, while some Caribbean members pursue benefits associated with ties to the European Union. Drug-trafficking and hemispheric security following terrorist attacks on the US in 2001 are prime concerns within the OAS for the US. The Canadian government’s declared initial objectives on the OAS in the 1990s included reform and strengthening of the OAS to promote democratic development and respect for human rights, contribute to economic growth, and to deal with problems such as environmental protection, women’s issues, and the international drug trade.

P Pairing An agreement between a legislator of the government party and a legislator of an opposition party that, for a specified period, neither will vote in a party-based division of the legislature. Thus, both legislators may be absent from the house without affecting the relative strength of government and opposition. Pairing, which the party whips supervise, is important during minority governments or when governments are in power with slim majorities, to avoid an unintended defeat of the government. Parachuting (candidates) The designation by a party leader of the party’s candidate in a constituency rather than the candidate’s selection by members of the party’s local constituency association. Federal and provincial electoral laws require that candidates be resident in the jurisdiction, but not necessarily in the constituency in which they are candidates, and be officially recognized by a registered political party in order to have the party name appear along with the candidate’s name on ballot papers. Parachuted candidates usually have tenuous links, if any, with the constituency, but are people whom a party leader in particular wants to be elected: in the case of a likely governing party, a likely member of the cabinet or even someone already appointed to cabinet but who needs to win a seat in the legislature in order to remain a minister; in the case of all parties, someone who is thought to be an electoral asset to the party, beyond the constituency. Party leaders normally seek the compliance of any local party organization, perhaps arguing that the leader-designated candidate’s value to the party, if both candidate and party are successful, will somehow rebound to the benefit of the constituency. But the practice can engender opposition from local party notables, especially anyone who intended to stand for the nomination. Parachuting may occur when there is a weak local organization, but especially when the constituency is safe, that is, the constituency is likely to be won by the party parachuting the candidate irrespective of who the candidate is. See Nomination.

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Parliament of Canada (parl.gc.ca) The Crown, the Senate, and the House of Commons (Constitution Act, 1867 [s.17]). Until 1982, within the powers granted to it under the Act (“VI.—Distribution of Legislative Powers”), as adjudicated by the courts, parliament was supreme— that is, comprising both the executive and the legislature, it was beyond interference by any body. However, since the patriation of the constitution with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, all legislation in Canada must also conform to the Charter’s provisions, subject to adjudication by the courts. Canada’s parliamentary system of responsible government fuses its dual executive and federal bicameral legislature. The Crown’s representative, the governor general, appoints a prime minister and then a cabinet of parliamentarians, on the prime minister’s advice, who collectively must have and retain the confidence of the House of Commons to remain in office as the effective part of the federal executive. The governor general summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliament for a general election on the prime minister’s advice within the constitutional five-year term. Subject to certain Crown prerogatives, associated with fundamental constitutional procedures, the governor general always acts on the advice of the prime minister. Only once in the twentieth century did a governor general reject a prime minister’s advice to dissolve parliament for an election (see King-Byng Dispute). For its part, the cabinet is the effective part of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, the governor-in-council. With an appointed upper house, the Senate, and an elected House of Commons, identical legislative bills must pass both houses in order to receive royal assent and become statutory law. However, unlike the Commons, the Senate is not a chamber of confidence. Senators are appointed effectively by the prime minister and may remain in office until 75 years of age. This lack of popular legitimacy has meant that the Senate is relatively inactive, although it is organized on partisan lines and can be an arena of partisan debate, amending, occasionally defeating, and occasionally simply delaying legislation adopted earlier in the House of Commons. Following a general election of members of parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons, both houses of parliament meet as a consecutively numbered Parliament, the First Parliament having met after the first general election in 1867. A Parliament can last five years from the day of the return of the election writs, although in times of threat to national security, its life may be extended if not opposed by more than one third of its members (Charter, s.4); but the Crown’s representative, the governor general, can dissolve parliament and issue writs for a new election, usually on the advice of the prime minister, before the term expires (Constitution Act, 1867, s.50). Parliament must also meet for at least one session each year (Charter, s.5). Although formally senior to the Commons as a Crown-appointed upper house, the Senate is effectively junior to the Commons. Almost all cabinet ministers have elected seats in the Commons, with only one minister required from the Senate as government leader in that chamber. Although legislation requires the approval of both the House of Commons and the Senate, followed by royal assent, before becoming effective, money bills must be introduced in the Commons and the Senate cannot amend them to increase appropriations. It is debatable whether

Parliamentary-cabinet system

the Senate, by constitutional convention, can do anything but vote money bills up or down. Because the Senate is not a chamber of confidence, a government bill rejected by the Senate defeats the measure, but not the government. Finally, the Senate can exercise only a suspensive veto on constitutional amendments, including those affecting the Senate itself. While the responsibilities of parliamentarians are considerable, the reality is that of an institution in which the behaviour of almost all parliamentarians, but especially so of MPs in the House of Commons, is determined by disciplined political party organization and subsequent government and opposition partisanship. In Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures, the executive, that is, the cabinet and the public administration, initiates public policy. The role of the legislature is to debate government policy and legislation. The government will almost always be supported by its party members, with the members of opposition parties in particular exercising at least a surveillance function, holding the government accountable for its policies and actions—if not defeating it in parliament, perhaps defeating it in the next general election, leading the governor general to accept the government’s resignation and to invite another party leader to form the next government. The ability of parliament to exercise its surveillance function over government was the focus of recommendations in the final report in 2006 of the judicial commission of inquiry into mismanagement of a $300-million sponsorship program. Justice John Gomery sought to rebalance the relationship between parliament and the government to achieve better accountability within government. However, by the time of his final report, the majority Liberal government had already been reduced to a minority in the 2004 election, and defeated in the 2006 election. See Cabinet; Crown; Crown prerogatives; Governor general; House of Commons; Members of parliament (MPs); Parliamentary privilege (immunities); Responsible government; Senate. Parliamentary-cabinet system A system of responsible government like Canada’s in which the executive and the legislative functions are combined in one institution, parliament (or the provincial legislature): cabinet ministers, the political executive whom the Crown’s representative appoints, must have seats in the legislature (otherwise a vacancy must be created so that the minister can stand in a by-election, or in the case of the bicameral parliament be appointed to the Senate); the cabinet must retain the support (“confidence”) of the House of Commons (provincial legislatures) on major legislation, notably money bills, to remain in office. In Canada, the Crown’s representatives (the governor general and the provincial lieutenant-governors) are largely a formal executive with few prerogative powers—the Crown, or head of state’s representative acting virtually always on the advice of the political executive, the government, but retaining important prerogative powers regarding the appointment of governments and the dissolution of parliament for elections. By contrast, the constitution of France includes a parliamentary-cabinet system, but also an elected president with considerable power. Instead of a parliamentary-cabinet system, the United States has a congressionalpresidential system that institutionalizes the separation of legislative and executive powers. See Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Crown prerogatives; Responsible government.

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Parliamentary indemnity

Parliamentary indemnity (salaries, allowances, and budgetary allocations) A traditional term for financial remuneration for members of parliament, senators and provincial legislators (including additional salaries and allowances for some). Indemnity implies that legislative work is a part-time activity performed by people who would otherwise be engaged in private occupations, and who should be compensated for the loss of private income due to their legislative duties. The matter of legislators determining their own compensation has always been problematic. Parliamentary allowances are now tied to judicial compensation that, in order to reinforce the constitutional principle of the independence of the judiciary, is determined by an independent judicial compensation and benefit committee. While the commission ensures the independence of the judiciary, linking parliamentary allowances to judicial allowances also insulates parliamentarians from public criticism over the level of their compensation. In 2005, MPs received an annual sessional allowance of $144,300. Some MPs also received supplementary salaries and allowances for additional responsibilities, including the Speaker and deputy speaker, prime minister, opposition party leaders, house leaders, whips, committee, and party caucus. The prime minister and the leader of the official opposition each have publicly owned and subsidized residences in Ottawa. Senators received a sessional allowance of $119,300, with salaries and allowances for positions similar to counterparts in the House of Commons. MPs and recognized political parties receive additional funds and services. In addition to their offices on Parliament Hill and in their constituency, members also receive printing, translation, telephone, mail, and travel subsidies to facilitate communication with constituents. Political parties that have a minimum number of members—in recent Parliaments, 12 members—receive funds for research purposes and for the operation of their leadership offices. Parliamentarians can also qualify for parliamentary pensions, formally styled “retiring allowances,” upon leaving the house. The pension plan is contributory and, in the 1990s, the Liberal government established an age qualification to begin receiving the pension and introduced a prohibition on “double-dipping” by former parliamentarians subsequently appointed to a salaried and pensionable government position. Nonetheless, of all parliamentary allowances, the pension plan remained controversial despite the obvious personal and financial costs of holding public office that caused even some Reform MPs who earlier had refused to participate in the so-called “gold-plated plan,” to change their mind. Parliamentary privilege (immunities) Rights that the federal parliament, the provincial legislatures, and each legislator individually possesses; these are rights with which no other body can interfere and without which legislators could not carry out their functions. The principle of parliamentary privilege in Canada derives from customary privileges acquired by the British parliament as a defence against interfering monarchs, known collectively as the lex et consuetudo Parliamenti, asserting control over its own business and its members. Today this means protection against citizens or organized interests that might challenge, threaten, intimidate, or otherwise interfere with members, thus violating their ability to act freely as legislators and ultimately violating their privileges.

Parliamentary privilege

Canada’s Constitution Act, 1867 recognizes parliamentary privilege (s.18); an amendment in 1875 granted parliament the powers, immunities and privileges possessed at that time by the British parliament. Thus parliamentary privilege is established by constitutional statute in Canada, comparable to that then existing in Britain. The British Bill of Rights includes “That the Freedom of Speech, and Debates of Proceedings in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament” (1689, Art. 9). Parliamentary privilege extends to parliamentary committees that have the power to summon witnesses. Whether privilege then extends to the witnesses themselves has not been tested in Canadian courts, although courts and legislatures are likely to show respect for each other’s independent role—in parliament’s case protecting its ability to carry out both legislative and investigative functions. In 2004, Justice John Gomery, heading the federal judicial commission of inquiry investigating the sponsorship scandal, refused to have a sworn witness before it tested on any contradiction between his testimony before the inquiry and his statements made earlier to a parliamentary committee. Justice Gomery provided several reasons in his ruling including the purpose and nature of judicial inquiries compared to court cases, the promise of immunity granted the witness by the parliamentary committee, and the availability of statements made elsewhere by the witness. The privileges accorded individual legislators are designed to prevent interference with the independent legislative and deliberative functions of parliament. They include: immunity from arrest or imprisonment as a result of civil action while the legislature is in session; immunity from actions for libel for content of speeches in the legislature and publications prepared under the authority of the legislature; and exemption from jury duty during a session. Anyone who threatens, assaults or bribes or attempts to bribe a legislator breaches parliamentary privilege. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on a broad question that privilege did not invalidate the Canadian Human Rights Act respecting a parliamentarian’s treatment of parliamentary employees unless an employee’s conduct represented interference with parliamentary functions (Vaid). The collective privileges of a legislature involve the maintenance of order and discipline in the legislature itself. If repeated demands for order or for the withdrawal of offending remarks fail to bring a legislator to heel, the Speaker can “name” the offending legislator; that is, the Speaker will call the legislator by name, rather than “honourable member,” and have the sergeant-at-arms escort the member from the legislative chamber. The disciplinary measure is usually suspension for the day. In Canada, legislators’ allegations of the breach of personal parliamentary privilege by another member or the mass media are frequently frivolous partisan sallies not involving real threats to the legislature or its members. However, serious allegations of breach of privilege by members of the public would be treated as a judge would treat contempt of court. Acting as a court, the legislature can compel people to appear before the bar of the house to explain their behaviour, and it can punish such individuals by public reprimand or by imprisonment during the session of the legislature.

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Parliamentary secretaries

Parliamentary secretaries Government members of parliament appointed by the prime minister for short terms and without statutory powers, to assist cabinet ministers in their work. Parliamentary secretaries receive an allowance supplementary to their basic compensation as MPs. An appointment as parliamentary secretary gives a backbench MP some executive and administrative experience, and allows the prime minister and senior ministers to gauge the abilities of such MPs. Also, the appointment of parliamentary secretaries can make the government appear more representative of particular interests and help to keep ambitious backbenchers occupied. Parliamentary secretaries rather than their ministers usually address the House of Commons in scheduled debates on adjournment or in debates on private members’ bills. The parliamentary secretary can also act on behalf of the minister outside the legislature—for example, receive deputations from the public and fulfil public engagements. The nature and effectiveness of the relationships between ministers and their parliamentary secretaries is generally a matter between them, monitored by the prime minister and the prime minister’s office. In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin had parliamentary secretaries sworn as members of the privy council, thus permitting them to see cabinet documents and attend cabinet meetings. However, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not follow suit in 2006. Ministerial staff will also include departmental senior administrators as well as the partisan political staff. See Executive assistant, ministerial (chief of staff; exempt staff); Public administration (civil service); Senior civil servants. Parti Québécois (PQ) (pq.org) A nationalist and moderately social democratic party in Quebec, created in 1968 from a union of several indépendantiste groups, with its major objective to establish “sovereignty association” (that is, nation-state status for Quebec in association with the government of Canada), or sovereign status for Quebec. PQ governments are credited with improving the probity of Quebec’s politics, introducing many social reforms and generally raising the self-esteem of French Quebeckers. Forming a government first in 1976 under its initial leader, René Lévesque, the PQ enacted the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101), but lost its first referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980, when most francophone voters apparently voted No, and then won re-election in 1981. The federal government, having promised “renewed federalism” during the referendum campaign, patriated the constitution in 1982 despite the PQ government’s opposition, including, for example, opposition to the entrenchment of minority-language education rights—education until then a prerogative of provincial governments except regarding denominational education (Constitution Act, 1867, s.93)—and a general amending formula that did not include a veto for Quebec (Constitution Act, 1982, s.38[1]). Following its defeat in 1985 and Lévesque’s retirement, the PQ, led successively by Pierre Marc Johnson and Jacques Parizeau, retained its membership-based policy-making process and financing, and was returned to office under Parizeau in 1994. Following the narrow defeat of another referendum in 1995, in which the question of Quebec’s sovereignty was also linked with Canada, Parizeau resigned. He was succeeded as leader and premier by Lucien Bouchard,

Parti Québécois

until then the leader of the federal Bloc Québécois, who led the PQ to power again in 1998. Though the party was re-elected, Bouchard angered many party members when he refused to hold another referendum on sovereignty until there were conditions gagnantes (“winning conditions”), and enacted cutbacks in government programs to balance the budget. He resigned in 2001 and was succeeded by Bernard Landry. The party lost to the Liberals in the 2003 election and Landry resigned in 2005 despite having received 76.2 per cent approval in a leadership review. In what many commentators saw later that year as a contest between two former PQ cabinet ministers representing different generations, André Boisclair defeated the veteran Pauline Marois for the leadership. The PQ’s electoral successes appear to reflect the lack of voter respect for incumbent Liberal governments as well as the vagaries of the electoral system, more so than public support for the party’s sovereignty project. This was particularly evident in 1994 when the party won 30 seats more than the Liberals, but with an almost equal share of the popular vote (44.7% to the Liberal’s 44.3%). Nonetheless the PQ government proceeded with the 1995 referendum on sovereignty, this time narrowly defeated but apparently carrying majority support among francophone voters. In 1998, the party was returned to office though it received 1 per cent less of the popular vote than the Liberals, led by Jean Charest, former interim leader of the federal Progressive Conservative party. Since its inception, especially when it has formed the government, the party’s leadership has moderated the extreme policies of les purs et les durs among party activists. The PQ’s initial electoral success in 1976 is credited to the weakness of the incumbent Liberal government and to a tactical decision of the PQ leadership to separate the question of sovereignty from voting for the party in the election. Even the referendum question in 1980 sought only a mandate to negotiate sovereignty association and a promise of another referendum on the outcome, a strategy designed to attract support from those who wished only for a renewed federalism—so-called “soft nationalists.” In 1992, it was revealed that Claude Morin, Quebec’s deputy minister of intergovernmental relations in the late 1960s and 1970s and the PQ’s minister of intergovernmental affairs from 1976 to 1981, had received money from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for information. Payments had ceased, but meetings with the RCMP continued when Morin became the ranking cabinet minister after the premier, responsible for constitutional negotiations. (For an account, see The Globe and Mail, May 8, 1992, A1 and A3, and May 9, A1 and A6.) Until this revelation, discussion of the PQ’s weakness in the early 1980s had focused on Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s tactics to outmanoeuvre Lévesque’s PQ government in its relation to the other provinces. PQ defeats in 1985 and 1989, the dormancy of the sovereignty movement in both the 1980s and late 1990s—following a period of heightened nationalist sentiment after the defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords in 1990 and 1992, respectively—and the more conservative economic and social policies of the PQ government under Bouchard, were attributed generally to the growth and ascendancy of a francophone business class and the greater security of French as a working language in Quebec. Nonetheless, PQ leaders must at least appear to be “keeping the faith.”

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Party discipline

After the 1995 referendum, the federal Liberal government pursued both conciliatory and confrontational strategies with the PQ government—so-called “Plan A” and “Plan B”: on the one hand, having parliament recognize Quebec as a distinct society, in the manner of the Meech and Charlottetown accords, and making the introduction in parliament of any constitutional amendment using the general amending formula conditional on the approval of the legislatures of various regions, including Quebec, in the non-entrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996; on the other hand, subjecting the matter of provincial secession from Confederation to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, and then enacting the so-called Clarity bill in view of the court’s decision, setting conditions for the federal government’s response to future referendums in Quebec on sovereignty. See Bloc Québécois; Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation); Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Referendum; Sovereignty-association; Secession Reference; Veto. Party discipline A feature of representative government in which members of a legislature, most of whom were elected as party candidates, act in concert as united party caucuses during the term of the legislature. Thus the public can assess the government party’s legislative record and assess the opposition parties as possible alternatives to government when voting in the next election. Party discipline is important given the convention of responsible government that requires the government to retain the support of the legislature to remain in office. In the early years of Confederation, party leaders had to negotiate with members who were elected as “ministerialists,” or “loose fish” for their support in the legislature. In contemporary legislatures, it is a rare occurrence, but though elected as a candidate of one party, a legislator may choose later to sit as an independent member or even “cross the floor” and join the caucus of another party. The matter of discipline is particularly important for the government party if its members comprise only a minority of legislators. The extent of party discipline is based on the influence that party leaders have over the future political careers of their supporters. This influence is palpable in the case of a prime minister whose influence extends beyond advancement within the caucus to include remunerative post-political career appointments in public service. In the case of large opposition parties, a leader’s influence over the caucus is less effective by being more prospective, being stronger if the party appears capable of winning a forthcoming election. But even in the case of opposition parties, leaders can manage their caucus members’ role in house procedures and debate with assignments such as front-bench critics, house leader, party whip, caucus chair, committee assignments, and in perquisites such as travel abroad. All party leaders retain the ultimate sanction of dismissing members from caucus and refusing to approve their party nomination at the next election. The strength of party discipline is frequently an issue of public debate rather than party discipline itself. For, in addition to ensuring a more coherent process of electoral accountability, party discipline also protects legislators from the pressures of special-interest groups that may be well organized in their constituencies or the country generally. The experience in the United States Congress with weak party discipline suggests that well-organized lobbyists representing special

Party system

interests would soon fill any political vacuum left by party whips in Canada’s legislatures. So-called “free votes” have been held in the Canadian House of Commons on significant matters of moral conscience such as the abolition of capital punishment, access to therapeutic abortions, and redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. In such cases, usually only cabinet ministers are obliged to support the proposal. In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin adopted the British “three-line” classification of votes for government members: three-line votes were votes of confidence that imposed the whip on all members; two-line votes released all but ministers and parliamentary secretaries from the whip; one-line votes released all members from the whip. That a prime minister might declare a vote not to be one of confidence, thus releasing government party backbenchers to vote as they wish, does not obligate opposition party leaders to do likewise. Indeed, opposition parties might insist that such as vote should be considered one of confidence, especially if the government is expected to, or indeed does, lose the vote. See Caucus; Custom, convention and usage; Free vote; Responsible government; Whip (party). Party system The totality of relationships among political parties and with citizens as both individual voters and members of electorally salient communities of interest. The conduct of public debate and electoral competition among organized parties to obtain political power in legislative and executive institutions, and in the subsequent enactment of public policy in those institutions through a competitive party system, constitutes the hallmark of pluralist, parliamentary democracies. Authoritarian regimes, including military dictatorships and theocratic and totalitarian states, which are notable for the banning of parties and party competition, nonetheless often seek legitimacy through a pseudo-party system involving one party or a purported coalition of parties for national unity, but with ritualistic rather than effective legislative institutions. Party systems are often described in terms of the number of parties. Thus, in federal politics, Canada is said to have had a one-party dominant, multi-party system throughout the twentieth century, usually with the Liberal party in office and the Conservatives leading an opposition in parliament, often comprising “third” parties of the political left and right, and occasionally including French nationalist parties based in Quebec. Provincial party systems in Canada vary from the historical single-party dominant system of Alberta to a competitive threeparty system in Ontario and elsewhere. In the late twentieth century, the two main parties in provincial politics in British Columbia—Social Credit and the New Democratic party—were only minor parties in the House of Commons. Analyzed in research studies and the final report of the (Pierre Lortie) Royal Committee on Electoral Reform and Party Financing in the early 1990s, the federal party system in Canada is often characterized as having three periods of development: the pre-mass democratic and pre-industrial Confederation period when patronage was the glue that held together parties of parliamentary notables; a post-First World War period when an increasingly large and enfranchised population supporting organized sectional economic and regional interests led to brokerage politics, governments with powerful regional ministers, extra-parliamen-

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tary organization, and the rise of popular, grassroots political parties; and a latetwentieth-century period when television and computer-based information technology gave rise to leader-oriented personality politics and parties dominated by various leadership entourages, and an increasingly volatile electorate. Political scientists define critical elections or critical periods as occasions when the electoral base of party support changes. The federal elections in the 1890s, when support of francophone Canadians shifted from the Conservatives to the Liberals, and the election of 1935 following which grassroots movement parties became a permanent feature of the party system are frequently identified as critical elections or periods. The party system after 1993 might have qualified as a critical period, except that the party system appeared to have returned to its earlier form by 2006. The 1993 election saw the extraordinary collapse of the Progressive Conservative party and the becalming of the New Democratic party, and their displacement in parliamentary representation by new parties based in the West and Quebec. The sovereignist Bloc Québécois formed the official opposition, closely followed in representation by the Reform party, and both the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP lost their official-party status in the House of Commons. The Bloc and Reform reversed their rank, with Reform becoming the official opposition in 1997 and also in 2000 as the Canadian Alliance. However, the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP regained official-party status following the 2000 election, and the Alliance and the Progressive Conservative party merged in 2003 just before the 2004 election as the Conservative party. Both the new Conservative party and the Bloc improved their representation in 2004 and the Liberals were reduced to a minority government. Also, voter turnout steadily decreased throughout this period, generally from the 70 per cent range from 1957 to 1988, down to the 60 per cent range beginning in 1993 to a low of 60.9 per cent in 2004. In the 2006 election, voter turnout rose to 64.9 percent; the Conservatives formed a minority government; the Liberals formed the official opposition; and the BQ and NDP maintained their third and fourth-ranking status in representation. The Canadian party system as a whole, including federal, provincial, and territorial systems is fragmented, rather than integrated: factors contributing to a fragmented party system include divided jurisdictional responsibilities combined with conflicting sectional interests; federal and provincial elections held at different times leading to autonomous and frequently separate federal and provincial party organizations for recruitment and finance; lack of consistent value orientation among parties of the same name as they increasingly adjust their views and policies to suit public opinion; different bodies of supporters for a party at one level and its namesake at the other; the tendency of successful political careers to be had at one level only, not to be repeated when infrequently attempted at the other level; finally, the existence of successful parties at one level without counterparts at the other level. The only parties that appear to be relatively integrated are the New Democratic parties, which are sustained by their social democratic orientation—though in significant parts of Canada it exists more on paper than in electoral reality—and the federal Bloc Québécois and the provincial Parti Québécois sustained by the sovereignist project for Quebec. The Reform party of the 1990s had no recognized provincial counterparts, and the merger of its successor, the Canadian Alliance, with the Progressive Conservative party as the Conservative

Patriation of the constitution

party was designed to expand its support base in federal elections beyond western Canada. Limited success was achieved in 2006 with improved support in rural Ontario and Quebec. Progressive Conservative parties still exist at the provincial level more or less compatibly with the new federal Conservative party, especially given its electoral prospects following the 2006 election. See entries on each of the political parties. Passage of legislation The process by which a bill, once introduced in parliament or a provincial legislature, is approved and becomes statutory law, an act of the legislature. See Legislative process. Patriation of the constitution The transfer of power to amend the Canadian constitution from the British parliament to Canadian institutions—parliament and the provincial legislatures. Patriation was achieved in 1982, following the British parliament’s enactment of the Canada Act, 1982, which included the Constitution Act, 1982 containing several amending formulas involving only the Canadian parliament and provincial legislatures, and a declaration that no British statute enacted afterwards would have effect as Canadian law. Until then, the British parliament’s participation was required as Canada’s fundamental constitutional statute—the British North America Act—was a British statute, which only the British parliament could amend. The Constitution Act, 1982 was proposed to the British parliament in a request from the Canadian government accompanied by a resolution of the Canadian parliament that had the support of all provinces except Quebec. Earlier attempts to patriate the constitution had been thwarted by the lack of unanimity among the 11 governments on an amending formula and the unwillingness or inability of the federal government to act unilaterally. Several formulas for a Canadian amendment procedure—notably the Fulton-Favreau Formula (1964) and the Victoria Charter (1970)—were advanced; but none received the support of all governments, and notably not of Quebec. Between 1867 and 1982, the British parliament had amended the British North America Act, 1867 (BNA Act) on numerous occasions, following requests from the Canadian government, accompanied by a parliamentary resolution, for example as early as 1871, to allow the Canadian parliament to create new provinces from federal territory, and well into the twentieth century to transfer unemployment insurance from provincial to federal jurisdiction in 1940. In 1949, the Act was amended to allow the Canadian parliament to amend “the Constitution” except where it affected provincial jurisdiction, language, and education rights, and the requirements that parliament meet at least once a year and that a House of Commons not last more than five years (then s.91:1, repealed in 1982; replaced by ss.4, 5 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Part V [amending procedure] in the Constitution Act, 1982 regarding federal and provincial legislatures). The amendment of 1949 thus established a distinction between sections to be amended on a resolution of the Canadian parliament only and those to be amended on an address by the Canadian parliament with, by convention, the consent of the provinces. In 1979, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on a reference that the federal parliament could not unilaterally amend the BNA Act with respect to the role of, and representation in, the Senate.

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The process of constitutional patriation began in 1980 and, to this day, is subject to various opposing accounts, especially respecting its latter stages. The beginning of the process is straightforward: constitutional patriation with a charter of rights had been a priority of Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau since he entered federal politics in 1965 and became prime minister in 1968. In 1979, however, his government was defeated and replaced by Prime Minister Joe Clark’s minority Conservative government without achieving this goal, and Trudeau resigned the party’s leadership. However, when Clark’s government was soon defeated in a vote on its budget and parliament was dissolved for an election, Trudeau rescinded his resignation and, early in 1980, the Liberals led by Trudeau won a majority. The election victory provided Trudeau and his government with renewed vigour. “Welcome to the ’80s,” he announced to Liberals on election night. Patriation headed the agenda, especially as the prime minister’s promise of “renewed federalism” appeared central to the defeat in Quebec in May 1980 of the Parti Québécois government’s referendum on sovereignty-association. An intense round of negotiations began, which led to agreement in November 1981, among all governments except Quebec, to constitutional patriation, including several domestic amending formulas; a Charter of Rights and Freedoms entrenching not only standard liberal freedoms, but also the government’s policy on bilingualism and biculturalism, minority-language educational rights in the provinces, gender and other recognized “equality” interests, affirmative action programs for these interests, and multiculturalism, but also a “legislative override” allowing for legislative supremacy over selective rights in the Charter; federal equalization payments to qualified provincial governments; and recognition of Aboriginal rights. The patriated constitution also contained a revised section 92 enhancing the role of provinces in the management of natural resources. At one point in the intense negotiations with the provinces, as well as leaders of Aboriginal First Nations, the federal government submitted a request to the British parliament which was supported only by Ontario and New Brunswick. British parliamentarians were subjected to lobbying by the eight dissident provinces and First Nations’ representatives. The British parliament balked, sending the Canadian request to a committee. Prime Minister Trudeau then submitted a constitutional reference to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that, while the request was legally constitutional, it did not accord with the convention of substantial provincial support. Further intense negotiations ensued in Canada, and here the account becomes subject to various narratives. Some accounts focus on a late-night “conspiracy” (the alleged “night of the long knives,” an unfortunate use of phrase from the Nazi era of the 1930s), November 3–4 during a federal-provincial first minister’s conference in Ottawa in 1981 involving Saskatchewan New Democratic attorney-general, Roy Romanow, Ontario Progressive Conservative attorney-general, Roy McMurtry, and the federal Liberal minister of justice, Jean Chrétien, but notably absent any representative of Quebec’s Parti Québécois government. In 1999, correspondence between then-Alberta premier Peter Lougheed and then-Quebec premier René Lévesque was published in which Lougheed describes the final stages of negotiations and asserts that “[t]here was no attempt to develop something behind the

Patronage

back of any province in the Group of Eight” (Peter J. Meekison, Constitutional Patriation: The Lougheed-Levesque Correspondence. Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s University, and Canada West Foundation [cric.ca/en_html/ guide/referendum/referendum_constitution1981.html]). Pierre Trudeau’s own detailed and typically “energetic” account was published in the Montreal Gazette, February 3, 1996, following the close results of the second PQ government referendum on sovereignty in 1995 (solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/Arguments/trudeau-gazette-1.html). On November 4, the group of eight was reduced to one, with agreement among all governments except Quebec to constitutional patriation that, with Britain’s final Canada Act, took effect April 17, 1982. Quebec’s reconciliation to the constitution, a major objective of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government after its election in 1984, was to have been achieved with the Meech Lake Accord of 1987. It was approved by the Quebec National Assembly, but died in 1990, lacking legislative approval in Manitoba and Newfoundland. Following wide-ranging consultations, federal, provincial, and territorial government leaders, and representatives of Native groups negotiated the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. It was subsequently defeated in a country-wide referendum, achieving majority support of voters in only three Atlantic provinces and the territories, and a slim majority in Ontario. Approximately 57 per cent of Quebec voters opposed the Accord. For French nationalist critics, it represented “less than Meech.” It also received only minimal support in western Canada. Quebec remained unreconciled to the constitution. As mentioned above, a provincial referendum on sovereignty almost succeeded in 1995. Subsequently, the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had parliament adopt a resolution recognizing Quebec as a distinct society and enact the Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996, by which no constitutional amendment using the general amending formula conditional would be introduced in parliament if lacking the approval of the legislatures of various regions, with Quebec designated as a region. At the same time, following the government’s reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on the right of Quebec to secede from Confederation and the Supreme Court ruling, the government enacted the Clarity bill that outlines how parliament would deal with a future referendum in Quebec on sovereignty. See Administrative (executive) federalism; Charlottetown Accord (1992); Charter groups; interests; Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Clarity bill (on secession from Confederation) ; Fulton-Favreau Formula (1964); Meech Lake Accord (1987); Secession Reference; Veto; Victoria Charter (1971). Patronage The appointment of individuals to honorific or authoritative public positions, or the granting of government business or benefit to an individual or a group, on a discretionary basis. Used pejoratively, “political patronage” refers to discretionary acts without reference to competition and merit, perhaps even lacking merit. Such acts of patronage by the government-of-the-day constitute rewards for past service and an incentive or example to others of benefit to be derived from loyal service to the government party A related phenomenon is “pork barrelling,” the provision of government programs (“pork”) to communities perhaps in response to need, but also significantly to curry electoral support.

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“Peace, Order, and good Government”

Endemic in the nineteenth century, unmerited patronage and pork barrelling has persisted in Canadian politics, now condemned by politicians especially in opposition, but practised when in office. Liberal Prime Minister John Turner was effectively pilloried by Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney in the 1984 election for a flurry of patronage appointments, Turner claiming he had no option but to accept the request of his predecessor Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Yet as prime minister, Brian Mulroney was unashamed about appointing Progressive Conservative party supporters to government positions. Liberal opposition leader Jean Chrétien promised greater probity in public life in the 1993 election, but his resignation as prime minister in 2004 was overshadowed by a patronage and pork-barrelling scandal involving millions of dollars of public money exposed by the federal auditor general. Chrétien’s successor, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin immediately cancelled the $300-million sponsorship program designed ostensibly to counter sovereignist support in Quebec evident in the provincial referendum on sovereignty in 1995, and appointed a judicial commission of inquiry while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was investigating and laying criminal charges. Martin’s government was reduced to a minority in the 2004 election, and the scandal contributed to the government’s defeat in 2006, following the hearings of the judicial inquiry and the contents of its interim report in 2005, though Martin himself was exonerated in the report. While patronage may still be recognized as an essential lubricant of the political process, there is reasonable criticism when it extends to large contracts without proper tendering, or to appointments to the judiciary and boards of directors of significant crown corporations and regulatory agencies. Thus, in dispensing patronage, governments sensitive to public opinion will try to avoid negative publicity. Patronage and pork barrelling is best conducted when the news media are preoccupied with other events. Otherwise, the government will deflect any potential criticism by including genuinely meritorious apolitical appointees and occasionally a prominent political opponent among the appointments of party friends. A government will also trumpet government awards, whether patronage or pork barrelling, as well-deserved, of material benefit to a larger community, or as symbolic recognition of the importance of particular groups or interests in the population. See Pork barrel; Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship). “Peace, Order, and good Government” The phrase in the preamble in section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867 generally stating the scope of the federal parliament’s legislative competence. A reading of the preamble readily suggests that the intention of the framers of Confederation was to centralize political power in the Canadian federation, placing broad residual and emergency legislative powers in parliament: “…the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated” were listed “for greater Certainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing Terms of this Section. .,” notably “…to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces.…” In the process of interpreting the Act, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) systematically made the “Peace, Order, and good Government”

Persons Case

clause supplementary to the enumerated federal and provincial powers. While the decision in Russell v. The Queen (1882) upheld the centralist view of parliament’s role, the process of judicial review eventually reduced the clause to a residual power to be exercised by parliament only in a time of great national emergency. In 1937, the JCPC declared most of Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s “New Deal” legislation (introduced during the depression of the 1930s) to be ultra vires, that is, beyond the jurisdiction of parliament. “While the ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters,” Lord Atkin wrote of the Canadian constitution for the JCPC,“she still retains the water-tight compartments which are an essential part of her original structure.” Thus, “Peace, Order, and good Government” was effectively reduced from a justification for comprehensive residual legislative competence by the parliament of Canada to a justification for temporary competence only in a national emergency such as war or insurrection. In its place, the JCPC effectively substituted the enumerated head under provincial powers, “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” (s.92:13), as the residual power clause except in dire national emergency. After the Supreme Court of Canada became the final court of appeal in 1949, judicial decisions tended to strengthen the power of the federal government, at least in economic matters. The court replaced the narrow emergency doctrine of the JCPC with the notion of “inherent national importance” under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” and “Trade and Commerce” (s.91:2) clauses. For example, the Supreme Court permitted the reassertion of federal authority over aviation, the assertion of federal authority over western offshore mineral rights, and federal power to establish mandatory wage and price controls. Settling disputes regarding federal-provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution Act, 1867 still falls to the judiciary, though challenges to government legislation since 1982 frequently focuses on individual rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, rather than only jurisdictional rights held between the two levels of government. The phrase “Peace, Order and good Government” is sometimes referred to in discussions of Canadian political culture as a counterpart to the constitutional phrase “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” of the United States. The Canadian constitutional phrase is said to distinguish foundational collectivist, conservative values in Canada from the foundational individualist, liberal values of the US. See Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988; emergency powers); Emergency power; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Political culture; Supreme Court of Canada. Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act (Canada) See Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner. Persons Case (Edwards v. A.-G. for Canada [1930]) (via chrc-ccdp.ca) A decision in 1929 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) that women were qualified within the meaning of the British North America Act, 1867 (BNA Act; since 1982, the Constitution Act) to be appointed to the Senate. The case was heard on appeal from a contrary ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada on a constitutional reference from the federal government. The appellants were Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie L. McClung, Louise C. McKinney, Emily F. Murphy, and Irene Parlby.

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Section 24 of the Act grants the governor general the power to “summon qualified Persons to the Senate” and section 23 lists formal qualifications using the male form of the personal pronoun. While the JCPC’s decision has been commemorated in Canada as a milestone in women’s rights and human rights generally, the JCPC was not “deciding any question as to the rights of women but only their eligibility for a particular position.…The real issue is whether the Governor-General has a right to summon women to the Senate.” The JCPC ruling reviewed the legal position of women “from the earliest times” to British case law, pre-Confederation colonial legislation, and various sections of the BNA Act. But in this case, Lord Sankey also indicated that the JCPC did “not think it right to apply rigidly to Canada of to-day the decisions and the reasonings therefor which commended themselves, probably rightly, to those who had to apply the law in different circumstances, in different centuries to countries in different stages of development.…The British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits.” It was not the duty of the JCPC “to cut down the provisions of the Act by a narrow and technical construction, but rather to give it a large and liberal interpretation” at least “within certain fixed limits” of federalprovincial jurisdiction and not impose a “strict construction” on “an Act passed to ensure the peace, order, and good government of a British colony.” There were, however, relatively few decisions, especially ones not related to the federal-provincial distribution of power, inspired by Lord Sankey’s “living tree” metaphor. As for the ruling, the reference to “decisions and reasonings” in different circumstances, centuries and countries that “probably rightly” commended an opposite view, by the time of the Persons Case, women in Canada had acquired the federal franchise on the same basis as men and were qualified to be elected to the House of Commons. As for gender equality, the principle was entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 (s.28), along with affirmative action programs designed to improve the conditions of individuals or groups disadvantaged because of several enumerated factors, including sex (s.15:2). Petition A request from the public to a legislative body or official to redress a grievance or to seek a particular change in policy. The presentation of policy-related petitions to Canadian legislatures by members is a regular part of proceedings, acknowledging John Stuart Mill’s description of the British House of Commons as “the nation’s Committee of Grievances and its Congress of opinions” (Considerations on Representative Government, via gutenberg.org [p. 41]). Historically, redress was sought against the Crown, but today it is often sought against governments that act in the name of the Crown. Although the behaviour of provincial legislators and federal members of parliament is largely circumscribed by the disciplined party system, they retain discretion with respect to nonpolicy representation. Members can readily present policy-related petitions that conform to party policy or at least do not conflict with it. On particular grievances involving constituents, an individual legislator might seek redress through private, personal contacts with relevant officials or publicly through the presentation of petitions in the legislature or, less likely, to a question put to a minister in the legislature, acting as a constituency ombudsman in a non-partisan way. Several provinces have an ombudsman to whose office the public can seek redress from government decisions. At the federal level, there are various commissioners, deal-

Policy

ing for example with bilingualism in the public administration, privacy, information, corrections, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the military. See Ombudsman. Platform Policy proposals, often individually termed “planks,” announced by political parties prior to or during an election campaign, to which the party is supposedly committed should it form the government. Platforms of cadre parties, such as the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties, are constructed by the leadership in the context of an imminent election campaign. Policy resolutions of party conventions are, to use a metaphor of Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, a “chart and compass” provided to the leadership by party members. Because the leaders of movement parties such as the social democratic New Democratic party and the former social conservative Reform-Canadian Alliance are restrained by the policy resolutions of their conventions, the leadership carefully manages the nature, specific terms, and interpretation of resolutions that come to a vote. In all cases, the campaign committees of each party create campaigns around generalized themes and issues designed to maximize electoral support. Especially if generalized themes such as “leadership,” “the economy,” “stay the course,” or “time for a change” do not catch the electorate’s imagination, reference will be made to specific issues and promises. Federal election campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s did focus on precise issues, including the constitution, free trade, and fundamental changes to the tax system. In 1993, opposition Liberal party leader Jean Chrétien focused a successful campaign on the party’s “Red Book,” outlining specific promises by which the electorate could measure a Liberal government’s record. The Progressive Conservative party countered with its “Blue Book” of promises. See Brokerage politics; Cadre parties; Movement parties. Plebiscite See Referendum. Plurality The largest number of votes cast for a candidate in an election, not necessarily a majority of all votes cast. All provincial and federal elections in Canada operate on the single-member constituency system with “simple” plurality win—at least one vote more than the nearest opponent, or “first past the post.” In multi-party elections, it is common for legislators to be elected with a plurality, but not a majority, of the votes cast. As the votes for the defeated candidates do not have any effect on legislative representation, the system results in discrepancies between the percentage of the votes cast for the parties’ candidates and the percentage of seats the parties subsequently hold in a legislature. Thus governments in Canada are usually formed by parties with a majority of seats in the legislature, but based on less than a majority—only a simple plurality—of the popular vote. Other discrepancies also prevail between parties whose popular support is concentrated in parts of a particular jurisdiction and parties whose popular support is diffused throughout the jurisdiction. See Electoral system; Proportional representation; Single-member plurality electoral system. Policy (-making; analysis; communities; instruments; public…) Decisions related to the determination of policy objectives and the selection of methods to

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achieve them. Policy objectives or goals may be concrete or abstract, broad or narrow. They may involve a single decision or a set of decisions; action or inaction. The term “public policy” refers specifically to government decisions. Usually, “public policy”encompasses several decisions related to a general purpose or objective. Policy-making is the process involving various “actors” and institutions by which policies are determined and implemented. In specific cases, this may involve a set of activities including intergovernmental negotiations, cabinet consideration, legislative debate, interest-group lobbying, the regulatory process, and judicial review. Policy communities and networks comprise group actors in the policy-making process with an interest in a particular policy field, whether in the foreground as “lead actors” in the public and private sectors, secondary or “interested parties,” or as part of an “attentive public.” The term “policy community” is generic, with reference to competitive interests in a given policy field, while “policy networks” implies like-minded groups collaborating in a given policy field, albeit each from their particular perspective. Policy instruments are the devices and techniques chosen by the government to implement policy. They can range in degrees of intrusiveness from simply symbolic declarations respecting preferred behaviour to more direct exercises in moral suasion, and to financial encouragement through tax expenditures or grants. Finally, a government can engage in coercive measures through “statutory instruments” ranging from regulation of an activity, government participation in an activity in competition with private interests, complete ownership and control of facilities or an activity, or outright prohibition of an activity. Policy analysis is a concern of academics to examine policy making and policy output using various models of decision and policy-making, in particular to discover “who governs” by understanding “who gets what, why and how.” Widely used “macro-level” models about the state and social and economic life include the power elite, the pluralist community, political economy, public choice, feminist, and state-centred models. “Micro-level” models about how specific decisions are actually made include the rational-comprehensive model, one which policy-makers would like the public to believe, but more realistically the incremental model (only marginal changes given conflicting interests, quality of information, and uncertainty), and the “video game” model (muddling through given an everchanging political and economic environment including external exogenous factors that are beyond control and unexpected significant events). Political culture A set of orientations—that is, values, beliefs, and attitudes— toward the political process, including laws, institutions, and personalities, held by members of a political system. A political culture is the result of the interplay of historic and contemporary factors in an ongoing process of socialization from childhood through adulthood. It may comprise subsets, or subcultures, based on ethnic, geographic, class, and other personal identity differences. Political subcultures that are distinct from the political culture of the larger political community may nonetheless be well-integrated into the larger community, or pose a threat to the stability, perhaps even to the survival, of the larger community.

Polling (election day)

Academics have studied political culture in Canada from historical and individual-level attitudinal perspectives. The former has involved debate on the strength of North American liberalism (for example, political equality, individualism, and minimal state regulation of the economy) in relation to the values of European collectivism (as in bicultural elite accommodation, a state-centred political economy, including public enterprise and social security, and respect for figures of authority). Individual-level studies have focused on regional differences among Canadians respecting political efficacy, trust, and involvement in politics: the purported civic culture of some regions in which people perceive themselves as rights-bearing citizens of a state and the clientelistic culture of other regions in which many people see themselves as clients of the state as patron. As the character of Canadian society changes over time, there are bound to be changes in political culture. Canadians, it is reported, share similar orientations to Americans in economic values, but are more like Europeans on moral issues such as sexual orientation, capital punishment, and abortion. Canadians are apparently less deferential than indicated in earlier studies—especially toward politicians and electoral politics—but still place high value on compromise over confrontation, reflecting perhaps the increasing diversity of the population, including Aboriginal self-assertion, reinforcing already long-standing across-elite negotiations similar to English-French accommodation. Regional cultural variations persist from east to west. However, future studies might shed light on north-south differences and intra-regional differences in political culture. Such studies might also uncover cross-regional urban and rural subcultures distinguishing the orientations and attitudes of populations in large metropolitan centres, which have the most culturally diverse populations, especially of newcomers to the country, from those more homogeneous and settled populations in smaller cities and towns and rural areas. Polling (election day) The casting of votes for candidates in a general or by-election at designated polling stations in a constituency. During an election campaign, voters are officially notified by mail of the date of the election, the location of their neighbourhood polling station and the hours of polling. They are also notified of the time and location of the advance poll at where they may vote before election day. Proxy voting is allowed for voters who cannot come to the polling station for medical reasons. Polling stations in each constituency are usually located in public places such as schools, libraries, and community centres, or private places that are readily accessible to electors. The station is managed by a deputy returning officer, assisted by poll clerks, in the company of designated party scrutineers who confirm the eligibility of the electors, distribute the ballots, and monitor their deposition in locked ballot boxes. When electors are properly identified at the polling station and their presence recorded, they are given a folded ballot that contains an alphabetical list of candidates’ names and their party affiliation, if any, and directed to a private voting area. They return to the deputy returning officer who oversees the deposit of the folded ballot in a sealed box. In federal elections, polling ends at approximately the same time on Election Day across Canada, when the polling stations are locked, the boxes are opened and the ballots counted unofficially for each candidate and against the total number

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of ballots distributed, and reported to the returning officer of the constituency. The party scrutineers in the polling stations can challenge any doubtful aspect of the count and report the vote count and any alleged irregularities in the conduct of the poll to their respective headquarters. When polls have closed, the media can report the results as they are reported from polling stations, thus on how many constituencies a party has won or in which it is leading on the basis of incomplete returns. See various entries pertaining to elections. Polling (public opinion) The determination of views held by the general public or a specific segment of the public through various systematic survey techniques involving a sample of the relevant public. Public opinion surveys are a mainstay of contemporary politics. Government departments and agencies, political parties, the mass media, and interest groups engage to a greater or lesser degree in the regular polling of public attitudes and views relative to their own particular interests. This polling is “scientific,” meaning that sophisticated questionnaire construction and testing, interviewer training, sample design, and statistical techniques are used to make statements about a larger public. For example, the results of a scientific poll of a small sample of respondents may be said to be representative of a larger public within a specific margin of error in a specific number of similar surveys. For example, a properly selected sample and polling of, say, 1,200 Canadians may be accurate within a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent 19 times out of 20. There are, of course, many “unscientific” polls conducted, especially by some media and legislators, from which no inference can be drawn about a larger public. Especially since the 1970s, reported opinion surveys have become endemic both between, but especially during, election campaigns. In addition to the omnibus or general “landscape” surveys, political parties “market test” campaign themes with focus groups of “targeted” voters in the pre-writ period prior to campaigns, and “tracking” of public opinion over the telephone takes place daily during campaigns. During campaigns, firms use a variety of formulas to project the number of seats likely to be won by the parties based on aggregated regional polling results measured against the most recent election results and other factors such as a local candidate effect due to incumbency or notoriety irrespective of party affiliation. The polling industry is large, and several commercial companies are widely known to the public through their corporate name and even their leading “pollsters,” who frequently appear on television or are reported in newspapers. Some firms are closely associated with particular parties or with particular newspaper chains and broadcasting networks. There is no convincing evidence respecting the impact of poll results on the voting decision one way or another—voting for the apparent winner, the “bandwagon” effect, or otherwise the “underdog” effect. Nonetheless, mass media coverage of election campaigns, which includes reports of their own polls as well as party polls, tends to be of the “horserace” variety, focusing on who’s ahead and by how much. There should be only little comfort for a party leading in polls even during Canada’s relatively brief campaigns as the electorate can be volatile. There are many instances of parties entering a campaign with a lead in the polls, or even dur-

Polling (public opinion)

ing a campaign, only to lose in the “poll that counts” on election day. In the 2004 federal election campaign, the Conservative party led throughout most of the campaign in surveys of Canadians who said they intended to vote. However, surveys showed the Liberal party gaining on the front-running Conservative party in the last week of the campaign and surpassing it in the few days before the election. Although they cannot be reported until the polls have closed, last-minute exit polling in key or marginal constituencies on election day is increasingly used to anticipate actual results. In general, polls in the 2006 campaign correctly indicated the likely outcome of a Conservative minority victory, including newfound support in Quebec. The volatility of Canadian political public opinion both between and during election campaigns is an important development that has been tracked by opinion surveying since the 1970s. There appears to have been simultaneously a weakening of traditional party identification as a predictor of party support. It is debatable to what extent the widespread “horserace” reporting of surveys before and during election campaigns has been a contributing factor. However, it is evident that the expanding use of increasingly sophisticated survey techniques by the parties has resulted in relatively homogeneous party campaigns treating elections as advertising campaigns, leading to a one-day sale of competing, market-tested products. There has been widespread support for the prohibition of the reporting of poll results immediately before election day, similar to bans on advertising. But amendments to the Canada Elections Act to prohibit the publication of polls three days prior to federal elections were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 (Thomson Newspaper Co. v. Canada [Attorney General]). In response, the Act was amended a year later to regulate the publication of election-related surveys during a campaign: anyone who first releases survey results must declare the survey’s sponsorship, the agency that conducted it, when and how the sample was drawn and surveyed, how many people participated, and the margin of error; non-broadcasters such as newspapers and Internet sites must publish the wording of the questionnaire and where a copy can be obtained; and, like advertising, new survey results cannot be published on election day. Democratic politics implies government by popular consent, but some commentators fear that Canadians now have politics and governance by secret public opinion polls and clever advertising techniques of persuasion. Opinion surveys associated with private marketing may lead to policy changes, but they can just as easily lead to advertising campaigns designed, instead, to alter public perceptions of government policies without governments having to change them. As mentioned above, political parties employ such techniques as rolling surveys of selected target groups and focus group discussions, first, to determine areas of strength and weakness relative to their opposition prior to an election campaign, and second, in order to create an emotional bond between the selected public and the “product”—a particular policy position, themes, the party name, or its leader—during an election campaign. Once in office, a party that “won” through polling can now use the public purse to govern through polling. And survey companies and advertising firms that developed the successful campaign can expect government contracts from the party now in power. If such polls are known about and advertising

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activities become prominent, the polls can be subject to applications under federal and provincial freedom of information legislation, and the advertising contracts can attract the scrutiny of an auditor general, as happened respecting the auditor general of Canada and the sponsorship scandal in 2004. See Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship). Popular vote See Electoral system. Populism A term describing a political movement that seeks in general terms to wrest government from the control of a centralized and elitist clique and to make it responsive to the needs and interests of “ordinary people.” Populist movements tend to promote some form of “radical” change, though most are fundamentally conservative movements seeking to protect a traditional way of life from an unrepresentative political, social, and economic elite—in western Canada traditionally described as “eastern” or “central Canadian”; in francophone Quebec as “English,” though less so since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, and more likely simply “Ottawa,” that is, the federal government. In their protection of traditional values against a perceived threat, populist parties frequently harbour people with narrow sectarian and nativist views. Because of their personality and “common touch,” some politicians may also be described as populists, although their party may not be a populist movement. Populist movements in Canada have been successful when led by charismatic individuals who could articulate regional grievances and exploit established social and political organizations as well as new techniques of communication such as radio and television. Examples of such populist movements have been the various United Farmers parties and the Progressives in the teens and the 1920s, the Social Credit party in the 1930s and 1940s, and the Ralliement des créditistes in Quebec in the 1960s, led by Henry Wise Wood, William Aberhart, and Réal Caouette, respectively. In the 1990s, the Alberta-based and social conservative populist Reform party led by Preston Manning, son of Ernest Manning, a former long-serving Social Credit premier of Alberta, successfully challenged the dominance of the federal Progressive Conservative party in western Canada. The party’s inability to forge support in central and Atlantic Canada led to the Reform party’s transformation to the Canadian Alliance, with Manning replaced by Stockwell Day, also an Albertan, and a former provincial Progressive Conservative cabinet minister. In 2003, the Alliance, now led by Stephen Harper, a member of parliament from Alberta, merged with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative party. In addition to social conservative populist movements, western Canada has given rise to populist movements on the left, notably leading to the organization of the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in the 1930s. Perhaps because of its longevity, and its social democratic agenda, the CCF’s successor, the New Democratic party, has lost support in western Canada when populist sentiment shifted from opposition to “eastern big business” to opposition to “big government in Ottawa.” John Diefenbaker is an example of a populist politician in a cadre party. Often rebuffed in his leadership ambitions, this long-time Saskatchewan lawyer and member of parliament eventually became leader of the federal Progressive Con-

Populism

servative party from 1956 to 1967 and prime minister from 1957 to 1963. He was the first western-based prime minister and the first of ethnic background other than British or French. Though the Progressive Conservative party was historically associated with wealthy business interests and their preferred economic and social policies, Diefenbaker’s leadership led to the development of a populist constituency for the party in western Canada. Tensions with the party led to Diefenbaker’s involuntary departure as leader in the mid-1960s and the party’s electoral weakness until revived in the 1980s under Quebec-based Brian Mulroney. For the first time in a century, excluding the wartime Union election of 1917, the Progressive Conservatives won back-to-back majority governments in 1984 and 1988 with leading cabinet personalities from western Canada and policy more sensitive to western interests, for example in energy and trade. In the 1993 election, however, Mulroney’s alliance of westerners and Quebec nationalists collapsed. The Bloc Québécois captured nationalist sentiment in Quebec, while the Reform party captured populist support in western Canada that was maintained later by the Canadian Alliance. If the Alliance-Progressive Conservative merger in 2003 were effectively an Alliance takeover, tensions might persist in the new Conservative party similar to tensions within the Progressive Conservative party under John Diefenbaker’s leadership in the 1960s, which Mulroney had temporarily overcome. The new Conservative party contested its first election in 2004, shortly after Harper was selected as its first leader. Initially leading in public opinion polls, manifestations during the campaign of the party’s populist Reform/Alliance origins appear to have contributed to its defeat. In 2005, the party strenuously opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage but, in a policy convention, rejected traditional populist devices of direct democracy such as legislative initiatives, recall, and referendums. In the 2006 federal election, it formed a minority government, following a campaign when considerable care was taken to moderate the party’s image. The party garnered 40.3 per cent of the seats (augmented by one seat by a Liberal defection two weeks after the election) with 36.2 per cent of the vote, with electoral gains in Ontario and Quebec, though largely in rural areas of those provinces, and also in the context of an incumbent Liberal party beset by charges of corruption Political populism in Canada in the twentieth century then, comprised several important elements: a nostalgic view of one’s society as expressing traditional, civilizing values associated with personal industriousness, thrift, and family attachments, now threatened by “external” cultural values and norms; criticism of industrial or big-business capitalism as inimical to the interests of independent, small-scale commodity producers; and corruption in politics largely found in the control of political parties and institutions by large-scale finance, industrial, and manufacturing capitalists. In Quebec, such views among francophones were historically directed to an “English” commercial elite. However, since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, nationalist sentiment has been directed against the federal government in favour of a sovereign Quebec. Especially in the first half of the twentieth century, western populism was fuelled by the failure of settlement to match immigrants’ high expectations created by the federal government; the dominance of the western economy by central Canadian-based financial, transporta-

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tion, and manufacturing companies; and the apparent control of both Liberal and Conservative parties by these interests as evidenced in the policies of the federal government located thousands of miles away. Cross-border influences from agrarian populist movements in the United States also spurred populism in western Canada. Many of these elements help explain the appearance and success in western Canada of the Reform party in the late 1980s and 1990s, although the specifics of the perceived cultural threat was different (generically referred to as “special interests”) and there was less ill will toward private-sector enterprise relative to the public sector and the federal government in particular, which was now seen as too large and unresponsive to western and local interests. See Canadian Alliance; Conservative party (2003-); Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); Movement parties; New Democratic party (NDP); Progressive movement (party); Ralliement des créditistes; Reform party; Social Credit party. Pork barrel A term to describe an aspect of political patronage—the “pork”—dispensed by the government party from the public treasury—the “barrel”—to a community or private interests as a reward for, or incentive to provide support to the party in the form of money, organizational resources, or votes. Federal “pork” has traditionally been government jobs or untendered contracts for individuals and firms, and public works such as bridges, post offices, and road, airport, and waterfront improvements for communities. In an era of complex and costly programs, grants for job retraining and industrial incentive programs, regional development, as well as some federal expenditures related to military defence, may also qualify as “pork.” Especially as sophisticated advertising techniques and public opinion surveys have become central to a party’s electoral success, governments reward the valued support of advertising agencies and public opinion survey firms with lucrative, pork-barrel contracts. In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin immediately cancelled a $300-million sponsorship program, begun by his predecessor Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, designed ostensibly to counter sovereignist support in Quebec evident in the provincial referendum on sovereignty in 1995. The cancellation, and Martin’s appointment of a judicial commission of inquiry under Justice John Gomery, followed a report by the federal auditor general and ensuing police investigations, about expenditure of millions of dollars to individuals and advertising agencies associated with the party, apparently without proper documentation, in disregard of federal laws and with no apparent value in return. Martin’s government was reduced to a minority in the 2004 election, and the scandal contributed to its defeat in 2006, following the hearings of the judicial inquiry and the contents of Justice Gomery’s interim report in 2005, though Martin himself was exonerated in the report. See Patronage; Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship). Portfolio A term used to describe ministerial responsibilities in a cabinet. For example, Finance is the portfolio of the minister of finance. Frequently a minister might hold more than one portfolio or be additionally “responsible” for guiding the estimates through the legislature of, and answering questions related to, a crown agency, commission, or corporation that operates at arm’s length from the government. Ministers who are appointed “without portfolio” might be conduct-

Premier ing important government business without the impediment of departmental or administrative responsibilities. Postmaterialism A concept related to increased prominence in Canadian political discourse of quality-of-life and personal identity issues, and the growth of single-issue groups, allied in social movement networks, to focus public and government attention on those issues. In a period of relative material comfort, postmaterialist issues interest an increasing number of Canadians, particularly young people, who have high levels of education, political efficacy, and organizational skills, but with weaker ties to established political parties than earlier generations. Since the 1970s, traditional class-based alliances with materialist concerns such as economic development and individual security have shared the public agenda with postmaterialist group actors and their interests. This agenda focuses on concerns related to the natural environment, including for example global warming, deforestation and desertification; the plight of endangered species; conflict resolution; third-world poverty and community development; and minority human rights including those of Aboriginal peoples, women, children, gays and lesbians, and the disabled. Organizations promoting a postmaterialist agenda are described as social movement organizations, often involving people who have not been previously involved in politics, frequently in forms of political action to attract coverage in the mass media and thus influence government through public opinion as well as through direct representation to government officials. Thus, unlike traditional interest groups seeking some material benefit from government, these groups are political actors seeking to influence both public opinion and government in a larger frame of political discourse. Some postmaterialist issues have become sufficiently popular that traditional interests more used to achieving the goals through private consultations with government officials have had to engage in public debate to improve their “image.” The “forest products” industry in British Columbia, for example, in countering opposition to clear-cutting techniques and threats to natural habitats, has recast itself as a “forest management” industry. Established political institutions in Canada such as political parties are used to managing an agenda generated by the traditional interests reflecting the FrenchEnglish duality, region, and class. Some have accommodated themselves better than others, but still slowly and awkwardly, to these contemporary issue fields and social-movement challenges from Canadians who are cynical about “inherited” political institutions and politicians. In Canada, judicial review of government activity under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms since 1982, has provided such groups with a judicial avenue outside traditional parliamentary policy-making to advance the postmaterialist agenda, such that some people have described them as the court party. See Social movement organizations. Premier The head of a provincial or territorial cabinet, or government, appointed by the lieutenant-governor of the province (commissioner of a territory), whose government, to remain in office, must have the confidence of the legislature. The premier “recommends” the appointment of the cabinet, which acts formally as the lieutenant-governor’s Executive Council. The premier’s relationship to the lieutenant-governor, the cabinet and the legislature is comparable to that of the prime

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minister to the governor general, the federal cabinet, and the House of Commons. See Prime minister. Prerogative power Discretionary power, usually a reference to the Crown’s relationship to the government-of-the-day and the legislature. See Crown prerogatives. President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada A cabinet position with few statutory responsibilities, one of several within the prime minister’s portfolio, and to which a prime minister will assign particular responsibilities to the designated minister. For example, in the Liberal governments immediately before 1984, the government’s house leader, a minister who managed government business in the House of Commons, held the position. Under Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the title was held by the cabinet minister designated acting prime minister. In Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s cabinet, the position was held initially by a minister whose primary responsibility was the reorganization of the federal bureaucracy. Later in Chrétien’s cabinet, as well as those of his successors , Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the minister designated president of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada was responsible for intergovernmental affairs. The Queen’s Privy Council for Canada is, constitutionally, the formal executive body advising the Crown, the effective part of which, however, is the current federal cabinet; the Privy Council Office (PCO) is the cabinet secretariat whose head, the clerk or secretary to the cabinet, is also designated the prime minister’s deputy minister, and the prime minister is the minister responsible to parliament for the PCO. See Privy Council for Canada (the Queen’s); and Privy Council Office (PCO). President of the Treasury Board The cabinet minister who chairs, and is responsible to parliament for, the federal Treasury Board, the only statutory committee of cabinet. Assisted by its secretariat which includes the comptroller general, the Treasury Board reviews and approves expenditure proposals of government departments and enforces financial control, manages civil service employees’ salaries and job classifications, and represents the government in negotiation and implementation of collective agreements with public sector unions. The formal designation “president” derives from the Treasury Board’s status among cabinet committees as a statutory committee of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. Until 1966, the minister of finance chaired the Treasury Board, and its staff came from the Department of Finance. In 1966, however, the Treasury Board was established as a separate department of the federal government with its own minister, styled the president, and its own secretariat. Responsibility for the civil service and the office of comptroller general were established later. See Treasury Board; and Treasury Board Secretariat. Press, the See Mass media of communication; and Press gallery. Press gallery A collective term for print and broadcast journalists who cover the activities of a legislature and government, derived from the area above the Speaker’s chair from which journalists traditionally observed the proceedings of the house.

Press gallery

Through a formal organization, correspondents accredited to the press gallery gain access to facilities provided by the Speaker of the legislature to cover political events in and around the legislature on a daily basis. The press gallery is an important link between the politicians and the public. Citizens rely heavily on the mass media of communication for political information; politicians, for whom public approbation is singularly important, use the media to gauge public opinion and foster favourable impressions of themselves and their party. The status of the press gallery is recognized, for example, in its members’ confidential access to government documents such as budgets before they are made public. They also have access to areas of the legislative buildings that are normally closed to the public. Once a small and fairly stable organization of mostly male newspaper reporters, the composition and behaviour of the parliamentary press gallery in Ottawa changed dramatically as it came to terms with television journalism in the 1960s, profound changes in electronic communication technology since the 1980s, and the entry of more women into the profession. While the number of female journalists has increased, press gallery membership is still predominantly male. The daily deadline of newspaper-dominated political communication has been replaced by the 24-hour, “instant” and “breaking news” cycle of dramatic conflict- and personality-driven photo opportunities and sound bites from debates in the House of Commons and scrums outside the house following question period, as well as the more sedate press conferences and scheduled events. Press gallery behaviour has been characterized as “pack journalism” and “groupthink.” Pack journalism implies the hunger for news that leads to a collective focus on “the” story, directed at a particular prey, be it a government minister or an opposition member. Groupthink refers to a tendency among members of small, single-purpose groups, working in close proximity, to engage in consensual validation of a dominant view, excluding alternative views from consideration. If this takes place, it is reinforced when members of the press gallery become media celebrities in their own right, especially print journalists appearing regularly in televised panel discussions of public events, even as regular features within a national newscast. Once a plum assignment in journalism, membership in the parliamentary press gallery may now be more a stepping stone to international postings, or employment in private-sector public relations, consultancy, and lobbying firms, even employment with the government party or the public administration itself, which is larger and more concerned with “public relations.” The rise of electronic journalism and of multimedia conglomerates in Canada has tended to homogenize the behaviour of both journalists and their subjects, the political elites. However, differences persist particularly between anglophone and francophone journalists. The francophone members of the parliamentary press gallery address for the most part a francophone Quebec audience, with a focus on issues and events at the federal level from a Quebec perspective. Generally, unlike their anglophone counterparts, francophone journalists comprise part of a cultural intelligentsia, which has contributed in important ways to the political life of Quebec. Henri Bourassa early in the twentieth century and, later in the century, André Laurendeau, René Lévesque, Gérard Pelletier, Claude Ryan, and Pierre Trudeau, are examples of this Quebec elite for whom politics and journalism were

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inextricably linked in public debate on the “national question.” Francophones constitute a minority of the press gallery, but their influence in Quebec probably outweighs that of their anglophone colleagues among their respective readers and listeners. See Mass media of communication; Scrum. Pressure groups See Interest groups. Prime minister The head of the federal cabinet or government-of-the-day, appointed by the governor general, who remains in office as long as the government retains the confidence of the House of Commons. Thus, the prime minister is usually the leader of the party that has elected the most members to the house, and the governor general acts virtually always on the prime minister’s advice. The prime minister chooses the cabinet, which acts formally as the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, through the governor-in-council. The power of prime ministers over their colleagues, as well as over the opposition, lies in their unique relationship to the Crown, effectively exercising most Crown prerogatives on appointments, and foreign and defence policy. The prime minister “advises” the governor general on matters ranging from judicial, administrative, senatorial, and diplomatic appointments, to the dissolution of parliament, in the latter example setting the date for a general election. The prime minister “recommends” appointments to and within, and departures from the federal cabinet. The prime minister may also organize and allocate responsibilities in the cabinet, the Privy Council Office, and the Prime Minister’s Office largely without constraint. In some cases, parliamentary approval may be required for some reorganization, but other changes can be made without legislative approval—through an order-in-council. The prime minister’s usually effective control over the majority of members of parliament in the House of Commons, and the normal partisan dormancy of the Senate, ensures parliamentary approval that might be required. The prime minister has been traditionally termed primus inter pares—first among equals. While cabinet ministers may be the prime minister’s colleagues, the prime minister clearly has powers as party leader and prime minister, which they individually or collectively do not possess. The prime minister is required to appoint to cabinet people who have seats in parliament, usually the House of Commons, or else arrange for a minister’s reasonably prompt entry to the house through a by-election victory to a vacant seat or an appointment to a vacant Senate seat, either of which a prime minister should normally be able to accomplish. Political convention dictates that the cabinet also be representative of Canadians by region, gender, ethnicity, and religion. Some appointments to cabinet might be a grudging recognition by the prime minister of the popularity in the party and in the country of personal opponents and potential successors. But, having appointed and organized the cabinet, and installed personal advisors and confidants in the Prime Minister’s Office and, with the assistance of the Privy Council Office, the prime minister determines the government’s agenda, calls and chairs cabinet meetings, and defines its consensus on issues. The constitutional conventions of cabinet secrecy and collective ministerial responsibility, both derived from the government’s formal role as ministers of the crown, enhance the prime minister’s power over colleagues. Any minister wishing to diverge publicly from the prime minister’s declared view of the government’s

Prime minister

position must first resign from the cabinet. Cabinet resignations can be accompanied by a statement of disagreement with the government’s position, but former cabinet ministers remain bound for life by their privy council oath not to disclose cabinet discussions. This, however, does not entirely prevent unattributed leaks of information to the mass media from “usually reliable sources.” In what has come to be known as executive federalism in Canada, the prime minister can affect the direction of federal-provincial relations. Perhaps here, among provincial first ministers, the prime minister may be more aptly called primus inter pares: the provincial premiers holding power in their own right, and not at the behest of the prime minister, but the prime minister still the primary focus of attention in federal-provincial matters. The prime minister calls the meetings of first ministers, manages the prior agenda-setting process, and also chairs, guides, and attempts to define the consensus of the meetings. In general, the prime minister influences the pace and quality of federal-provincial relations in a way that can be matched only by some premiers on some issues. While the federal system constrains the prime minister in important respects, the process of federal-provincial consultation, with the prime minister and relevant cabinet colleagues at the centre, sets federal priorities in areas of provincial or intergovernmental jurisdiction. The defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord in 1990, which had been agreed to by the 11 heads of government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s guidance in 1987, was said by some to have undermined executive federalism. Consequently, the process of constitutional negotiations leading to the Charlottetown Accord, which was defeated in a country-wide referendum in 1992, involved broader public consultation. Nonetheless, constitutional amendments and the general working of the federal system still require some form of executive federalism managed by the prime minister at the centre. A prime minister’s personality clearly determines the style and form of the government. The position requires the organizational skills of a chief executive officer, but with the ability to hold sway over an institutionalized opposition and support from a public of millions on a wide range of public policies, while always under the scrutiny of the mass media. Some prime ministers may be more committed than others to specific policy objectives, but usually all are concerned about popularity as time for the next election draws close. The extent of the government’s rise or fall in public opinion will have an influence on the prime minister’s power. The influence of Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker over his cabinet was very different in 1962–1963 from what it was in 1957–1958. Diefenbaker, who was uncontested from within in 1958, led a cabinet in disarray by the early 1960s. Prime Minister Joe Clark attempted unsuccessfully to ignore the political realities of a minority government and his Progressive Conservative government lasted in office only a few months in 1979–1980. He was succeeded by Pierre Trudeau, who, after his Liberal government was defeated in 1979 and having announced his resignation after 11 years as Liberal leader and prime minister, then had an opportunity to pursue with single-minded determination the patriation of the constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The early years of Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s “brokerage” government from 1984 to approximately 1986 were characterized by

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lack of control over the agenda and charges of corruption and incompetence involving several ministers, disorder in the Prime Minister’s Office, and a precipitous slide in public opinion polls. Later, he established a clear agenda for a reorganized executive, two rounds of constitutional negotiations designed to accommodate Quebec to the constitutional changes of 1982, the Canada-United States and North American (with Mexico) free trade agreements, and fundamental changes to the tax system. It was something of a personal accomplishment that, despite Prime Minister Mulroney’s personal unpopularity by the time of his resignation in 1993, his government remained relatively cohesive. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government, first elected in 1993, and re-elected handily in 1997 and 2000, reflected a personal and low-key approach to government, but one over which the prime minister and his senior aides in the Prime Minister’s Office nonetheless exercised strict control at least for several years. In time, however, supporters of his eventual successor, Paul Martin, were allowed to occupy key positions in the party organization, raising by 2003 the possibility of a leadership review. Chrétien resigned in 2003, succeeded as party leader and prime minister by Martin. Prime Minister Martin’s minority Liberal government, elected in 2004, was noteworthy for a federal-provincial agreement on the future of health care, daycare, an agreement with First Nations, and a commitment to the improvement of municipal infrastructure, but it remained beset before and after the election with negative publicity related to fraudulent expenditure of millions of dollars during the Chrétien government, in which Martin was minister of finance. Martin established a judicial commission of inquiry and promised a general election within one month of the release of its final report. However, his minority government was defeated in the House of Commons in 2005, following Justice John Gomery’s interim “fact finding” report, that exonerated Prime Minister Martin personally, but outlined in detail “a story of greed, venality and misconduct both in government and advertising and communications agencies.” The Liberals lost the 2006 election, replaced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government. Published shortly after the 2006 election, Justice Gomery’s final report included recommendations directed to the prime minister and the prime minister’s office: statutory changes to delineate more clearly the respective responsibilities of politicians, political staff and public officials. With respect to the prime minister, Justice Gomery recommended that the senior public official designated as deputy to the prime minister, as well as head of the public administration, clerk of the privy council, and secretary to the cabinet, should be only secretary to the cabinet. As leader of the Canadian Alliance, Harper managed the merger in 2003 of the populist and social conservative Reform/Alliance with the moderate and pragmatic Progressive Conservative party, and became leader of the new Conservative party. Prime Minister Harper’s initial period in office in 2006 was characterized by a hard-headed pragmatism. His transition team included senior Progressive Conservative personnel from the Mulroney years in power, and some cabinet appointments reflected more the pragmatism of the Progressive Conservative party than the populist grassroots values of Reform/Alliance. See Cabinet; Cabinet organization; Prime Minister’s Office (PMO); Privy Council Office (PCO).

Prime Minister’s Office

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) A partisan central executive office, organized and staffed by the prime minister to gather political intelligence in the country, the party and the legislature, to advise the prime minister on political implications of policy and administrative matters, to arrange the prime minister’s schedule of private appointments, public appearances, manage correspondence, public statements, and relations with the mass media. There are comparable premiers’ offices in the provinces. Each prime minister determines the organization and role of the PMO, and its operations are therefore a reflection of the prime minister’s personality and needs. As an important source of political information and counsel as well as a personal public relations bureau, the organization and senior staff of the PMO, headed by a chief of staff or principal secretary, reflects the timely needs of the prime minister and the government. The chief of staff is virtually in daily contact with the prime minister and effectively speaks for the prime minister, though usually privately, keeping a low public profile. Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is cited as the prime minister who created the contemporary office as a key point of power and influence in the federal government. Trudeau, who had been elected as a Liberal member of parliament in 1965, had no previous experience in the party. Indeed, he had been publicly hostile towards it and Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson as recently as the 1963 election, on the question of equipping United States missiles located in Canada with nuclear warheads. Trudeau was recruited to the party and elected to the House of Commons, along with two other prominent Quebeckers, Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier, in order to enhance Liberal fortunes in Quebec, but to counter the then-styled “separatist” movement and deal with constitutional reform. Initially, Trudeau was appointed as Pearson’s parliamentary secretary while Pelletier and Marchand became cabinet ministers. Soon Trudeau was appointed minister of justice and three years after his election succeeded Pearson as party leader and prime minister. Heading a majority government after the 1968 election, but with little experience with the party and the senior public administrators in Ottawa, and determined to pursue a particular agenda, Prime Minister Trudeau created the contemporary PMO to bring to Ottawa people in whom he had confidence, but who neither held prominent positions in the Liberal party nor were in parliament and therefore could not be in his cabinet. The PMO then included regional officers who reported on political developments—to the chagrin of some cabinet ministers and backbench Liberal members of parliament, who saw the PMO usurping one of their roles. The senior administrators in government departments and at the Privy Council Office also perceived the policy role of the PMO as a challenge to their traditional prerogatives. When Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney formed a government in 1984, an Ottawa newcomer even more so than Trudeau, he also created a powerful PMO of personal confidants. Prime ministers replace the staff and reassign priorities in the PMO as political conditions change. The PMO under the majority government of Trudeau from 1968 to 1972 was very different from the PMO of the minority government years from 1972 to 1974, as electoral considerations and parliamentary manoeuvering displaced administrative management of the government agenda as a pri-

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ority. Mulroney’s slide in public opinion after 1984 led to changes in personnel and organization of his PMO. Following re-election in 1988, his PMO was very active in constitutional negotiations, especially in abortive efforts to save the Meech Lake Accord in 1990 and in later negotiations on the Charlottetown Accord. Liberal leader Jean Chrétien was managerial in style when he became prime minister in 1993, although more focused on the sovereignist threat in Quebec after the provincial referendum on sovereignty in 1995 was almost won by the sovereignist Parti Québécois government. Initially, however, he established a smaller PMO than earlier ones, partly as an example to ministers whose partisan staffs would also be smaller than their Conservative predecessors’ offices. Prime Minister Paul Minister was criticized for having a tightly knit PMO staff of intimate partisans who had served him well in his takeover of the Liberal party leadership, but served him poorly as managers for a government leader who appeared multi-tasked and unfocused. At the same time, Martin and his aides, unable to distance his minority government, elected in 2004, from scandals which originated and flourished in the Chrétien period, was defeated by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in 2006. Harper had won the leadership of the new Conservative party through his leadership of the Canadian Alliance and earlier experience in the Reform party. However, he drew many of his 2006 campaign strategists and transition team personnel from the ranks of the former Progressive Conservative party, who had earlier served Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Prime Minister Harper appointed a former minister of finance in the Mulroney government to the sensitive diplomatic post of ambassador to the United States; he also appointed as chief of staff in his PMO a former aide from his time as Alliance leader, the same aide who was appointed executive director of the Conservative party following Harper’s accession to the party’s leadership. Political staff, including the prime minister’s office, were the subject of recommendations of Justice John Gomery who inquired into the abuses respecting a $300-million sponsorship program that contributed to Martin’s defeat and Harper’s success. In his interim report in 2005, Justice Gomery had included senior staff in Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s office among people refusing to accept responsibility for the abuses. In his final report in 2006, his recommendations included statutory clarification of the respective roles of partisan political staff and public officials. See Chief of staff (principal secretary). Principal secretary See Chief of staff (principal secretary). Priorities and Planning Committee (“P and P”) See Inner cabinet. Privacy legislation (Canada); Privacy Commissioner (privcom.gc.ca) The federal Privacy Act and the Personal Information protection and Electronic Documents Act are federal legislation extending protection of individual privacy with respect to public and private sector organizations. The Privacy Act deals with personal information held by designated federal government agencies, providing personal access to that information, requests for correction of information, and providing recourse to a privacy commissioner and the courts in cases of non-compliance. The Act establishes the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, an officer of parliament, and outlines the commissioner’s inves-

Privacy legislation

tigative powers to compel disclosure of personal information to a complainant. The privacy commissioner also deals with complaints related to personal information held in the private sector under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Frequently the offices of privacy commissioner and information commissioner are held by the same person. Requests for personal information under the Privacy Act can be denied by a “head of a government institution” if it deals with cabinet “confidences” and personal information in government-designated so-called exempt banks. Cabinet confidences include, for example, memoranda on proposals, discussion papers of problems or policies, agendas and records of decisions, records of ministerial communications on policies and decisions, briefing documents, and draft legislation. Personal information in exempt banks includes information obtained in confidence from other governments (municipal, regional, provincial, or international); information that would be injurious to federal-provincial relations, international affairs or defence, and law enforcement; information relevant to applications for security clearance or parole from correctional institution; information about people other than the applicant; lawyer-client relations; personal medical records of an individual requesting them, the disclosure of which “would be contrary to the best interests of the individual”; finally, any personal information that “could reasonably be expected to threaten the safety of individuals.” The privacy commissioner may also carry out investigations of government institutions to ensure proper collection, retention, and disposal of personal information under the law, including whether personal information sought in any application can be justifiably declared exempt from compliance. Whether investigating complaints or conducting audits, the commissioner can summons witnesses, hear evidence under oath, and compel the production of evidence. On application by a complainant or by the privacy commissioner following noncompliance, the Federal Court may review a case, with the onus on the government institution to defend non-compliance, and issue an order. Provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act are similar to the Privacy Act. As technology increasingly facilitates the acquisition, storage, and exchange of information, the Act governs the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information in the private sector for commercial activities, to ensure the privacy rights of individuals respecting their personal information and to prevent the inappropriate collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Personal information includes, for example, name, age, marital status, income, spending habits, and DNA code. Organizations can collect personal information that is necessary for an immediate transaction, explain why they need it, how they will use it, and whether they will disclose it to others, receiving consent both for use and disclosure. Exceptions are granted for law enforcement, emergencies, and scholarly research. The privacy commissioner’s annual reports to parliament have included, in addition to reports on individual government bodies amassing extensive and cumulative files on citizens, concerns over decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada permitting widespread electronic surveillance by police, biomedical testing in areas such as the transportation industry, prisons, the military, and among athletes. See Freedom of information; and Information Commissioner.

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Private bills Non-government legislation introduced by private members to alter the law relating to some particular interest, to confer rights on or relieve the obligations of some person, group of people, or a company. For example, bills to incorporate private companies federally or to alter their charters are private bills. By contrast, public bills are intended to affect the public generally or society as a whole, and include both government bills and private members’ bills. See Legislation. Private member A member of a provincial or federal legislature who is not a cabinet minister. See Backbencher; Private members’ legislation (bills). Private members’ legislation (bills) Public, non-government bills and motions introduced by legislators who are not in the cabinet. Private members’ bills, which normally cannot involve the expenditure of public money (a crown prerogative enjoyed only by ministers introducing public government bills), may concern any matter that falls within the jurisdictional competence of the legislature. Private members’ bills introduced in the House of Commons that do involve public expenditures require a “royal recommendation” prior to third reading. However, seldom do private members’ bills reach that stage in the legislative process. Little time is devoted to private members’ business in federal and provincial legislatures—approximately five hours a week in the House of Commons—where time is mostly taken up with consideration of government business. In the House of Commons, 30 proposed private members’ bills and motions are drawn in a lottery, from which a committee selects a handful that will be voted on in the house, and, if approved, be sent to committee for study and a report back to the house. Otherwise a private member’s bill or motion is debated briefly, “talked out” without coming to a vote, and falls to the bottom of the list of other private members’ legislation. Rarely does a private member’s bill make it to the statute books. The brief time allotted to the lengthy list of private members’ bills in all Canadian legislatures, and governments’ reluctance to concede legislation other than their own to be of value, are the chief causes for the fate of most private members’ bills. The importance of private members’ legislation is the opportunity it gives backbenchers on both sides to introduce measures they consider important; though not passed by the legislature, a bill in printed form can be distributed to interested groups in the public and to public officials for consideration. Private members’ bills bring issues to public attention and maintain them on the public agenda in the hope that eventually a government will commit itself to the measure. Such is the origin, for example, of federal access-to-information legislation and the eventual abolition of capital punishment, both of which were debated in the House of Commons over many years, in the form of private members’ legislation. Privatization The disposal of crown corporations and other government assets through sale or lease to private interests, the contracting of government services to private companies, and the relaxation and elimination of regulatory controls. Although privatization has ideological supporters who oppose state intervention in the economy on principle, a trend to privatization in the 1980s and 1990s

Privy Council for Canada

was spurred by an economic recession that resulted in a dramatic decline in government revenues, a growing public debt and public opposition to tax increases. The federal Progressive Conservative government elected in 1984 supported privatization on principle. In 1986, it established the Office of Privatization and Regulatory Affairs and a cabinet position, designated minister of state for privatization and regulatory affairs, to oversee the divestiture of corporate holdings that allegedly did not require government ownership to fulfil their public mandate. In 1993, the federal Liberal government increased the number of Special Operating Agencies (SOAs), self-contained and independently managed government operations, which could eventually be privatized. Examples of federal corporations privatized since 1984 include Air Canada, the Canada Development Corporation, deHaviland Aircraft, Eldorado Nuclear, Petro-Canada, and Teleglobe Canada. Canada Post, historically a government department, became a crown corporation so that it could operate more as a private corporation at arm’s length from the government. By the turn of the twenty-first century, there was increasing public concern about the impact on public well-being of weaker government regulation and reduced government investment particularly in health care and education. There still remained, however, well-organized ideological opposition to government activity, notably from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (ceocouncil.ca), the National Citizens Coalition (morefreedom.org), and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (cfib.ca). Governments, however, will continue to invest social capital and regulate the economy through a variety of instruments, but less so through public ownership. See Policy (-making; analysis; communities; instruments; public…); Special Operating Agencies (SOAs). Privy Council for Canada (the Queen’s) The formal executive advisory body to the crown, established under the Constitution Act, 1867 (s.11), whose members the governor general appoints and swears into office on the advice of the prime minister. By convention, however, those members of the Privy Council for Canada who actually “advise” the Crown comprise a committee identical to the current federal cabinet. Though neither the cabinet nor the prime minister, as such, are mentioned in the Constitution Act, they comprise the effective part of the Privy Council—the government-of-the-day—acting formally through orders-in-council and minutes of council in the name of the governor-in-council. Membership on the privy council is lifelong, allowing members to add “Honourable” before, and “P.C.” after their names, and prime ministers to be designated “Right Honourable.” More significantly, the privy council oath binds members to secrecy respecting matters that pass or have passed before them as cabinet ministers, to “keep close and secret all such matters as shall be treated, debated, and resolved on in Privy Council, without publishing or disclosing the same or any part thereof, by Word, Writing or any otherwise to any Person out of same Council, but to be such only as be of the Council.” Because life appointments are made to ensure confidentiality, the privy council comprises mostly honorific members, including former governors general, federal cabinet ministers, chief justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Speakers of the House of Commons. Occasionally appointments as privy councillors are required for administrative purposes. For example, if not already privy

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councillors, members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee must be sworn as privy councillors in order to receive sensitive information in their oversight of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Appointments have been made on special occasions. For instance all provincial premiers at the time of constitutional patriation in 1982 were appointed to the privy council. See Cabinet. Privy Council Office (PCO) (pco-bcp.gc.ca) The prime minister’s government department headed by the clerk of the privy council designated deputy to the prime minister, secretary to the cabinet, and head of the public administration. The Privy Council Office (PCO) is a central executive agency responsible for coordinating the activities of cabinet and cabinet committees (except the Treasury Board, which has its own secretariat) and for liaison with government departments and agencies on all matters of interest to the prime minister and cabinet. The PCO provides secretarial and other support, involving the preparation and presentation of documents, for interdepartmental committees. It ensures conformity of submissions for approval by the cabinet to policy and legal requirements; examines, edits, registers, and arranges for the publication of statutory regulations; advises on the prime minister’s responsibilities and prerogatives in the organization of the federal government, including the organization of cabinet and the decision-making process, and senior administrative appointments that are outside the purview of the Public Service Commission and the Treasury Board Secretariat. The PCO also assists the prime minister in the setting and managing of government priorities and policies, and supports ministers who are within the prime minister’s portfolio (deputy prime minister, minister of intergovernmental affairs, government house leader and deputy house leader, and government leader in the Senate). The clerk-secretary has ready personal access to the prime minister and to the ministry as a whole through the PCO, staffed with few exceptions by senior career administrative officials designated deputy and associate secretaries heading sections titled, for example, Operations, Plans and Consultation, Machinery of Government, Security and Intelligence. As part of the government’s anti-terrorism plan adopted following the attacks in the United States in 2001, a national security advisor to the prime minister was established in the PCO to assess intelligence and threats to public, national, and international security, and assist the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness to integrate and coordinate agency policies and activities. While the specifics of PCO organization can change depending on the interests of a prime minister—for instance, in the case of Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, national security and emergency preparedness, relations with the United States, and Aboriginal affairs—there is virtually no matter of domestic or foreign interest to a Canadian government that does not pass through and have the impression of the PCO on it. In brief, the PCO is the central link between the political executive—the prime minister and cabinet—and the administration of government, providing logistical support for the cabinet, advice to the prime minister on the organization of government and appointments, advice on intergovernmental affairs, and coordinating policy across the public administration. The operation of this central link, and particular the role of its head, was the subject of recommendations issuing in 2006 from Justice John Gomery’s federal

Progressive Conservative party

inquiry into abuses surrounding the $300-million sponsorship program and the lack of effective accountability. Justice Gomery recommended that the head of the PCO be designated only secretary to the cabinet, to represent the public administration to the full cabinet, with the designation head of the administration transferred to the secretary of the Treasury Board and the designations clerk of the privy council and deputy minister to the prime minister abolished. See Clerk of the Privy Council (secretary to the cabinet). Progressive Conservative party A political party dominant in federal politics until 1896, more frequently than not the official opposition to Liberal governments during the twentieth century, and with only minor representation in the House of Commons after the election of 1993.The party had several formal names, but from the 1940s it was styled the Progressive Conservative party, named to attract western support under the leadership of John Bracken, former LiberalProgressive premier of Manitoba. In 2003, it merged with the Canadian Alliance party as the Conservative party. But there were still Progressive Conservative parties in most provinces. Begun in the 1850s as a Liberal-Conservative coalition in the United Province of Canada, the Conservative party took form as the “Confederation party” in the 1860s. At that time, ministerialism, or attachment to the patronage-dispensing government rather than to a party organization, determined the loyalty of many legislators. Under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald, the party was dominant until the 1890s. After 1896, it seldom held power federally, but was competitive in various provincial party systems. In 1988, the federal party, led by Brian Mulroney, formed a second consecutive majority government for only the first time in a century, excepting the Union government’s wartime victory in 1917. The Union election aside, the party’s victory in 1984, then, was only the party’s fourth majority win in the twentieth century (earlier in 1911 under Robert Borden, 1930 under R.B. Bennett, and 1958 under John Diefenbaker). Otherwise, it formed minority governments under Arthur Meighen, appointed by the governor general in 1926, John Diefenbaker, 1957–1958 and 1962–1963, and Joe Clark, 1979–1980. The Progressive Conservative party’s lack of success nationally may be understood with reference to its nineteenth-century success and to the Liberal party’s subsequent success in the twentieth century. In the Confederation period, the party comprised an English-Canadian elite generally sympathetic to French-Canadian concerns, and a Quebec leadership that had the confidence of the FrenchCanadian population in that province. The Conservatives at that time also had a business orientation tempered by a progressive image of “the working man’s party.” At the level of political symbolism, the party led by Sir John A. Macdonald was readily identified with Canadian nationalism, though in the larger context of a larger empire. By contrast, the Liberal party lacked those characteristics in the nineteenth century, but came to possess them in the twentieth century. Since the 1960s, the federal Progressive Conservative leadership—perhaps hesitatingly at first under John Diefenbaker, but more assertively under Robert Stanfield and later Joe Clark—sought to integrate itself more effectively in Quebec. The party had never had a French-Canadian leader and, in the 1970s, had fewer than five francophone members of parliament. In 1979, the party formed a minority government with only two MPs from Quebec elected as Conservatives, and only

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one of them a francophone. In the election defeat of 1980, the party elected only one MP from Quebec and gained 13 per cent of the provincial popular vote. In 1983, the party selected Brian Mulroney, a fluently bilingual anglo-Irish Quebecker and corporate lawyer, as its leader. One year later, the party formed a majority government with sizeable representation from all regions, including Quebec (58 MPs to 17 Liberal MPs). As the Liberals and the nineteenth-century Conservatives under Macdonald had done earlier, Mulroney sought to reinforce Conservative power on the basis of a Québec solide, but now with the support as well of western Canadians that Diefenbaker’s leadership had initially drawn to the party. Prime Minister Mulroney appointed French Quebeckers and western Canadians to prominent positions in the cabinet and ensured that public goods and services were allocated both to Quebec and the West. For example, he dismantled the Liberal government’s National Energy Program that infuriated western public opinion. With constitutional reform a leading item on its agenda, the government worked sympathetically with the Liberal government in Quebec to obtain agreement among all provinces that would lead to Quebec’s accommodation to the Constitution Act, 1982. In 1988, the Conservatives were re-elected with a reduced majority, but an increase in Quebec representation (63 to 12 Liberal MPs). In its second term, the government’s Quebec strategy was doomed by the defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord; the defection of Lucien Bouchard, the most prominent francophone cabinet minister and a putative successor to Mulroney, to become leader of the sovereignist Bloc Québécois; and the rejection in a countrywide referendum of the constitutional Charlottetown Accord. It appeared that the government’s focus on constitutional changes to accommodate Quebec was losing its support in western Canada to the nascent Reform party, which came into existence in the late 1980s, and came close to forming the official opposition in 1993 behind the BQ and doing so following the 1997 election. In addition to its weakness in Quebec, the Progressive Conservative party also had an historic class and central Canadian image. The party retained a rightwing, upper-class, business image largely untempered by its earlier nineteenth-century image of mild progressivism, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. From the 1960s to the 1980s, when its leaders were successively the populist John Diefenbaker from Saskatchewan, the patrician Robert Stanfield from Nova Scotia, and the young Joe Clark from Alberta, the leadership had balanced its pro-business faction with the influence of so-called Red Tories and regional support in the West and Atlantic Canada. However, the rhetoric and action of Prime Minister Mulroney’s government in economic and social policy after 1984 was dominated by policy to facilitate the restructuring of the economy in a North American context through free trade agreements with the United States and Mexico to ensure “global competitiveness.” This was accompanied by government downsizing, a lessening of government regulation in the economy, and a reduction in social expenditures, notably in transfer payments to the provinces for health, education, and social assistance. The government replaced the “hidden” manufacturers’ sales tax with a highly visible goods and services tax. That these policies were enacted during a serious economic recession helped reduce the government’s popularity to the lowest level of any government since opinion surveys were first conducted.

Progressive movement

The 1993 election results presaged the party’s death or transformation a decade later. The party’s defeat in 1993 was devastating. Under the short-lived leadership of Kim Campbell, who succeeded Mulroney as party leader and thus prime minister, it gained 16 per cent of the vote and won only two seats, neither Prime Minister Campbell’s, losing official-party standing in the House of Commons, and eventually merging with the populist and social conservative Canadian Alliance in 2003. Initially, however, party fortunes appeared to improve under Campbell’s successor, Jean Charest, a minister in the Mulroney and Campbell cabinets who had survived the election. A Quebecker and the first francophone to lead the Progressive Conservative party, Charest had performed well on behalf of the federalist cause in the Quebec sovereignty referendum in 1995. In the 1997 election under Charest, the party regained official-party status, winning 20 seats, but ranked last in the house after the Reform, Bloc Québécois, and New Democratic parties. Later, Charest left the Progressive Conservative party to lead the Quebec Liberal party against the sovereignist Parti Québécois, now led by his former cabinet colleague, Bouchard. He was succeeded by former Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark who rebuffed the social conservative Reform party’s “unite the right” strategy when Reform transformed itself to the Canadian Alliance party in 2000. Despite his credible campaign performance, the Progressive Conservatives under Clark barely managed to retain official-party status, winning the minimum required 12 seats in the 2000 election with 12 per cent of the popular vote, while the western-based Alliance formed the opposition. Peter MacKay succeeded Clark as leader in 2003, and reversing his position during the leadership campaign, negotiated the party’s merger with the Canadian Alliance later that year, creating the Conservative party. The new Conservative party chose the Alliance leader Stephen Harper as its first leader in a contest that MacKay chose not to enter, suggesting to many observers, including former prime minister Clark, that the pragmatic and moderate Progressive Conservative party had been taken over by a less pragmatic, less moderate, populist Canadian Alliance. The new Conservative party was barely in existence when it had to contest the 2004 election, retaining its official opposition status, but with the Liberals reduced to a minority government. In a policy convention in 2005, the Conservatives rejected many of the populist policies of the Reform-Alliance. Beset by scandals in 2005, the Liberal government was defeated in the House of Commons, and in the 2006 election, the Conservatives, focusing largely on moderate policies and Liberal shortcomings, formed a minority government, including newfound support in Quebec. Prime Minister Harper’s transition team in 2006 included several senior Progressive Conservative personnel from the Mulroney period. in the appointments to his cabinet, Harper reflected the pragmatism of the Progressive Conservative party rather than the populist values of Reform/Alliance. He also appointed a former minister of finance in the Mulroney cabinet to the important diplomatic post of ambassador to the United States. See various entries on subjects mentioned here. Progressive movement (party) A political movement, comprising mostly farmers and owners of small businesses related to the agricultural community, in the

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Canadian prairie West in the late teens and 1920s. The political disaffection of western farmers increased steadily during the first two decades of the twentieth century. High tariffs that successive federal governments imposed to protect commercial interests, located primarily in central Canada, compounded the natural problems of farm life on the prairies. Through co-operative action, farmers advanced their particular interests, conscious of their political weakness in the disciplined parliamentary party system that made their few members of parliament in Ottawa powerless. The Progressive movement supported various reforms to effect greater constituency or grassroots control over MPs, including recall and referendums. A more radical anti-party proposal involved the replacement of territorially based constituency representation with occupational representation, especially to strengthen the influence of rural communities. The First World War slowed the momentum for independent political action, but it resumed soon afterwards. In 1919, T.A. Crerar, a Liberal, resigned from the federal Union cabinet of Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden to sit with eight other MPs as independents. A general strike took place that same year in Winnipeg. A coalition of the United Farmers of Ontario, Labour, and independent members formed a minority government in Ontario, and the United Farmers of Alberta decided to contest the next provincial election. In 1920, the Progressive party was formed out of what was basically a Manitoba group, led by Crerar and dedicated to parliamentary politics, and a group from Alberta led by Henry Wise Wood that was dedicated to replacing the party system with a form of occupational group representation. In the House of Commons, 11 MPs designated themselves the National Progressive party and chose Crerar as their leader. In 1921, the federal Liberal party selected William Lyon Mackenzie King, an Ontario-based former senior public official and later cabinet minister, closely associated with big business, to succeed Wilfrid Laurier, and the party reaffirmed its commitment to tariff protection. In the general election of 1921, the Progressives elected the second-largest group with 64 MPs elected from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The Liberals, the largest group with 116 MPs, formed Canada’s first minority government. However, Wood’s anti-party sentiment dominated the Progressive caucus, and the Progressive MPs refused to form the official opposition, the role falling then to the smallest group, the 50 Conservatives. The United Farmers of Alberta formed the government of Alberta that same year. Disagreement persisted among Progressive MPs between those who wished to participate in conventional party politics and those who supported the movement’s objective to replace the system. By 1922, Crerar had resigned the leadership and returned to the Liberal party (eventually to be appointed to the Senate) and the federal party/movement was in disarray. In the general election of 1925, the Progressives held a crucial position in another house of minorities, but that Parliament was short-lived. After the 1926 election, the party ceased to be an important organization. The “shades” of the Progressive party in western Canada continued to be present in federal politics. In the 1930s, some Progressives drifted into alliances that resulted in the formation of the Social Credit party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, later the New Democratic party. After 1940, when John Bracken, a former Progressive premier of Manitoba assumed the leadership of

“Property and Civil Rights in the Province”

the Conservative party, it was re-named the Progressive Conservative party. John Diefenbaker’s leadership of the party from 1956 to 1967 and the persistent central Canadian dominance of federal Liberal leadership and government policy were responsible for the Conservatives benefiting from the populist legacy of Progressivism in western Canada for almost 40 years, until the 1990s. Forming rare consecutive majority Progressive Conservative governments in 1984 and 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attempted to forge a permanent electoral alliance involving Quebec nationalists and western Canadians. However, in the 1993 election, the populist and social conservative Reform party, originating and based in Alberta and promoting Progressive direct democracy devices of referendums, popular legislative initiatives and recall of legislators, along with the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and assisted elsewhere by Liberal resurgence, not only defeated the government under Mulroney’s successor, Kim Campbell, but virtually annihilated the party. While Reform’s western, populist base remained intact following the election of 1997, it did not win seats in central or eastern Canada. Hoping to establish the party beyond the West without diminishing aspects of its social conservative and populist “Progressive” heritage, Reformers created the Canadian Alliance in 2000. However, the Alliance fared little better than Reform in the election later that year and merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003 to form the Conservative party. The Alliance leader, Stephen Harper, an Alberta member of parliament was elected leader, leading some observers, including disgruntled Progressive Conservatives, to conclude that their moderate, mainstream party had been taken over by the Alliance, recalling the reasons for Bracken’s leadership, ultimately unsuccessful, and John Diefenbaker’s limited electoral success. The merged Conservative party retained its official opposition status following the 2004 election and, at its first policy convention in 2005, rejected the direct democracy instruments. In the 2006 federal election, it formed a minority government, following a campaign when considerable care was taken to moderate the party’s image. The party garnered 40.3 per cent of the seats (augmented shortly after the election by a Liberal defection) with 36.2 per cent of the vote, achieving electoral gains in Ontario and Quebec, though largely in rural areas of those provinces, and also in the context of an incumbent Liberal party beset by charges of corruption. The pragmatism of the Progressive Conservative party rather than the populism of the Reform/Alliance party was evident early in Harper’s government, notably in the personnel of his transition team and in appointments to cabinet. See entries on various items mentioned here. “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” An enumerated head, section 92:13 of the Constitution Act, 1867, respecting the “Exclusive Powers of Provincial Legislatures” that gained primacy over the “Peace, Order, and good Government” phrase in the preamble to section 91 as a source of residual power except in extreme national emergencies, through rulings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a trend later modified by the Supreme Court of Canada when it became the final court of appeal in 1949. When the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council over time made the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause subordinate to the enumerated powers of the two levels of government—notably in sections 91 and 92—the provinces gained, because 92:13 was capable of inclusive meaning. Thus, as a result of judi-

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cial review, residual power was in a sense moved from the jurisdiction of parliament to that of the provincial legislatures. As the final judicial arbiter of the constitution since 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada has tended to sanction the federal government’s use of the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause, but especially the “Trade and Commerce” (91:2) clause, in matters of “inherent national importance,” notably in Johannesson (1952), on aeronautics, the Anti-Inflation Reference (1975), adding economic factors as a national emergency, and General Motors v. City National Leasing (1989), enhancing specifically the federal government’s anti-combines legislation which created a civil right of action, normally a provincial matter, under “the general trade and commerce power.” See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; “Peace, Order, and good Government”; Supreme Court of Canada. Proportional representation An electoral system in which political parties hold a percentage of seats in the legislature that approximates their percentage of the popular vote in the previous election. For example, a party that wins 40 per cent of the popular vote would hold close to 40 per cent of the legislative seats under proportional representation (PR). Variants of proportional representation systems, in which electors vote for a list of party candidates in multi-member constituencies, are used in many countries. Supporters of proportional representation argue that each party’s legislative representation should reflect electoral support as accurately as possible. In multiparty systems, simple PR usually results in no single party winning a majority of seats and governments are subsequently formed through formal or informal coalitions of parties. Critics of proportional representation therefore argue that it legitimizes small parties—including parties of extreme views and policies representing only minor sectarian interests—and grants them disproportionate political power that can lead to legislative gridlock, and at worst a degree of civil unrest. In Canada, the constituency system with plurality win, or first-past-the-post, is the electoral system used in federal and provincial elections. Discussions about PR have arisen, however, because under the first-past-the-post electoral system in multi-party elections, there is usually a discrepancy—often a gross discrepancy— between the percentage of votes won and the percentage of seats subsequently held by the parties. Also, this electoral system reinforces regionalism. It disproportionately rewards parties with concentrated pockets of support over those whose support is more widely distributed. Parties that find it difficult to win seats in some parts of the country and easier elsewhere will tend to perpetuate those sectional strengths and weaknesses in legislative representation and policy preferences, to the detriment of the party system as a device for political integration. Almost any federal election in Canada since 1921 provides evidence of these “distortions.” Following the federal election of 1979, the Progressive Conservatives formed a minority government with 22 seats more than the Liberals, but with 4 per cent less of the popular vote. The results of the 1993 election illustrate the discrepancies and the bias towards sectionalism. The Liberal party won 60 per cent of the seats (177) with 41.3 per cent of the popular vote; the Bloc Québécois, 18.3 per cent of the seats (54) with 13.5 per cent of the vote; the Reform party, 17.6 per cent of the seats (52) with 18.7 per cent of the vote; the New Democratic party, 3.1 per cent of the seats (9) with 6.9 per cent of the vote; but the Progressive Con-

Proportional representation

servatives, only 0.7 per cent of the seats (2) with 16 per cent of the vote. The Bloc’s success was due to its concentrated support in Quebec: 49 per cent of the provincial popular vote. Reform’s success was based in the West, notably 52 per cent of the Alberta vote and 36 per cent of the vote in British Columbia. By contrast, the Progressive Conservative failure, apart from its low share of the vote relative to the Liberal share, resulted from the diffusion of its support relative to the other parties. Federal election results continue to manifest similar distortions for similar reasons: in 2000, the Progressive Conservatives won 4 per cent of the seats (12) with 12 per cent of the vote, while the regionally based BQ won 13 per cent of the seats (38) with 11 per cent of the vote; in 2004, the Liberal party formed a minority government (43.8% of the seats [135] with 36.7% of the vote), the Conservative party, newly merged Progressive Conservative-Canadian Alliance party, the official opposition (32.1% of the seats [99] with 29.6% of the vote), but the BQ, with support entirely in Quebec won 17.5 per cent of the seats (54) with 12.4 per cent of the vote while the NDP with diffused support won only 6.2 per cent of the seats (19) with 15.7 per cent of the vote; in 2006, the Conservative party formed a minority government (40.3% of the seats [124: augmented shortly after the election by a Liberal defection] with 36.2% of the vote), the Liberal party, the official opposition (33.4% of the seats [103: later reduced by the defection] with 30.2% of the vote), the BQ, with its support concentrated in Quebec, won 16.5 per cent of the seats (51) with 10.4 per cent of the vote and the NDP with diffused support won only 9.4 per cent of the seats (29) with 17.4 per cent of the vote. Quebec’s Parti Québécois is the only party in Canada to win office whose platform included the possibility of introducing a system of proportional representation. While in opposition, it elected seven members to the provincial National Assembly (6% of the MNAs) with 23 per cent of the vote in 1970, and only six members (6%) in 1973, although it increased it popular vote share (30%). In 1976, it formed the government, winning 71 seats (65%) while increasing its vote to 41 per cent. In 1979, the PQ government published a green paper on the reform of Quebec’s electoral system, including a discussion of PR. However, no changes were enacted, suggesting that once a party benefits from the distortions of the constituency/plurality win system, enthusiasm for PR fades. Indeed, in 1994, the PQ formed a majority government with roughly the same percentage of popular votes as the leading opposition party, the Liberals; in 1998, it was re-elected with a majority although it won fewer votes than the Liberal party. At the federal level, in 1979, the Task Force on Canadian Unity (via solon.org) recommended the introduction of an element of proportional representation into the federal electoral system. Since then discussions of a reformed Senate included the possibility of senatorial elections through some form of proportional representation by party lists. In 2004, the Law Commission of Canada, a federal independent law reform commission advisory to parliament, recommended a dual form of electoral system with two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons elected in single-member constituencies with a simple plurality win and the remaining one-third proportionately from provincial and territorial party lists. See Electoral system; Law Commission of Canada; Single-member plurality electoral system.

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Prorogation of parliament The formal termination of a session of parliament by the governor general, acting on the “advice” of the prime minister (or a provincial legislature by the lieutenant-governor on the advice of the premier). Prorogation brings all parliamentary business to an end. Bills remaining on the Order Paper normally “die,” possibly to be reintroduced as new items in a subsequent session. Otherwise a government motion is required to allow a bill introduced in a previous session to be re-introduced at the stage it was at in the previous session. Because of this, sessions are frequently “adjourned” for a break, rather than prorogued, thus leading to longer sessions. Each session also begins with a Speech from the Throne outlining the government’s legislative plans for the session, followed by a general debate on the Speech, an opportunity for opposition attacks on the government on any or all grounds, further reasons to adjourn rather than prorogue a session. On the “advice” of the prime minister, the governor general may proclaim the dissolution of a Parliament following the prorogation of any session within the constitutional five-year term of the House of Commons, heralding the beginning of a general election campaign. However, in 1926, the prime minister’s request for prorogation and dissolution following only a brief first session of a Parliament resulted in the governor general’s exercise of the crown’s prerogative to deny such a request and instead obtain the government’s resignation and appoint another government from the recently elected house. See Crown prerogatives; King-Byng Dispute. Provincial autonomy (rights) The scope of independent, legislative competence enjoyed by the provincial legislatures in the Canadian federation under the distribution of powers outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867 and adjudicated by the courts, ultimately by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until 1949, and since then ultimately by the Supreme Court of Canada. Provincial regimes have jealously guarded their rights and sought to enlarge them since Confederation. Governments of Quebec, the only predominantly francophone province, have always defended provincial rights for cultural reasons, but many anglophone provinces have also had provincial rights-oriented governments. The careers of many provincial premiers, perhaps beginning with Oliver Mowat of Ontario in the early decades of Confederation, have been constructed on opposition to the federal government. Many Alberta governments have fought provincial elections against “the feds,” as though the federal government rather than other provincial parties were their electoral opponents. However, all governments of Quebec have guarded Quebec’s traditional rights under the constitution and, since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, have sought either provincial épanouisement within Confederation acknowledging Quebec as “a distinct society,” or a renegotiated association with Canada on the basis of a sovereign Quebec. Federal party leaders have also come to power as proponents of provincial rights. Wilfrid Laurier in 1896, John Diefenbaker in 1957, Joe Clark in 1979, Brian Mulroney in 1984, and Stephen Harper in 2006 came to power opposing government parties long associated with centralization and insensitivity to provincial interests. Since Confederation, many federal political parties have arisen, notably in Quebec and western Canada, when the two dominant parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, had seemed indifferent to provincial interests in those parts of Canada: from the West, the Progressives in the 1920s, Social Credit in the 1930s,

Provincial governments

and the Reform party in the 1980s, and later as the Canadian Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003; from Quebec, the Nationalistes in the first two decades of the twentieth century, the Bloc populaire canadien in the 1940s, the Ralliement des créditistes in the 1960s, and the Bloc Québécois in the 1990s. Debate over provincial autonomy and rights has involved not only jurisdictional disputes but also the financial arrangements within the federation. The extensive power of taxation constitutionally granted parliament has resulted in the exercise of so-called spending power and federal intrusions into areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction, notably in education, health care, and income maintenance. Because of considerable differences in regional economies, the equal taxation power of the provinces results in great variations among the provinces in per capita tax yields. This leads to some provincial support for federal spending power, especially among poorer provinces that benefit from federal unconditional equalization grants and regional development programs in a variety of policy fields. Thus, provincial governments frequently disagree when attempting to forge a united position against “intrusive” activity of the federal government. In 2003, provincial and territorial ministers established the Council of the Federation, to improve collaboration respecting their interests in the Canadian federation. See Council of the Federation; Division (distribution) of powers; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Supreme Court of Canada, as well as entries on other items mentioned. Provincial (territorial) governments (legislatures) Autonomous subnational political units of governance in the federal union of Canada under the Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended (before 1982 named the British North America Act) that distributes legislative powers between the provincial legislatures and the federal parliament. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia participated in the original act of Confederation as British colonies, and Ontario and Quebec were formed from the colonial United Province of Canada; on addresses from the Canadian parliament and the respective colonial legislatures, imperial orders-in-council admitted British Columbia in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873; in 1870, on an address by the Canadian parliament, an imperial order-in-council admitted Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territory into Confederation as federal territories from which Manitoba in 1870, and Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905 were established; Newfoundland and Labrador entered Confederation in 1949 by statutes of Canada, Great Britain, and a commission of government in the colony, following two referendums. The territorial governments of Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, existing under federal statutes, are relatively autonomous, but lack provincial status and therefore a formal role in constitutional amendment. Like the federal and provincial governments, they have elected assemblies with responsible government, but headed by commissioners appointed by the federal minister of northern affairs. The provinces have parliamentary systems of government with relatively minor variations among them by statute or convention. Elections in Yukon are based on party competition similar to the provinces, while the legislatures of

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Northwest Territories and Nunavut, following Aboriginal traditions, operate on a consensual non-partisan basis. The power of reserving provincial legislation for the pleasure of the federal government held by federally appointed provincial lieutenant-governors has become virtually obsolete by convention. Since the 1970s, federally appointed territorial commissioners have acted like lieutenantgovernors. The constitutional statutes of provinces that joined Confederation after 1867 are listed in a Schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982 (“Modernization of the Constitution”), which also grants provinces the right to amend their constitutions except respecting the federal office of lieutenant-governor (s.45; originally 92:1 of the Act of 1867). Judicial rulings on federal-provincial disputes determines respective areas of federal and provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution Act, 1867. Since 1982, the actions of provincial legislatures and administrations, as well as parliament, have also been tested against the entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Proponents of Confederation in the United Province of Canada agreed to a federal, as opposed to a unitary, state in part to gain support among Maritime colonies for a union. Though initially intended to be inferior to parliament, the provincial legislatures acquired equal constitutional status with the federal parliament through judicial review. The principle of constitutional equality among provinces has also been established, although the special character of Quebec was recognized in special obligations respecting minority language and educational rights in that province, the recognition of the Civil Code, and later the minimum requirement of three justices from Quebec on the Supreme Court of Canada, and still later, opting-out provisions with compensation that Quebec alone exercised regarding some federal-provincial programs. Also, Alberta and Saskatchewan did not acquire the same control over provincial natural resources as other provinces until 1930. The argument for provincial equality and the contrary argument for recognition of Quebec’s distinctiveness are both based on versions of Confederation as a compact. In one version, the provinces are said to be inheritors of the role of the colonies that were original parties to Confederation; in the second, Confederation is said to have been a compact between two founding cultural groups, the English and the French. The general constitutional amending formula, adopted with the consent of all legislatures except Quebec in 1982, requires a resolution of the federal parliament (not necessarily with Senate support) and of two-thirds of provincial legislatures having at least 50 per cent of the population of all the provinces, with provisions for provincial dissent and exclusion with compensation in certain cases. Thus, provincial unanimity on constitutional change is not required in all cases and Quebec does not possess an entrenched constitutional veto. Constitutional negotiations since 1982, designed to accommodate Quebec to the patriated constitution, have foundered largely on constitutionally defining Quebec’s distinctiveness and a role for its legislature and government respecting Quebec as a distinct society. In a response to the referendum vote in Quebec on sovereigntyassociation in 1995, which was only narrowly defeated, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had parliament enact the non-entrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996, under which no amendment using the general amending formula would be introduced in parliament unless it had the support of the legislatures of

Public administration

designated regions, Quebec being one of the regions. The other regions were British Columbia, Ontario, the Prairies (at least two of the three provinces with at least 50% of the region’s population, effectively requiring Alberta’s involvement), and Atlantic Canada (two or more of the four provinces, effectively requiring the involvement variously of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia). See entries on various items related to the constitution and constitutional development, and federalism, including judicial review, and federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. See also Provincial autonomy (rights); Veto. Public Accounts Committee A standing committee of the House of Commons that is responsible for post-auditing government expenditures, primarily through an examination of the auditor general’s annual report to parliament. Provincial legislatures have committees to perform a comparable task. As in other House of Commons committees, membership is roughly proportional to party representation in the house, but unlike other parliamentary committees, an opposition member of parliament chairs this committee. In addition, the auditor general and the auditor general’s staff assist the committee in its postaudit scrutiny. The auditor general’s report and presentation to the committee are often more effective in attracting public attention than the committee’s own report later to the house. The auditor general is an independent officer of parliament, while the committee’s activity is naturally partisan. The auditor general’s report is often the subject of parliamentary questions and debate, and is widely reported to the public in the mass media prior to its “study” in committee. The public accounts committee was the focus of recommendations in 2006 of Justice John Gomery who inquired into abuses respecting the $300-million sponsorship program, brought to public attention by the federal auditor general in 2004. Concerned about the lack of accountability in government and a need to rebalance the relationship between parliament and government, Justice Gomery recommended that the committee acquire its own research, legal and administrative personnel, with funding also to hire experts as needed. He also recommended that members of parliament appointed to the committee be expected to serve for the duration of a Parliament. Justice Gomery recommended that the respective responsibilities of ministers and their officials be established by statute, and that each be accountable for those responsibilities to the public accounts committee. See Auditor General of Canada. Public administration (civil service) The public bureaucracy, also referred to as the civil service, which is characterized in Canada by large, well-defined hierarchical administrative units; it is staffed in large part by career officers (“civil servants” or “public employees”) who work under an oath of secrecy. The federal public administration includes several types of institutions. These are: government departments headed by deputy ministers and their assistants; several types of crown corporations; central structures such as the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Public Service Commission. Regulatory agencies, such as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and the Canadian Transportation Agency, are also part of the public service. Provincial public bureaucracies contain similar organizations. The scope of activity and size of the public service is so large that the term “adminis-

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trative state” may be an apt description of government in Canada in addition to such terms as cabinet or parliamentary government. The public administration is subject to general legislative authority and specific cabinet direction in applying and enforcing current policies and developing new policies. However, because of the large size of the administration, there are concerns about its independence in terms of actual policy-determination and the lack of effective cabinet control of policy-implementation and financial expenditures, and parliamentary oversight. Since the late 1960s, the organization of the political executive—the cabinet and the Prime Minister’s Office—has been designed to counterbalance the independent policy-making tendencies within the federal public service. Also, since the late 1980s, there have been concerted efforts by federal and provincial governments to restructure and reduce the size of their respective public administrations, in part to achieve efficiency and economy, but occasionally to effect an “anti-public sector” disposition of the governing party. In carrying out administrative duties under delegated authority, public officials often exercise considerable discretion in departments and regulatory agencies. In recent years, the enactment of access-to-information and privacy legislation, including parliamentary information and privacy commissioners with power to seek redress in the courts on non-compliance, and the establishment of ombudsmen in some jurisdictions, reflect recognition of the growth and power of the administrative state. In 1971, the Exchequer Court was reconstituted as the Federal Court, as a tribunal to hear appeals allowed by law from the decisions of federal agencies, boards, and commissions. The courts also protect Canadians from administrative abuse through the adjudication of administrative behaviour under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Until the early twentieth century, federal politicians treated the public administration as a pork barrel with which to reward friends and supporters. As the business of government became more complex, the merit principle was introduced in 1908 with the creation of the Civil Service Commission—now the Public Service Commission—a central agency to enforce recruitment and promotion by merit. The merit principle was eventually entrenched by the mid-century, notably in 1955 when gender discrimination against women joined race, national origin, and religion as a prohibited basis of discrimination in the public service—without eliminating entirely the scope for patronage appointments and other rewards. Later reforms focused on the need for a representative bureaucracy, as recruitment and promotion led to a public service predominantly of male English-speakers of British descent. Also, the policy-making echelons of the federal public administration tend to be populated by long-term residents of central Canada, even the area of the capital region itself. These factors, along with high educational attainment, gave rise to a popular notion of the federal government as an elite institution at the senior levels, removed from the day-to-day interests and concerns of a more widespread and increasingly diverse population. The relationship between the senior levels of the public administration and the government-of-the day—the prime minister and cabinet, and their political staff— is complex, and, especially when one political party is in office for a considerable time, defies attempts to delineate clearly the roles of policy determination and

Public opinion

policy implementation. The sponsorship scandal that contributed to the defeat of the federal Liberal government in 2006 involved gross abuse of the public trust: illegal political involvement in a $300-million program to heighten the visibility of the federal government following the near-success of the 1995 referendum in Quebec on sovereignty. The interim and final report of Justice John Gomery’s commission of inquiry outlined “a depressing…story of greed, venality and misconduct” (Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Who is Responsible. Fact Finding Report [Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services, 2005], xix); while noting that “the great majority of the people who serve in Parliament and in the public service hold very high ethical standards,” he proposed numerous recommendations designed to assign “clearer accountability to both politicians and the public servants (Restoring Accountability—Recommendations, 2006, p. 198). The most notable recommendation involved a statutory Public Service Charter that would act “as a shield against the kind of intimidation some [public officials] experienced during the years of the Sponsorship Program” and a reason for refusing to obey an improper instruction (p. 68). Other recommendations concerned the Privy Council Office and the clerk of the privy council, other deputy and assistant deputy ministers, the auditor general and the comptroller general of Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Registrar of Lobbyists. Since the 1960s, restrictions on political activity by most federal and provincial public officials have been eliminated and collective bargaining rights for public service unions introduced. Public service unions, once virtually non-existent, are now among the largest unions in Canada. This has led to increasingly complex industrial relations in the public sector with frequent disputes involving various forms of industrial action by public employees. See entries on various items mentioned here, and Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship). Public bills Bills introduced in a legislature either by the government or a private member that are intended to be of general application to society. Governmentsponsored public bills comprise most of the legislation introduced and are referred to as government bills, while those sponsored by private members are called private member’s bills. Public bills may deal with any matter that falls within the competence of the legislature, but normally only government bills may involve the expenditure of money, and revenue bills are solely the prerogative of the government. See Legislation; Private members’ legislation (bills). Public opinion Views of individuals reported in aggregate terms. There may be as many opinions on a given issue as there are people willing to offer one. However, views are usually “reduced” to those of “publics.” For example, on the question of access to therapeutic termination of pregnancy, there is a public that is firmly opposed to abortions, a public that supports conditional access, and a public that supports unfettered access to abortions. The essence of democratic governance is to respond to conflicting and competing opinions prudently and to be accountable to the public in a subsequent election. Public opinion formation involves a complex interaction of interpersonal and impersonal networks involving family, neighbourhood and workplace acquaintances, social group leaders, and the mass media of communication. Because

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opinions are changeable, politicians and others survey public opinion regularly on issues and personalities, either to modify a particular policy or to determine how better to alter public perceptions and obtain public support for a policy, personality, or group. See Lobby (-ist; -ing); Policy (-making; analysis; communities; instruments; public…); and Polling (public opinion). Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004) Receiving royal assent in 2004 after two years of debate, including significant opposition from the many federal, provincial, and territorial information and privacy commissioners, civil libertarians and media commentators to earlier bills, a federal Act, along with the Anti-Terrorism Act, enacted following terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001. The Public Safety Act deals with transportation and marine security, the energy infrastructure (international and interprovincial pipelines and international power lines), and dual-use biological agents. Most of the opposition to original bills involved proposed extensive police access to records of air travellers. Changes included restricting designated officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police having access to air passenger information for transportation security, although anyone incidentally identified against whom there is an outstanding warrant can be apprehended, and officers of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service access for national and transportation security only. Air carriers would have to provide so-called Advance Passenger Information upon request to Transport Canada and, unless required for threats to transportation or national security, would be destroyed within seven days by Transport Canada, the RCMP, and CSIS. Passenger information could be disclosed to “third parties” by these organizations for their respective, but restrictive institutional mandates. Amendments to the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act facilitate data-sharing regarding airline passengers and ticket holders prior to travelling. Amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act also facilitate data-sharing for border security, notably with the United States. Amendments to the Aeronautics Act and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act to deal with security in the construction of airports and aircraft, expand authority regarding restricted areas and access, enforce compliance respecting passenger screening services, and deal with unruly passengers in flight. Marine security is also strengthened by amendments to the Marine Transportation Security Act. The Public Safety Act contained amendments to various other federal legislation. The Explosives Act and the Export and Import Act were amended, the latter dealing with electronic transfer of technology. The National Defence Act was amended concerning military zones, assistance to civil power in terrorist emergencies, rights for reservists at the conclusion of a compulsory call out, and authority for the military to protect their computer systems. The National Energy Board Act now authorizes the National Energy Board to compel a pipeline company or certificate holder for an international power line to ensure the security of the energy infrastructure for which they are responsible, make regulations for security measures, and keep confidential information in its orders or proceedings regarding security. A Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention Implementation Act will supplement existing legislation regarding the development and transfer

Quasi-judicial decisions

of biological weapons. As in the case of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act will permit data-sharing with financial intermediaries and regulators. Other federal legislation amended for security purposes include the Food and Drugs Act, the Hazardous Products Act, the Pest Control Products Act, and others. The various amendments give relevant federal ministers authority to issue interim orders in the event of imminent threat or significant risk to health, safety, security, or the environment. However, in the Public Safety Act as finally enacted, the period within which the governor-in-council, that is, the federal government, would have to approve such orders was reduced from 45 to 14 days, with a copy of orders to be tabled in both houses of parliament within 15 days of their issuance. As in the original bill, ministerial orders would be subject to “sunset” within one year. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 and items on various organizations mentioned. Public Service Commission of Canada (psc-cfp.gc.ca) The federal central agency responsible to parliament that staffs a large part of the federal public service under the Public Service Employment Act with the objective of maintaining a competent public service of qualified people. The commission, appointed by the governor-in- council, or cabinet, recruits people to, and promotes, disciplines, and dismisses people within the public service. In practice, the commission sets the rules for staffing to enforce the merit principle, but delegates authority for most appointments to departments and agencies through staffing and accountability agreements. It hears appeals on staffing decisions, investigates, and rules on allegations of discrimination and political partisanship, and operates staff development programs. The creation of its predecessor, the Civil Service Commission, in 1908, introduced the principle of merit into a service that had been run on a partisan patronage basis. Comparable commissions exist in all the provinces. The Public Service Commission’s jurisdiction does not include many senior public officials who hold their positions at the “pleasure” of the government-ofthe-day, and many federal departments, crown corporations, and other government bodies have statutory authority to hire personnel themselves. Also, the Treasury Board, which represents management in the negotiation and administration of collective agreements with civil servants, is responsible for some personnel management policy and for administrative efficiency. See Public administration (civil service).

Q Quasi-judicial decisions (power) Decisions in the form, for example, of orders, rules and regulations—statutory instruments that have the force of law—made within the public administration based on discretionary power held under delegated legislative authority. Judicial decisions in the courts are based on law, including strict observance of rules of evidence and procedure involving separate bodies each exercising separately legislative, investigative, prosecutorial, adjudicative and

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enforcement functions. Quasi-judicial decisions are based on considerations of current public policy and the public interest, that are subject to change from time to time, established, investigated, and enforced by the same body. The chief advantage of quasi-judicial power is the flexibility possessed by expert decision-makers in the administration of complex regulatory matters, but such power raises concerns regarding arbitrariness and threats to the rule of law. Appeal procedures are described in statutes, possibly to a minister and the cabinet, but usually in the case of federal agencies ultimately to the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Canada. Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the major defence against arbitrary government action is section 7 wherein, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” and section 24(1), which permits “Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.” Ombudsmen and various parliamentary commissioners are also overseers of various aspects of the administrative state and the exercise of quasijudicial power, and can initiate judicial appeals. At the federal level, there is limited parliamentary oversight of statutory instruments by the joint Senate-House of Commons committee on the scrutiny of regulations. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Delegated power; Regulatory agencies (regulations); Rule of law. Quebec Act, 1774 (U.K.) An Act of the British parliament pertaining to the French colony of Quebec ceded to Britain a year earlier in the Treaty of Paris. The Act defined the territory of the conquered colony and enlarged the religious and civil rights of its subjects. It extended the western boundaries to include land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, granted freedom of worship to Roman Catholics, and sanctioned the retention of French civil law until altered by the colony. Criminal law remained British. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 had called for the establishment of a legislative assembly (a lower house elected on a narrow electoral basis that was advisory only to the governor). However, the political assertiveness of British colonial assemblies to the south, coupled with doubt that the French majority in Quebec wanted an assembly, led instead to a provision in the Act for only an appointed legislative council (in contemporary terms, an upper house). The Quebec Act thus opposed the trend toward representative government in British North America including governments in the West Indies and Bermuda. On the other hand, the tolerance of the Quebec Act towards the predominantly French and Catholic society was both culturally and politically astute. When the American Revolution took place a short time after its enactment, Quebeckers remained loyal, or at least did not support the Revolution. The westward expansion of Quebec under the Act was itself a challenge to American expansion. The influx of loyalists to Quebec (including areas now in Ontario) during and after the Revolution led to the replacement of the Quebec Act with the Constitutional Act in 1791. See Constitutional Act, 1791 (U.K.).

Quebec Protestant School Boards Case

Quebec Conference (Resolutions) (1864) A conference in Quebec City of colonial representatives from the United Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. It endorsed the principle, agreed upon a few months earlier at Charlottetown, of a federal rather than a unitary union of all the colonies under the Crown. As a counterweight to centripetal forces, the new constitution would have a strong bicameral parliament and inferior provincial legislatures dealing essentially with local matters. The conference, which lasted only three weeks, resulted in 72 resolutions outlining such a union, including a resolution to obtain “the sanction of the Imperial and Local Parliaments” for the union. The consensus achieved in Quebec City, however, did not last. Only the Canadian legislature approved the resolutions and requested the British government to implement them. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland repudiated the proposed union. The government of New Brunswick was defeated on the question in an election and, to avoid a similar fate, the Nova Scotia government simply reaffirmed its support for Maritime union. The Canadians, perhaps not having too strenuously to convince the British of the benefits to them of greater colonial autonomy in British North America within the empire, encouraged the British to apply pressure on the maritime colonies to bring about at least partial approval and participation. At a conference in London in December 1866 attended by delegates from Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, the Quebec Resolutions were revised and some substituted. The London resolutions were the basis for the British North America Act, which came into effect on July 1, 1867—since 1982, named the Constitution Act—Canada’s fundamental constitutional statute. See Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended. Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.-G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984) A leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada among several respecting minority-language education rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enacted two years earlier. This decision declared elements of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language that restricted access among children of anglophone parents to primary and secondary school education in English to be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Minority Language Educational Rights” [s.23]) that could not be “saved” by section 1 (“subject only to…reasonable limits…as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”). The legislative override (the “notwithstanding” or non obstante) clause (s.33) does not apply to section 23. Provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms respecting minority-language education rights were a direct challenge to the Quebec language law. And while the Charter’s immediate effect was to deny the Quebec law its effectiveness, it also permitted francophone minorities elsewhere to seek remedial court action in their respective provinces under enforcement section 24. Thus the courts have also ruled on specific government obligations respecting minority-language education rights (Marchand v. Simcoe Board of Education [Ontario], 1986, Lavoie v. Nova Scotia, 1988, and Mahé v. Alberta, 1990). In the latter case, the Supreme Court held unanimously that section 23 should be broadly interpreted because its purpose was to prevent the assimilation of minority-language groups, anglophones in Quebec, and francophones elsewhere. In 2005, majority francophone

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plaintiffs seeking access to minority English-language instruction in the province for their children that was denied under Quebec’s Charter of the French Language lost before the Supreme Court (Gosselin). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Language rights; Remedial decree (litigation). Quebec sign law A reference to provisions of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language regarding languages used on commercial signs. Quebec’s sign law was the subject of criticism as a violation of freedom-of-expression rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.2). The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the objective of “marked predominance” of one language over others was valid, but not through an outright prohibition of signs in languages other than French (Ford, 1988). The provincial Liberal government of Premier Robert Bourassa created a Canada-wide political controversy when it subsequently invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Charter (s.33) to protect from further Charter challenges a revised, but still discriminatory version of its sign law allowing only the French language on outdoor signs. In 1993, however, the law was further amended to allow signs in other languages along with French as the predominant language. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal from a ruling of the Quebec Court of Appeal that had sustained the amended law. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Language rights. Queen, the See Crown; Sovereign, the. Question period The occasion in the proceedings of the legislature when the government is required to respond to oral and written questions from private members, usually opposition legislators. The time devoted to questions varies in legislatures. In the House of Commons, there is a daily 45-minute period for oral questions asked without notice, while responses to written or starred questions are tabled and printed in Hansard. The Speaker recognizes members for questions from lists submitted by party whips. Lists from opposition parties are dominated by leaders and critics of particular ministerial portfolios, and the number of interrogators recognized and supplementary questions permitted is proportional to party representation in the house. The Speaker occasionally recognizes a government backbencher who will likely put a soft, “planted” question to a minister or pursue some constituency interest. The oral question period often highlights dramatically the principle of responsible government, or executive accountability to the legislature. Both opposition members and government ministers prepare carefully for the event, which is supposed to focus on urgent matters and elicit information from the government. The opposition’s objective, however, is to embarrass the government by forcing it to respond to interrogatory charges defined on the opposition’s terms. The government’s objective, by contrast, is to respond succinctly, with vigour or feigned boredom as appropriate, without appearing too disdainful. No debate is permitted is permitted in question period, but the “supplementary questions” allow a member

Quiet Revolution

an opportunity to cross-examine a minister who has evaded the question or to enter a brief riposte in Hansard. Normally, the final supplementary question is the brief “sound bite” that the opposition hopes will translate into positive media coverage. Well-prepared ministers anticipating the opposition’s line of questioning will have held a mock question period with their senior advisors and will hold back on their sound bite when they can have “the last word” in response to the final supplementary. A minister’s final response can effectively be a ministerial announcement that, as a response to a question, precludes opposition replies. The effectiveness of question period for the opposition is measured by the amount of interest aroused and sustained in the press gallery on particular subjects that can arise even from ministerial missteps, information leaked from the government, and media reports. Dramatic exchanges between government and opposition are well suited to a seeming requirement of television news for “visuals” of sharp personal conflict. Thus, after question period in the house, the mass media pursue matters in interviews with government and opposition MPs in multiple scrums held in the central lobby. On these occasions, however, both the opposition and the government are subject to media scrutiny. If the public show an interest in a certain line of questioning, the opposition will continue its attack on the government in subsequent question periods and scrums, for which the relevant minister will have senior officials prepare more effective responses to anticipated questions. The question period is one of few occasions in a legislature when the opposition should have a tactical advantage over the government. While the questions may elicit information, the potential loser in the exchange is the government if ministers seem to be evasive, ignorant, or simply tongue-tied. With the support of the senior officials, however, a minister should be well prepared for questions from an opposition member who presumably has much less access to information. Question period generally keeps a government attentive and, occasionally, matters of ministerial or administrative recklessness are exposed. See House of Commons; Press gallery; Scrum. Quiet Revolution A popular term for the totality of events in Quebec in the 1960s, when the provincial strategy for the survival of French society changed from a traditional, conservative, and defensive nationalism to a modern, aggressive nationalism, with the government of Quebec as the chief instrument of political, economic, social, and cultural épanouisement and survivance. The Quiet Revolution is associated in particular with the Liberal government of Jean Lesage from 1960 to 1966 and with its slogan Maîtres chez nous (“Masters in our own house”). The return to office of the more conservative Union Nationale from 1966 to 1970 did not reverse the direction of change. Numerous “separatist” movements came into being and, in 1968, several merged to form the Parti Québécois under former Liberal minister René Lévesque. The Parti Québécois eventually displaced the Union Nationale. The Quiet Revolution, initially associated with wresting economic control from the anglophone minority, became a broader nationaliste stream with strong federalist and indépendantiste cross-currents. While the Quiet Revolution led to new demands upon the federal government and applied new strains to Confederation, its effect within French society in Quebec was both dramatic and profound. The Quiet Revolution entailed an expanded

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public sector, the growth and increase in post-secondary educational institutions, including an expanded curriculum, notably in business administration and the social sciences, an intellectual renaissance in the arts, growing militancy of trade unions, and the decline of the Roman Catholic Church as a dominant social and political force. The federal government’s response to the Quiet Revolution is associated primarily with Lester Pearson’s Liberal government from 1963 to 1968 and Pierre Trudeau’s first Liberal government from 1968 to 1972. The federal government acceded to Quebec’s concerns about financial and administrative autonomy in the formula for contracting, or opting out, of shared-cost federal-provincial programs. It promoted constitutional reform and a policy to increase bilingualism in the federal public service and to strengthen the position of French minorities outside Quebec. The federal policy of “bilingualism and biculturalism” and cooperative federalism was, however, opposed by the indépendantiste element of Quebec society, seeking, at a minimum, enlarged provincial authority to protect French language and culture through collective legislative action in Quebec and, at a maximum, the independence of Quebec. Quebec nationalism in the 1960s also spawned a violent terrorist element that included bombings and personal injury. Its activities culminated in the October Crisis of 1970, which involved the kidnapping of a provincial minister and a British trade official in Montreal, the invocation of the War Measures Act by the federal government, and later the murder of the minister. However, nationalist sentiment then and since has been characterized by legitimate political action, first leading to the election of the Parti Québécois in 1976 and the first referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; October (FLQ) Crisis (1970); Parti Québécois (PQ). Quorum A specific number of members of a legislative body required to be present before it can meet and conduct business. In the legislatures and their committees, the government party whip and deputy whips are responsible for ensuring that enough government members are available to establish a quorum should the opposition try to embarrass the government by challenging the existence of a quorum and forcing the legislature or committee to adjourn. The quorum for parliament established under the Constitution Act is 20 members for the House of Commons, including the Speaker (s.48), and 15 senators including the Speaker for the Senate (s.35).

R Racism The belief that differences among people in ability and character are rooted in “racial” or ethnic origins, and that some races are therefore superior to others; or more generally, prejudice against persons simply because of their “racial” or ethnic background. Racism is explicitly prohibited under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and various federal and provincial human rights Acts, with commissions to deal with complaints of racial and other forms of discrimination. Various private-sector groups also exist to combat racism.

Racism

Historically, racism in Canadian politics was associated with discriminatory treatment by European whites, first, of Native Peoples and later people of African and Asian origins, but also within the European population, with the AngloSaxon and Protestant bigotry of the Orange Order directed against francophones and Catholics, as well as immigrants from central, southern, and eastern Europe. Racist movements in the twentieth century included the Klu Klux Klan in Saskatchewan in the 1920s, which promoted the traditional views of the Orange Order (selective immigration, Protestantism, and “British” patriotism), and fascist organizations in the 1930s inspired by the contemporary movements in Germany and Italy. The best-known, but still small, indigenous fascist movement was the National Social Christian Party in Quebec. Jews were the object of fascist hatred in the 1930s, when “casual” intolerance towards Jews and nativism generally was widespread. Casualness about anti-Semitism and electoral concerns to maintain the favour of voters in the tradition-bound Catholic society of Quebec led Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s government to adopt a studied indifference to the plight of European Jewry prior to the Second World War. After war was declared in 1939, fascist movements were suppressed; approximately 1,500 Germans, German-Canadians, Italians, and Italian-Canadians were interned. At the same time however, although there appeared to be no “fifth-column” organizations among Canadians of Japanese descent, approximately 20,000 such Canadians on the west coast were dispossessed of their property and transported to detention camps in the interior of British Columbia. None was ever charged with disloyalty. Immigration from the Caribbean region has become significant since the 1970s and, since the 1980s, Asia has ranked ahead of Europe as an origin of immigrants. In the 2001 census, Canadian residents of Chinese origin were the largest “visible” ethnic minority. It is frequently said of Canada that it is a nation of ethnic minorities, but residents of “visible ethnic minorities” find it more difficult to integrate into Canadian society than Canadians of European origin. Among Canada’s largest metropolitan areas, visible minorities account for 36.9 per cent of Vancouver’s population, 36.8 per cent of Toronto’s, and almost 14 per cent of Montreal’s. Minority groups tend to be concentrated in particular neighbourhoods, in some cases reinforcing their separateness from the mainstream of society. Contemporary political action against racism in Canada has included the creation of a framework of law and commissions to prohibit and combat racism and “official” multiculturalism to encourage integration and mutual respect, but not assimilation. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains a constitutional requirement for “the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians” (s.27). The Charter also makes racial and other forms of discrimination illegal, and allows for affirmative action programs designed to improve conditions of individuals or groups disadvantaged because of race and other designated conditions (s.15). Constitutional negotiations in the 1990s included the possibility of self-government for Native Peoples and limited forms have been established. There have also been formal apologies to groups such as Canadians of Japanese descent who suffered past official mistreatment. A federal apology to Canadians of Japanese descent in 1988 included modest financial compensation, but also a commitment to finance research to eliminate racial discrim-

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ination. In 1996, a federal crown corporation, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, financed through investment from an initial endowment fund, was established to further human rights (crr.ca). The Criminal Code has also been amended to prohibit the dissemination of hate literature. Political debate on the increasing ethnic and racial diversity of the Canadian population covers a wide spectrum of issues and opinion. For the most part, debate over immigration and refugee policy can engender views at least tinged with racist attitudes. However, some Canadians are honestly concerned that traditions related to the country’s Judaeo-Christian and Anglo-French heritage are threatened with extinction in the name of “inclusiveness.” Some people, including people of visible minorities, feel that official multicultural policies perpetuate barriers rather than foster integration especially when traditional behaviour conflicts with Canadian law, for example, in the matter of gender relations. There are also concerns when it is apparent that members of some ethnic communities harbour and act illegally, motivated by religious and ethnic prejudices and hatreds in their country or region of origin. The most outrageous example involves Canada’s worst case of mass murder, the bombing off the coast of Ireland of an Air India plane en route east from Toronto to New Delhi in 1985, causing the deaths of 329 people, most of whom were Canadians of south Asian origin. A bomb placed on another plane flying west to India exploded in a Tokyo airport, causing injury to an airport employee. Twenty years later, two defendants charged in the bombing of the plane, members of a Sikh organization that the federal government now considers to be a terrorist organization, were acquitted. See Multiculturalism. Radio-Canada The French-language section of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a federal crown corporation, with production facilities located primarily in Montreal. French-language radio and television services are also available in Quebec and selectively elsewhere in Canada on privately owned networks centred in Quebec (TVA), provincial public broadcasters (Radio-Québec and TVOntario), an international francophone satellite service on cable (TV5), specialty channels on cable (for example, the House of Commons, the Quebec National Assembly in Quebec, sports, weather, and popular music), and community stations, including a designated local community channel on cable-distribution systems. See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio-Canada; CBC). Radio Reference Case (1932) See Treaty power. Ralliement des créditistes The Quebec section of the federal Social Credit party that experienced its greatest electoral successes in the 1960s and outlived the western-based anglophone section of the federal party electorally. The party grew increasingly weaker during the 1970s, finally failing to win a seat in the 1980 election. Despite national pretensions, the federal Social Credit party in the 1970s was the Quebec organization. Social Credit emerged briefly in Quebec in the late 1940s as the Union des Électeurs. In 1962, when Social Credit could elect only two members of parliament each from British Columbia and Alberta, the Ralliement, led by Réal Caouette, won 26 seats in Quebec, second in the province to the Liberals’ 35. Like Social Credit

Ratification

earlier in the West, the Ralliement under Caouette was an indigenous and populist movement, responding to the economic and social grievances among a rural and small-town population. The existence of the créditiste MPs from Quebec was based largely on their personal appeal and the weakness of the Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties in Quebec as alternatives to the dominant Liberal party. After 1962, friction developed not unexpectedly between the Quebec and western sections of the federal party, whose formal leader was one of the western MPs. Many of the western and Quebec MPs were unilingual English- and French-speakers, respectively. Eventually, the federal Progressive Conservative party displaced the Social Credit party in the West, leaving the Ralliement as the major electoral force in the party. The Ralliement alternated between alliance and separation from the few remaining anglophone Social Crediters. In 1979, under Fabien Roy, the party won 6 seats with 14 per cent of the popular vote in Quebec. In 1980, it gained 5 per cent of the popular vote in Quebec, but failed to elect any candidates. See Populism; Social Credit party; Third parties (political). Ratification The power to accept or reject agreements reached by others, usually a legislative power over the executive, but in Canada also a crown, or executive, prerogative respecting international agreements. Since 1982, the various amending procedures in the Canadian constitution each require legislative ratification (Constitution Act, 1982, Part V). In 1990, the proposed constitutional Meech Lake Accord failed for want of unanimous approval of the 11 legislatures. Support voted earlier in the Newfoundland legislature was later rescinded and no vote took place subsequently there or in the Manitoba legislature before the deadline for ratification. The constitutional Charlottetown Accord of 1992 included proposals for the Senate to ratify appointments of the federal government such as governor of the Bank of Canada and the heads of selected cultural institutions and regulatory agencies. The Accord was defeated in a country-wide referendum (opposed by a national majority of voters and by majorities in six provinces), effectively a ratification procedure, although it was not clear before the vote how the results would be interpreted by the federal and provincial governments. Some provinces have adopted requirements for popular referendums on constitutional amendments. Treaty-making power in Canada, including ratification, is an executive prerogative: the federal government negotiates and the crown’s representative, but effectively the government, ratifies the treaties. However, a wise political strategy includes parliamentary discussion and approval, especially if the treaty, such as the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989, is controversial. The North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) Agreement between Canada and the United States, originally negotiated and ratified by the federal government is periodically reaffirmed by federal executive action alone. However, the implementation of treaties or other international agreements will require the support of provincial governments if they deal, unlike national defence in the case of NORAD cited above, with matters of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. For example, the federal Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker negotiated and signed the Columbia River Treaty with the United States in 1960 on hydro-electric development without an explicit agreement with the government

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of British Columbia. As a result, the treaty could not be implemented until the successor Liberal government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson reached an agreement with BC and later further negotiated a protocol with the United States. In this case, the federal government also allowed a parliamentary committee to hear witnesses both for and against the treaty. The federal Liberal government’s ratification in 2002 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change encountered opposition from several provinces that called into question whether Canada could actually honour its commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions. The minister of foreign affair’s announcement of ratification conceded that the “next challenge” was the implementation stage, which would require “consultation” with provincial and territorial governments “in the months and years ahead” (Foreign Affairs and International Affairs press release, December 17, 2002). See Treaty power. Readings Three stages of legislative approval required for the passage of bills. The parliamentary tradition of three readings is intended to ensure careful consideration of legislation. Normally, the first and third readings are perfunctory, while the vote on second reading follows debate on the principle of the bill. Before third reading, bills are examined in committee clause-by-clause and reported back to the legislature with or without amendments for concurrence in a Report stage. See Legislation (type; stages of). Recall A device by which electors can remove someone from elective office during their term of office. The recall, a form of direct democracy, is associated with the delegate theory of representation, to ensure that legislators, once elected, faithfully represent constituents’ interests and views. Recall was supported particularly by the various provincial United Farmers parties, the Progressive movement, and the Social Credit party in the early twentieth century. Manitoba experimented with recall, and Alberta had a Recall Act until 1937 when, with the Social Credit premier experiencing a recall movement in his own constituency, the government had the legislature rescind the legislation. British Columbia allows for recall of provincial legislators, but the requirements are complex: a member must have been in provincial office for 18 months after the election, and 40 per cent of voters who were eligible to vote earlier and remain eligible as BC electors must petition within a 60-day period, with spending limits on subsequent campaigns. If a legislator is recalled, a by-election must soon be held in which the former legislator can be a candidate (Recall and Initiative Act). The federal Reform and Canadian Alliance parties supported recall but, following the merger with the Progressive Conservative party in 2003, recall was not included in the program of the new Conservative party in 2005. While ostensibly designed to hold legislators accountable to their constituents, there are concerns that recall campaigns could be mounted by well-organized and financed special interests, that minority legislatures in particular would be particularly susceptible to further instability, and that the principle of accountability so clearly established through disciplined parties would be weakened. However, it was defections of two members of parliament from one party to another—crossing the floor—that raised the issue of recall during the minority governments of Liberal Paul Martin in 2004 and Conservative Stephen Harper in 2006 respecting that singular matter: whether MPs who switch parties should be

Reconstruction party

required to resign their seat and stand in a by-election as the candidate of their new party affiliation. See Crossing the floor; Delegate theory of representation. Reciprocity A term used in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to describe free trade: the elimination of protective tariffs, customs duties, and other restraints on trade between countries. The termination by the United States of a reciprocity agreement between the British colonies and the United States respecting primary products in 1866 was one of several stimuli leading to Confederation. The issue of protection versus free trade traditionally distinguished the federal Conservatives from the federal Liberals, although the differences were sometimes more symbolic than real. The Conservatives were associated with protection largely as a result of the National Policy under Sir John A. Macdonald in the 1880s, designed to encourage economic development in part by erecting tariff barriers to protect Canadian manufacturing from American imports. The Liberals at that time and later were associated with support for reciprocity and free trade, and supported a limited agreement with the United States that resulted in electoral defeat in 1911. Reciprocity was popular in western Canada, where protective measures against imports from the United States were seen to benefit Canadian business interests in central Canada to the detriment of western consumers. The “reciprocity issue” was renewed when these traditional party roles were reversed and the federal Progressive Conservative government negotiated a free trade agreement first with the United States in the late 1980s and then with the US and Mexico in the early 1990s. The Liberals, who preferred selective sectoral free trade agreements, strenuously opposed the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, and much less so the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement. The regional and national arguments generally remained constant in the 1911 and 1988 elections. However, an important difference was the forceful opposition of the business elite to reciprocity in the earlier period, but its enthusiastic support for free trade in the later period. In the early-twentieth century, Britain was the major source of foreign investment in the Canadian economy, largely portfolio investment, or loans; by the late-twentieth century, however, most foreign investment was American and involved equity, or ownership, of Canadian businesses. See Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (1989); North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1992). Reconstruction party A political party created in 1935 by H.H. Stevens, formerly a minister of trade and commerce in Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s Conservative government. Stevens was concerned about the level of profits being made during the depression, especially by retail stores and packing houses. His frequent attacks on business when in cabinet resulted in rebukes from the prime minister. Stevens resigned from the cabinet and was appointed to head the Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying. Later, when Prime Minister Bennett seemed reluctant to deal with the royal commission’s recommendations for coping with unfair competition and profiteering, Stevens resigned from the party and formed the Reconstruction party—whose platform comprised the recommendations of the royal commission.

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The party contested only the election of 1935, when it received 8.7 per cent of the popular vote—almost as many votes as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and twice as many votes as the Social Credit party, both of which were also contesting a federal election for the first time. However, the Reconstruction party won only one seat, Stevens’ in British Columbia, while the CCF won seven seats and the Social Credit, 17. The fate of the Reconstruction party demonstrates the bias of the electoral system against parties with diffused national support. The party had won over 10 per cent of the vote in each of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario, but failed to win any seats in those provinces. Stevens returned to the Conservative fold in 1938. See Electoral system; Fragment (splinter) parties; Single-member plurality electoral system. Recorded (standing) vote A division of the legislature on a question called by the Speaker, requested by a minimum number of legislators as provided in the Standing Orders, or rules, of the legislature. In recorded votes in the House of Commons, members rise when the Speaker calls first for those in support of, and then opposition to, the question, and resume their seats when the clerk calls their name for the printed record in Hansard. Because of the disciplined party system, members of a party caucus almost always rise unanimously in their support or opposition to the question. Following the division, the clerk announces the result. Again, given the disciplined party system in Canadian legislatures, the outcomes are usually predictable, though in minority government situations an outcome might depend on last-minute decisions of a party, of independent members of the legislature attached to no party caucus, or absenteeism and defections. The process is time-consuming and therefore most questions are decided by a voice vote with the Speaker declaring the government position to have carried. Recorded votes are taken on legislation considered important by opposition parties, to prolong debate, and bring public attention to the question. In rare instances of free votes, that is, when the party whips are relaxed, standing votes are recorded, first in support and then in opposition to the question, by rows, first to one side of the Speaker and then to the other. Red Tory (-ism) A description of those whose sympathy for collectivist public policy associated with state intervention in the economy and society seems to be based, not on liberal notions of equity or the egalitarian values of social democracy, but on a traditional conservative or Tory value of obligation inherent in a hierarchical society that is required for the preservation of the social order. The concept of Red Toryism was popularized in the 1960s following publication of George Grant’s Lament for a Nation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965), a polemic on the disintegrative influence of North American liberalism on traditional societies and their values. Others have argued whether the existence of a “Tory fragment” or “tinge” in English-Canadian political tradition, combined with the traditional, organic nature of French society, made the political culture of Canada either fundamentally or only superficially different from that of the United States. The traditional Tory values of hierarchy and mutual obligation in an organic, collectivist society are alleged to be responsible for the greater legitimacy of the political left and relative weakness of market-oriented individ-

Redistribution

ualism in Canada with concomitantly greater state involvement in economic and social policy compared to the US. Since Confederation, both Liberal and Conservative governments in Canada have generally introduced government programs involving state enterprise and regulation of the economy, as well as major redistributive social programs. The failure of the generally anti-government and social conservative Reform party to entice the Progressive Conservative party into a merger to “unite the right” in 1999–2000 in part reflected differences between social conservatives and traditional conservatives. Many observers considered the eventual merger in 2003 between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative party, to form the Conservative party, as a takeover by the Reform/Alliance element under Stephen Harper, confirmed in the party’s unsuccessful 2004 election campaign. However, the Conservative party formed a minority government following the 2006 election, with a campaign organization that included many prominent former Progressive Conservatives. See Class cleavage; Political culture; Redistributive policy and entries on political parties. Redistribution (electoral…of seats) The periodic redrawing of federal and provincial constituency boundaries to take into account population growth and shifts that have taken place since the previous redistribution. Redistribution takes place every decade and usually results in the creation of additional constituencies, the reduction of seats in some parts of a jurisdiction, and an increase elsewhere. The process is therefore replete with territorial and partisan political significance and potential for political conflict. The courts have also become involved in disputes over electoral constituency boundaries in several provinces. For some people, section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would guarantee voter equality against malapportionment—that is, constituencies should have approximately the same number of voters regardless of traditional considerations of geography and community attachments. The Supreme Court of Canada was divided 6–3 on an appeal of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal’s rejection of non-population considerations in the province’s electoral boundaries legislation (Reference re Saskatchewan Electoral Boundaries, 1991). The majority on the Supreme Court sustained Saskatchewan’s legislation that included a balance of population and non-population factors (distinct community interests: minority representation, rural, and cultural identity) that achieved “effective representation” in drawing constituency boundaries. Dissenting justices on the Supreme Court did not contest the recognition of non-population factors, but opposed the Saskatchewan legislation because it premised redistribution on rural overrepresentation and urban under-representation rather than on voter equality. They held that voter equality should be mandated in law, leaving those responsible for drawing the boundaries to limit the application of the principle within reason. At one time redistribution was the prerogative of governments and therefore open to partisan abuse, gerrymandering as well as malapportionment, to enhance the governing party’s chances at re-election. Since 1964, the drawing of constituency boundaries for federal elections is conducted by non-partisan provincial commissions. See Gerrymander; Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (redistribution of legislative seats); Malapportionment.

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Redistributive policy Public policy designed either to re-allocate wealth on an egalitarian basis (for example, in a progressive system of taxation) or to minimize the necessity of wealth to obtain a particular good or service (for example, public education or health care). Redistributive issues are class-related, with supporters of redistribution on the left of the class cleavage, and those opposing redistribution on the right. Debate in the twentieth century, and especially since the economic depression of the 1930s, has focused on the role of the state or public sector in appropriating private wealth for reinvestment as “social capital” and regulating the market economy to achieve basic standards of human welfare, and reasonable living and working conditions. One means of doing this is through the tax system, while others include the statutory power of government to nationalize certain industries or to create public corporations to compete with private companies, to regulate business activity through regulatory bodies, and to manage the economy generally through monetary as well as fiscal policies. By the end of the twentieth century, serious criticism had developed concerning the size of government involvement in the Canadian economy. This criticism was particularly powerful because it included left-wing critics who conceded that there appeared to be no necessary connection between the increased size and activity of the public sector since the Second World War and the distribution of personal wealth in society. Discussion of poverty in Canada has traditionally focused on territory and “have-not” regions. Since the 1990s, attention has also focused on population groups such as Native Peoples, the elderly, and the young, notably women and children in single-head families. The Canadian Council on Social Development, a non-profit social policy research organization, using Statistic Canada’s formula, reported that in 1999 almost five million Canadians, approximately one-sixth of the population lived in poverty (ccsd.ca; statcan.ca). See Class cleavage. Reference case (constitutional) A judicial decision on the constitutionality of legislation or proposed legislative action referred to a provincial court of appeal by a provincial government or to the Supreme Court of Canada by the federal government. Provincial governments can appeal provincial reference cases to the Supreme Court of Canada. The reference procedure is used variously by governments to transform debate on policy to debate on law, perhaps to evade political responsibility, to confer constitutional legitimacy on government policy, or hoping that the court will deny constitutional legitimacy to a policy they oppose. An important federal reference to the Supreme Court of Canada concerned the right of Quebec to secede unilaterally from Confederation under Canadian and international law (Secession Reference, 1998). Other examples of important federal references include the Labour Conventions Reference (1937) on federal “new deal” legislation and the limitations of treaty power; the Alberta Press Bill Reference (1938) on provincial Social Credit legislation, which compromised press freedom; the Anti-Inflation Reference (1976) on federal wage and price control legislation; the ability of parliament alone to amend the Senate (1979); and the federal government’s intent to seek patriation of the constitution with only limited

Referendum

provincial support (1981). The federal government also used the reference procedure with respect to negotiating offshore mineral rights with the provinces. An example of provincial use of the reference involved the Supreme Court’s confirmation in 2000 of the constitutionality of federal gun control legislation. The Alberta government had appealed the decision of the province’s Court of Appeal upholding the federal legislation, and was joined in its unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court by several other provincial and territorial governments as well as private parties. It could be said that the provincial and territorial governments knew Alberta’s case was weak, but that the reference procedure was used to satisfy local public opinion that they had opposed the federal legislation as much as possible. See some of the reference cases mentioned above in other entries; also, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada. Referendum A means by which a policy, constitutional question, or proposed legislation can be put to electors to register their approval or disapproval. This direct-democracy device runs counter to the principle of responsible government, with the political executive, or government-of-the-day, accountable to a representative legislature for all public policy. Referendums were held in Newfoundland in 1949 on its future, including union with Canada. With different options proposed, Newfoundlanders barely rejected Confederation in the first referendum and accepted it in the second. There were referendums in Quebec in 1980 and 1995 respecting its future status within Confederation. There have been three Canada-wide referendums since Confederation in 1867, but overall more at the provincial level, with the prospect of still more in the future. The three Canada-wide referendums held since Confederation were on prohibition in 1898, on conscription for military service in 1942, and on constitutional reform in 1992. In the wartime referendum in 1942—actually defined as a plebiscite—the federal Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King sought relief from its anti-conscription election pledge two years earlier. A seriously divisive issue, the referendum was designed to satisfy pro-conscription Canadians (predominantly anglophones), without necessarily committing the government to conscription, thus allaying the fears of anti-conscription Canadians (including most francophones). The failed constitutional Meech Lake Accord of 1987 had been negotiated following the defeat of the first referendum in Quebec on sovereignty held by the Parti Québécois government in 1980. The country-wide referendum on the constitutional Charlottetown Accord in 1992, though advisory to the federal and provincial governments, was held in view of widespread criticism of the elitist nature of constitutional negotiations that led to the ill-fated Meech Lake Accord of 1987 and the indication earlier that Quebec’s Liberal government would hold another provincial referendum on Quebec’s future in Confederation. Although the referendum in 1992 was the first country-wide vote on constitutional change, there had been earlier provincial experiences. Following the criticism of the private executive process of constitutional negotiations associated with the ill-fated Meech Lake Accord, several provinces introduced legislation to

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allow for referendums on constitutional amendments, notably Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta. The federal Progressive Conservative government followed suit, essentially to grant itself the option of holding one possibly to preclude several concurrent provincial referendums on differently worded questions. The country-wide referendum on the Charlottetown Accord was held under federal law throughout Canada, except Quebec, on the same day as the Quebec provincial referendum under its law, using the same question. Alberta and British Columbia treated the federal referendum as their own. There was no prior agreement on how to interpret the results on the Charlottetown Accord, but it appeared that the provincial governments would accept the results in their respective provinces. In the event, the Accord was clearly rejected by a country-wide majority of voters (55.4%) and by a majority of voters in all provinces except New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Ontario (where 49.8 voted “yes”) and the territories. Following the campaign, several criticisms of the referendum included the difficulty of defending a comprehensive set of compromise proposals against those who selectively opposed elements of the Accord but who were not obliged to present a comprehensive alternative; the tendency of some voters to treat the referendum as a “mid-term” vote of confidence in their federal and provincial political leadership; and the prospect of political leaders being less prepared to compromise on constitutional matters in the future that would be subject to a popular vote. Returned to office in 1994, the PQ government held another referendum on sovereignty in 1995, which was defeated by less than 1 per cent of the voters, with a 93 per cent voter turnout. The federal government responded with a constitutional reference on secession from Confederation to the Supreme Court of Canada and the subsequent Clarity Act, outlining the federal parliament’s response in the event of future provincial referendum on sovereignty. British Columbia’s Referendum Act provides for binding and non-binding referendums. In 2005, a referendum on altering the provincial electoral system (governed by the Electoral Reform Referendum Act) was binding, but failed to obtain the required support of more than 60 per cent of valid votes cast and more than 50 per cent of valid votes cast in 48 of the 79 provincial constituencies. In the early twentieth century, the Progressive party supported the institution of the referendum. The Reform/Alliance, in the populist Progressive tradition, favoured the referendum and other instruments of direct democracy, but they were not included in 2005 in the program of the Conservative party that issued from the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. Referendum campaigns raise questions such as, who constructs the question, under what legal strictures should campaigns for and against the question be conducted, and under what conditions should results be considered legitimate and legally binding. See entries on various items mentioned here. Reform party A social conservative and populist federal movement party founded in 1987, with its leadership and popular support base primarily in Alberta, but generally throughout western Canada. It was re-named the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance and, in 2003, merged with the Progressive Conservative party as the Conservative party.

Regina Manifesto

Like the Progressives and Social Credit before it, Reform articulated western feelings of alienation from national political decision-making initially under the slogan “The West Wants In.” But the party’s founding leader, Preston Manning, son of long-time Alberta Social Credit premier Ernest Manning, had larger political ambitions to “Unite the Right” in federal politics. However, the immediate result of the party’s popularity was to undermine the western base of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government and contribute not only to its defeat by the Liberal party, but also to the Progressive Conservative party’s fatal wounding in the 1993 election. With its 18.7 per cent of the total vote concentrated in West, the Reform party won 54 seats, all but one in the West, and came close to forming the official opposition—a role won by the Bloc Québécois, thus undermining the second pillar of Prime Minister Mulroney’s electoral coalition, support from Quebec nationalists. With its minor 16 per cent of the vote diffused throughout the country, the Progressive Conservative’s won only two seats, a undisputed debacle. Reform formed the official opposition following the 1997 election but, in a five-party federal election, did so with only 19 per cent of the vote concentrated again in western Canada. Still, Preston Manning failed to convince the Progressive Conservative party leadership to merge with Reform and, in order to improve its fortunes in central and eastern Canada, the Reform party became the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance party. However, Stockwell Day, a former Alberta cabinet minister, defeated Manning for the Alliance leadership and, with dissension in the ranks and with no further substantial progress made in the 2000 election (25.5% of the vote still concentrated in western Canada), lost the leadership to Stephen Harper, an Alberta member of parliament. Under Harper’s leadership, the Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003 as the Conservative party, but lost the 2004 election to the Liberals, with a longstanding lead in the campaign evaporating in the final few days. The 29.6 popular vote total was less than the combined Alliance/Progressive Conservative 37.7 vote share in 2000. Many populist elements of the Reform/Alliance, such as support for referendums, legislative recall and popular legislative initiatives were not included in the Conservative party program in 2005. None the less, the newly formed Conservative party still harboured many social conservative policy attitudes of the Reform/Alliance, particularly related to minority groups and lifestyle, which appeared to disturb voters particularly in urban Canada, and also among many adherents to the former Progressive Conservative party. However, the party’s successful campaign organization in 2006, which resulted in a minority Conservative government, contained many prominent former Progressive Conservatives, though voters in urban Canada generally were still reluctant to support the party. See Canadian Alliance; Conservative party (2003–); Movement parties; Progressive Conservative party; Populism; Third parties (political). Regina Manifesto The founding document of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), adopted in Regina in 1933, advocating government ownership of basic industries and economic state planning to create “democratic selfgovernment, based on economic equality.” The manifesto declared that “the principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of

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profits. We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order…in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition.…” The document asserted that no CCF government would “rest content” until it had “eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning.…” The members of the League for Social Reconstruction drafted the document, and the CCF executive revised it before it was adopted by the party. In 1956, the party began to shift to a more moderate, democratic socialist position. The Winnipeg Declaration of 1956 eschewed talk of the eradication of capitalism and emphasized government planning and regulation to pursue the party’s egalitarian goals. The CCF was subsequently reorganized in 1961 as the New Democratic party. See Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); League for Social Reconstruction; New Democratic party (NDP); Winnipeg Declaration. Regional disparities The variations in levels of natural resource, business, and personal wealth in different regions of Canada. These disparities have fostered the development of a powerful geographic cleavage in Canadian politics. For example, in the early half of the twentieth century in the prairie West, the combination of geographic and class-related discontent led to the development of indigenous grassroots political movements. Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements since the Second World War have been designed to “equalize” the per capita revenue of provincial governments in Canada in order to provide comparable levels of public services. In 1982, federal regional economic development policy to reduce disparities in opportunities, and federal equalization payments for provincial public services were entrenched in the constitution (Constitution Act, 1982, Part III). Earlier, federal regional development policy included programs under the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Rural Development Act, 1961, the Fund for Rural Economic Development (1966), and the Regional Incentives Development Act, 1969. The federal and provincial governments signed comprehensive general development agreements in the 1970s to coordinate federal programs for the development of particular provinces and regions under the aegis then of the federal Department of Regional and Economic Expansion, later renamed Regional Industrial Expansion. From 1980 to 1984, two central agencies, the Ministry of State for Social Development and the Ministry of State for Economic and Regional Development, played key roles in regional development policies. In 2006, there were separate economic development offices for most regions, each with a regional minister responsible—the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Western Economic Diversification, Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario and Western Economic Diversification. In addition, Human Resources and Skills Development and Social Development was a federal department concerned with “human capital development” programs. Debate persists over federal regional and social development strategy. Apart from complaints that the programs constitute mammoth handouts for electoral purposes, there are significant policy issues: Should efforts be designed primarily for “prosperity of place” or “prosperity of people”? Is the commitment of public capital and the direction of private capital into low-income regions a better strat-

Regionalism

egy than the promotion of labour retraining and subsequent emigration to highproductivity areas of the country? To what extent and cost should national public enterprises and regulatory agencies be compelled to sustain regional development objectives? See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Geographic cleavage. Regional government A form of local or municipal government, usually resulting from selective amalgamation and establishment of a two-tiered federation of established area municipalities. Municipal government is an area of provincial responsibility (Constitution Act, 1867, s.92:8) and forms of regional municipal government may vary widely within a province. The purpose of regional municipal government is to establish an equitable tax base and distribution of public services over a wide area, while disturbing the established sense of community as little as possible. The alternative to two-tiered regional municipalities is the amalgamation of area municipalities into a single municipal government, as occurred amid considerable controversy in Canada’s largest cities, notably Toronto in 1998 and Montreal in 2002. Other cities have also experienced intense debates over provincial reorganization of local government, for example Winnipeg in the 1970s and Halifax-Dartmouth later. The formation of regional (or fully amalgamated) municipal governments is criticized for weakening local community identity in small municipalities and rural townships, establishing “distant” administrative authorities with overall planning and economic development responsibilities, and facilitating the interests of the property development industry and related professions. Regionalism A term indicating objectively distinctive areas within a larger spatial unit in terms of geography, economic resources and development, sociodemographic character and political attitudes and behaviour, and normatively to indicate a positive or negative impact of such distinctiveness within the larger unit. Because of these various regional differences, Canada’s political culture comprises regional subcultures. Indeed, the existence of Canada as a federal rather than unitary state is indicative of longstanding regional differences and interests. Consequently, the country’s constitutional law and political conventions reflect regionalism. The provinces are autonomous political units that may individually or collectively represent regions: Atlantic Canada, the Maritime provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the prairie West, and British Columbia; the territories comprise the North. In the federal parliament, representation in the House of Commons favours relatively underpopulated provinces or regions, and representation in the Senate is based on regions. Representation on the Supreme Court of Canada is also based on region both by law and political convention. Political convention dictates much of federal politics including representation in the cabinet. That considerable federal public policy deals with overcoming regional disparities in economic development and personal wealth is acknowledged in the Constitution Act, 1982 (Part III). Finally, provincial politics also involves responsiveness to distinctive regions within a province and local municipal institutions also include regional municipalities. See Cultural duality; Geographic cleavage; Political culture; Regional disparities; Regional government.

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Regulation 17 (Ontario, 1913) A provincial regulation that severely restricted the use of the French language in Ontario’s public schools, making English effectively the only language of instruction after Year Three. This anti-French measure affected a sizeable French-speaking population in the province, especially in the Ottawa Valley along the Ontario-Quebec border, including Canada’s capital city, but also in Northern Ontario generally and in southwestern Ontario. French-language instruction in Ontario is now widely available for both francophone and anglophone students. The dispute over Regulation 17 was one of several disputes in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries over minority denominational (Protestant and Roman Catholic) rights in education that were “protected” in the British North America Act, 1867 (s.93; since 1982, the Constitution Act) and in statutes establishing post-Confederation provinces such as Manitoba in the Manitoba Act, 1970. In 1890, the linguistic education rights of minority French-speaking Catholics were denied in Manitoba with passage of the Public Schools Act. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms enacted in 1982 includes educational rights defined in terms of English and French linguistic minority populations in the provinces (s.23). In the late 1990s, constitutional amendments were enacted to create “linguistic” school boards in Quebec (an amendment required given the provisions of the 1867 Act) and to modify denominational education in Newfoundland and Labrador (an amendment required given a provision of the terms of Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation in 1949). See Language rights; Manitoba schools question (and French language rights, 1890); Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984). Regulatory agencies (regulations) Public bodies, including crown corporations, commissions and tribunals, established and operated under authority delegated by a particular statute to establish and administer public policy. Enabling legislation usually states the intent of public policy in broad terms, leaving it to the agency to formulate specific policy in the form of regulations, or subordinate legislation. Though appointments to boards of regulatory agencies by governments frequently include patronage appointments, the agencies and their administration are to operate independently, at “arm’s length” from the government. A regulation or order enacted by a regulatory agency has the force of law. Thus, some agencies sit as courts of record, examining witnesses under oath, compelling the production of papers and enforcing the agencies’ orders. Federal agencies in important policy fields include the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian Transportation Agency, and the National Energy Board. A relatively minor agency in terms of policy fields, but one that attracts considerable public attention is the National Parole Board. Parliament has a joint Senate-House committee on the scrutiny of regulations to examine the subordinate legislation of federal regulatory agencies. However, the committee cannot examine fully the output of the regulatory apparatus of the federal executive and administration. The delegated power that regulatory agencies possess is quasi-judicial—that is, decisions are based on considerations of public policy and public interest by an

Remedial legislation

agency that combines executive, legislative, administrative, and adjudicative functions. That these roles are combined in a single agency creates considerable scope for abuse of delegated power. Particular statutes set out the right of appeal to the courts or to the cabinet of the decisions of each regulatory agency. The procedures of regulatory agencies are also subject to court challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For example, in an early case following the Charter’s enactment in 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that procedures of the Immigration and Refugee Board violated section 7: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the persona and the right not be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” (Singh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration, 1985). See Crown corporation; Delegated power; Quasi-judicial power; Rule of law; Singh Case (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1985). Remedial decree (litigation) Action in the courts (litigation) and judicial rulings (decrees) that impose obligations on governments to achieve a remedy for the denial or infringement of a constitutional right protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The effect of such litigation and decrees is to grant a policy-making and implementation role for judges. In addition to the power of judicial nullification of legislation that conflicts with the constitution (Constitution Act, 1982, s.52:1), the Charter grants courts the power to remedy an infringement or denial of a guaranteed right or freedom as the court “considers appropriate and just in the circumstances” (s.24:1). Thus, judges can impose obligations on relevant public authorities regarding public policy. Perhaps because remedial action respecting education rights has been part of the Canadian constitution since Confederation (see Remedial legislation), the area of public policy most affected by this form of judicial activism has been minority-language education rights guaranteed under the Charter (s.23). Courts have imposed obligations on education authorities in several provinces respecting facilities, funding and administration of French-language education (Marchand v. Simcoe Board of Education, Ontario, 1986; Lavoie v. Nova Scotia, 1988; Mahé v. Alberta, 1990). Remedial litigation and decrees have also dealt with infringements or denials of equality rights under the Charter (s.15). In some cases, the court suspends, or stays, nullification of an unconstitutional Act or the “reading down” of a section of an Act, to ensure that benefits of the Act are not denied and also to give the relevant legislature time to amend its legislation and any ensuing regulations. This practice has occurred, for example, in matters related to laws involving official French-language rights in Manitoba, adoptive and natural parental rights, and restricted access to private health care. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); and Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive; Supreme Court of Canada. Remedial legislation Legislation that the federal cabinet can introduce in parliament on its own initiative, or in response to a formal appeal, to protect denominational schools established in a province at the time of union. The Constitution Act, 1867 gave provinces the right to legislate “in relation to Education” (s.93).

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Remedial federal legislation to protect denomination school rights, however, represented an explicit limit on provincial jurisdiction (s.93[4]). The federal government sought to exercise parliament’s authority only once, in the 1890s. The remedial legislation introduced by the federal Conservative government to deal with the anti-French and anti-Catholic Manitoba Public Schools Act of 1890 failed to pass, in the face of Liberal opposition and dissident Conservatives. The Liberals, led by a French Quebecker, Wilfrid Laurier, nonetheless appeared to win on the issue in Quebec as defenders of provincial rights, regardless of the fact that the issue before parliament involved the rights of a French, Catholic minority elsewhere in Canada. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enacted in 1982, guarantees linguistic, French and English minority-education rights (s.23). In 1984, the Supreme Court struck down the provisions of Quebec’s Bill 101 that restricted access among children of anglophone parents to English-language education in the province as a violation of section 23. In 1986, 1988, and 1990, the courts were used to assert francophone rights under section 23 of the Charter in Ontario, Nova Scotia and Alberta, respectively. Since 1982, constitutionally protected denominational education rights can be altered by resolutions of both houses of the federal parliament and the legislature of the relevant province (Constitution Act, 1982, s.43[b]). In the 1990s, constitutional amendments were enacted to create “linguistic” school boards in Quebec, given provincial obligations under the 1867 Act, and to modify the basis of denominational education in Newfoundland and Labrador, given one of the terms of union when Newfoundland entered Confederation in 1949. See Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Manitoba schools question (and French language rights, 1890); Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984). Renewed / Restructured federalism Terms used in the late-1970s and 1980s to describe various options for constitutional reform, essentially in opposition to the sovereignty-association proposals of the Parti Québécois. The federal Liberal government described its proposals in the constitutional amendment bill of 1978 as “renewed federalism.” In 1979, the federal Task Force on Canadian Unity described its proposals as “restructured federalism.” In the Quebec referendum campaign on sovereignty-association in 1980, the federal government promised “renewed federalism.” Various proposals by the Liberal party of Quebec under Claude Ryan from 1977 and Premier Robert Bourassa from 1985 were generally referred to as “renewed federalism.” Other terms have been used to describe proposals to modify Canadian federalism. During the referendum campaign on sovereignty in 1995, provincial federalists, notably Quebec Liberal leader Daniel Johnson, supported “flexible federalism.” Federal Liberal governments in the 1960s described their approach to federal-provincial relations as “co-operative federalism” and, in the 1990s, as “collaborative federalism.” See Federalism; Sovereignty-association. Representation by population The determination of representation in a legislature according to the size of the population. In the Union Act of 1840, which reunited Upper and Lower Canada in the Province of Canada, Canada West

Representative governement

(Upper Canada, later Ontario) had equal representation in the assembly with Canada East (Lower Canada, later Quebec), although Canada East had a larger population. The phrase “Rep by Pop” was a political slogan of Reformers such as George Brown in Canada West in the 1850s, when the census of 1851 showed that the population in Canada West had become larger than in Canada East. The principle of representation by population is modified in the federal parliament by concerns over representation of territory and of minority francophone and anglophone cultural interests. At the time of Confederation, the British North America Act (since 1982, the Constitution Act) established representation by population in the House of Commons by province, using Quebec’s predominantly francophone population as a base to calculate the number of seats each province would have (“proportionate representation”: ss.51–52). A so-called senatorial floor amendment (s.51A) to the British North America Act (since 1982, the Constitution Act) in 1915, provides that no province will have fewer members in the House of Commons (MPs) than its number of senators. By this provision, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have more MPs than the size of their populations warrants. The Representation Act, 1985 guarantees provinces no fewer seats in the House of Common than they had in 1976, effectively benefiting Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. A minimum of representation from the three sparsely populated northern territories—Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon—is also guaranteed (Constitution Act, 1999). Added to these provisions, there are now limits on the number of MPs in the House of Commons. Thus, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario are provinces whose population growth is not fully reflected in additional constituencies. Modified provincial representation by population in the House of Commons is matched with a permanent sectional balance in the appointed Senate, which includes an equal number of twenty-four senators from Quebec, Ontario, the three Maritime provinces combined, and the four western provinces combined (ss.21, 22, 40) and nominal representation from Newfoundland and the territories. Twenty-four was a deliberate choice of number for “regional” senators, as representation in the Senate from Quebec, the only majority-francophone province, was related specifically to the 24 electoral constituencies of Lower Canada at the time of Confederation to ensure minority representation in the upper house from then predominantly anglophone parts of the province. Federal legislation— successive Representation Acts—contains the formula for the redistribution of seats in the House of Commons following each census. See entries on various items mentioned here. Representative government A political system that includes an elected assembly. In North America, the phrase is usually a reference to early forms of government in British colonies settled largely by Britons. The colonial model of representative government eventually comprised a governor appointed by the British government, his appointed executive council, a legislative assembly elected on a limited franchise, and a governor-appointed legislative council. The first representative assembly was elected in Virginia in 1619. In what is now Canada, representative government was established first in Nova Scotia in 1749 and in Prince Edward Island in 1773. New Brunswick was separated from Nova

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Scotia and granted representative government in 1784. The Quebec Act of 1774 required the governor of that colony to establish an appointed legislative council but not an elected assembly, which was, considering the largely francophone population and the trouble brewing in colonies to the south, “at present inexpedient.” Provisions for elected assemblies and an executive council distinct from the legislative council eventually came with the creation of Upper and Lower Canada by the Constitutional Act of 1791. Newfoundland first achieved representative government in 1832. The colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia had some form of representative government periodically from 1856, but the principle was not firmly established until Confederation in 1871. Though government was representative, a governor’s appointed executive council was not accountable, that is, not responsible to the elected assembly. The executive councils of Upper and Lower Canada, for example, were drawn from society’s elite, known respectively as the Family Compact and the Château Clique. Representative government acquired significant meaning in British North America with the development by convention of responsible government in 1848, which required the governor to appoint and retain an executive council conditional on the continued support, or confidence of the legislative assembly. See Responsible government. Representative (trustee) theory of representation A theory of representation according to which legislators are elected as trustees to represent views that, following debate, they hold to be in the general interest, regardless of the particular interests of their constituency or the views of the majority of their constituents. The theory is often recalled in the quotation of Edmund Burke, the eighteenthcentury British philosopher and statesman in his “Address to the Electors of Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll [3 Nov. 1774]”: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.… Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate against other agents and advocates; Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest—that of the whole where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide but the general good.… You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but a member of Parliament” (emphasis in the original). Thus a provincial or federal legislature is a supreme assembly of representatives from all regions of the province or country freely debating and determining public policy according to their independent judgment. This view is contrary to the delegate and occupational group theories of representation, and against such populist inhibitions on legislators and parliaments as recall and referendums. In practice, the disciplined party system compromises the representative theory. Most candidates for election to the House of Commons and the provincial legislatures stand on behalf of registered political parties, and, except in rare instances when legislators switch parties, or “cross the floor,” they can be relied upon to support their party if elected. It was this reality, combined with the insensitivity of the established parliamentary parties’ leadership to the interests of western Canadians, that gave rise to the delegate and occupational group theories of representation in Canada in the early twentieth century and to demands for the

Residual power

introduction of such devices of direct democracy as popular legislative initiatives, recall, and referendums. See Crossing the floor; Delegate theory of representation; Initiative (legislative); Recall; Referendum. Reservation (of legislation) Powers exercised in the early years of Confederation by the governor general to reserve certain classes of parliamentary bills for the “Queen’s Pleasure” (that is, for approval or disallowance by the British government) (British North America Act, 1867 [since 1982, the Constitution Act], s.56); power similarly possessed by the provincial lieutenant-governors, under the Constitution Act 1867 (s.90), to reserve provincial bills for the pleasure of the governor-incouncil (that is, the federal cabinet). The British Statute of Westminster, 1931, following a decision of the imperial conference in 1926, terminated this British imperial role for governors general in the dominions. Section 90 has remained “on the books” for purposes of federal reservation and disallowance powers respecting provincial legislatures and the role of provincial lieutenant-governors (ss.56, 90). These federal powers were consistent with the intentions of the founders of Confederation to create a centralized federal union. However, the trend of federal-provincial relations in the twentieth century, assisted by judicial decisions, was in the opposite direction. In a reference sought by the federal government in 1938, the Supreme Court declared the federal powers of reservation and disallowance to be unimpaired (Disallowance and Reservation Case). However, constitutional negotiations since the 1970s have included federal government offers to abolish its powers of reservation and disallowance. See Disallowance. Residual power A comprehensive grant of legislative authority to one particular level of government in a federation, exclusive of those areas to which authority has been explicitly assigned. In Canada, the founders of Confederation clearly intended parliament to possess residual power as the preamble to section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867 allows the federal parliament to legislate “for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects…assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces.” The Act then lists federal powers under enumerated heads “for greater Certainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing.…” A result over time of constitutional adjudication by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London was the elevation the enumerated head outlining provincial jurisdiction with respect to “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” (s.92:13) to a position superior to that of the preamble to section 91. The JCPC viewed the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause as an emergency power clause or as a source of residual power only in new policy fields not presaged in the 1860s, such as radio broadcasting for which legislative competence was granted to parliament in 1932. The Supreme Court of Canada, which became the final judicial arbiter of the constitution in 1949, has generally broadened the federal government’s powers under “Peace, Order, and good Government” and “The Regulation of Trade and Commerce” (s.91:2) in matters of “inherent national importance.” See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); “Peace, Order, and good Government”; “Property and Civil Rights in the Province”; Supreme Court of Canada; “Trade and Commerce” power.

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Resolution (of the house) (Motion) With the exception of formal constitutional resolutions that reflect the will of the legislature, resolutions or motions expressing only an opinion, as opposed to an order, of the legislature on their adoption by a majority of members present. Government and opposition backbenchers introduce motions, similar to private members’ bills, to publicize a policy idea and encourage public support. Opposition motions frequently imply criticism of government policy and highlight an alternate course of action. The government can encourage its backbench supporters to introduce resolutions or motions that do the opposite, to highlight division within an opposition party’s ranks on some policy. See Private members’ legislation. Responsible government The constitutional requirement that to remain in office within a parliamentary term, a government must retain the support of the elected legislature on major government legislation and motions of confidence. Thus, the governor general (lieutenant-governors in the provinces) normally appoints as prime minister (premier) the acknowledged leader of the largest party represented in the House of Commons (provincial legislature). Having been asked to form a government, the prime minister (premier) will recommend the appointment of party supporters in the legislature as cabinet ministers—the effective part of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada (the lieutenant-governor’s Executive Council). An incumbent prime minister or premier whose party does not command a majority in a newly elected house nonetheless has the right to remain in office and seek its confidence. If a government is defeated in a confidence vote, the governor general will either ask another party leader to form a government and seek the confidence of the house or dissolve the legislature for an election. Beyond the motion thanking the governor general for the address opening a session of parliament and money bills, the application of the principle of responsible government, like any constitutional convention, can vary across legislatures and over time. Generally, past practice has involved strict party discipline, considering most votes as votes of confidence. However, in 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin adopted the British “three-line” classification of votes for government members: three-line votes were votes of confidence that imposed the whip on all members; two-line votes released all but ministers and parliamentary secretaries from the whip; one-line votes released all members from the whip. That a prime minister might declare a vote not to be one of confidence, thus releasing government party backbenchers to vote as they wish, does not obligate opposition party leaders to do likewise. Indeed, opposition parties might insist that such as vote should be considered one of confidence, especially if the government is expected to, or indeed does, lose the vote. The outcome of such a government and opposition dispute in a particular legislature will constitute a precedent defining the behaviour required respecting the principle of responsible government in that legislature and perhaps others as well. The advent of responsible government in British North America is associated with Lord Durham’s governorship in British North America, following unrest and violence in Upper and Lower Canada in the 1830s. In his report to the imperial government, Durham recommended responsible government for the colonies: the retention of appointment to the governor’s Executive Council conditional on

Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations

the continued confidence of the Legislative Assembly (lower house). The possible conflict between a governor’s instructions from the British Colonial Office and the advice of the colonial government would be resolved by an appropriate division or distribution of responsibilities between the colonial and imperial governments. Durham reported in 1839, and responsible government eventually came by convention to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the United Province of Canada in 1848, and to Prince Edward Island in 1851. Responsible government was established in British Columbia upon entry into Confederation in 1871. Newfoundland first achieved responsible government in 1855 and the prairie provinces, previously governed as part of federal territories, acquired responsible government upon achieving provincial status in Confederation (Manitoba, 1870; Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905). The principle of responsible government also applies to territorial legislatures. See Lord Durham’s Report. Returning Officer (RO); Deputy Returning Officers (DROs) The principal electoral officer in a constituency, responsible for the direction and supervision of the administration of a general election or by-election, and the deputies, appointed by each Returning Officer. The Returning Officer is responsible for the availability of the list of eligible voters and its revision; the establishment of polling stations; the administration of advance polls and the polling on election day; the official reporting of the vote; and the care of both cast and unused ballots. Political parties and the public may call upon the Returning Officer for clarification of the provisions of the Elections Act. Each Returning Officer appoints deputy returning officers who, assisted by poll clerks, administer the election in the polling stations in the constituency. Where one location might contain several polling stations, the RO will appoint a central poll supervisor to oversee the deputies at each poll. The deputies are immediately responsible for their polling station, for the initial unofficial count of the ballots when the polls have closed, and for the secure delivery of the ballots to the Returning Officer. In the case of close elections or allegations of impropriety, the Returning Officer or a candidate may apply for a judicial recount. At the conclusion of the election process, each Returning Officer returns the election writ to the chief electoral officer, certifying the results. Riding An informal term for a legislative constituency or electoral district. See Constituency (riding). Right, political See Class cleavage. Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937– 1940) A royal commission established unilaterally by the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King during the economic depression of the 1930s to examine and make recommendations on the distribution of legislative powers and the financial relationship between the federal and provincial governments. Its evidence and report constitute an important study of the basis of Confederation that set the stage for major restructuring of federalprovincial relations following the Second World War.

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Royal assent

The commission examined the distribution of legislative responsibilities, including access to revenue and regional, economic, and social disparities within the country. In brief, it recommended a transfer of functions and a shifting of taxation power to the federal government and the creation of federal grants to the provinces on the basis of need, to equalize the tax revenues of the provinces. Thus, every province could “provide for its people services of average Canadian standards and…thus alleviate the stress and shameful conditions which now weaken national unity and handicap many Canadians…without resort to heavier taxation than the Canadian average, to provide adequate social, educational, and developmental services” (Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, 2 [Ottawa, 1940], 125, 86). Specifically, the commission recommended that the provinces relinquish personal income and corporation taxes and succession duties, and that the federal government “respect” the provinces’ remaining revenue sources, assume all provincial debts, and accept responsibility for relief of the unemployed and a proposed old age pension. The federal government would pay an “adjustment grant” to “have-not” provinces, based on a formula reviewed every five years. The Rowell-Sirois report was presented to parliament in 1940 and discussed at the Dominion-Provincial Conference in 1941. Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario rejected the recommendations outright, while Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Maritime provinces were favourably disposed. Surprisingly, Quebec vacillated. Little was accomplished at a time when there was a more immediate need to prosecute successfully the Second World War. However, many of the commission’s proposals were effectively introduced on a piecemeal basis under the wartime and postwar leadership of the federal government. Canada thus began an era of centralized political leadership and federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Royal assent Approval by the crown’s representative, or delegate, to legislation passed by the legislature. The date on which royal assent is given is endorsed on every Act, becomes part of the Act, and is the date on which the Act takes effect unless other provisions for its proclamation are contained in it. There is statutory provision for royal assent by the governor general (lieutenant-governors in the provinces) in sections 55–57 and 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867. By the Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931), imperial reservation and disallowance is no longer effective, but the statutory power remains in order to effect federal powers of reservation and disallowance of provincial legislation. By convention, however, royal assent either by lieutenant-governors or the governor general is a formality. Since the 1970s, federal governments have proposed in constitutional negotiations to relinquish its statutory power over provincial legislation. See Crown prerogatives; Disallowance; Reservation (of legislation); Responsible government. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) (rcmp-grc.gc.ca) The federal lawenforcement agency created in 1873 (then as the North-West Mounted Police) that enforces criminal and provincial law in all provinces and territories except Quebec and Ontario, which have provincial police forces, and shares responsibilities with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in that province. The RCMP is a

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

civil force, trained and organized in a paramilitary fashion. The principal officers are appointed by the governor-in-council, or federal cabinet. They include a commissioner and eight deputy commissioners. In 1984, responsibility for security services was transferred from the RCMP to the newly created Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP and an External Review Committee were also established in the 1980s. However, the RCMP received new powers respecting national security in the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, adopted following the attacks in the United States in 2001. The minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, a department and portfolio established in 2001, is the minister responsible for the RCMP. The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001 amended the Criminal Code to enable disabling and dismantling of terrorist groups, and “terrorist activity” inside or outside Canada. Terrorist activity includes actions taken for political, religious, or ideological purposes that intimidate the public concerning security, or compels government response to killing or endangering a person, causing significant property damage that might harm people, or interfering with an essential service, facility or system. To effect these objectives in the Act, the RCMP was granted powers of electronic surveillance, preventive arrest, and arrest without warrant of suspected terrorists leading to a judicial investigative hearing under a revised Canada Evidence Act on restricted disclosure of information to ensure national defence and security. Law enforcement powers under the Act are subject to a five-year “sunset” provision that requires parliamentary re-enactment and annual reports to parliament on use of the provisions for arrests without warrant, and investigative hearings. The Public Safety Act, 2002, passed in 2004, granted designated RCMP officers access to Advance Passenger Information to screen prospective airline passengers (for instance, name, gender, date of birth, citizenship, and travel document number) for national and transportation security. An earlier version of the public safety measure, which would have allowed access to lists for the primary purpose of identifying persons for whom a warrant had been issued, was amended to permit only incidental identification during access only for security purposes. The abolition of the RCMP’s security responsibilities in the 1980s had followed the recommendations of a federal royal commission established in 1978 under Justice David McDonald to investigate allegations of wrongdoing (“Certain Activities”) by the RCMP during the 1970s. Matters referred to the McDonald Commission included: a break-in at Parti Québécois headquarters and the theft of membership lists and financial documents (1973); 400 break-ins without warrants by the criminal investigations branch, mainly in British Columbia (from 1970); penetration of a faction of the New Democratic party (1970–1973); the electronic surveillance of at least one member of parliament (1977); extensive unauthorized mail openings (1950s-1976); the burning of a barn in Quebec (1972); theft of dynamite (1972); use of forged documents (1971); widespread monitoring of election candidates (since the 1950s); and the use of violence in recruiting informants (early 1970s in Quebec). Some of these matters were also investigated in the late 1970s by a Quebec inquiry (Keable Commission). Also under investigation in Ontario (Krever Commission) was access to confidential files (widespread since 1970). In the matter of a break-in at a news agency in Montreal in 1972, an RCMP

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officer was found guilty and given an unconditional discharge. In some of these cases, the extent of RCMP knowledge and authorization was undetermined; in others, senior personnel either were or were not informed, but apparently authorized some of the activities. In 1992, it was revealed that the surveillance of the indépendantiste movement in Quebec in the 1970s and 1980s included payment for information from a deputy minister, later minister of intergovernmental relations. One of the objectives of the McDonald inquiry was to ascertain the degree of ministerial involvement. There was liaison among the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, senior civil servants, and three solicitors general during this period. It appears, however, that communications were characterized partly by distrust between the civilians and the police officers. There also appeared to be a desire on the part of the police to protect their “cabinet boss” from having embarrassing information, and an equal desire on the ministers’ part not to have it. While RCMP officers testified to the McDonald commission that they had informed their ministers of various activities, the three former solicitors general each testified that they had not been informed. In 1977, the solicitor general told the House of Commons that steps were being taken to bring the security service division of the RCMP within the law and under cabinet control. Two years later, however, the head of security service told the McDonald commission that there were still no formalized briefings or range of specifics to be brought to the attention of the minister. A chief recommendation of the McDonald commission was the creation of a separate civilian organization for security services. The creation of the civilian security organization, CSIS, and of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (cpc-cpp.gc.ca) resulted from the McDonald and other inquiries into the RCMP. The public complaints commission, composed of full- and part-time members, is appointed by the federal government in consultation with ministers responsible for policing in the relevant province or territory. The commission reviews and inquires into public complaints about the RCMP and may itself initiate investigations and hold public hearings. Commission reports go to the minister responsible for the RCMP, the RCMP commissioner, the complainant, and officers whose behaviour has been reviewed. The RCMP External Review Committee is an independent quasi-judicial body appointed by the federal government to review internal grievance cases referred by the RCMP commissioner, including discipline, demotion, and discharge. The committee’s role involves regular and civilian employees of the RCMP whose employment is outside the jurisdiction of the Public Service Staff Relations Board. Given certain national security obligations once again since 2001, the role of the RCMP and others with respect to the detention and deportation of a naturalized Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, was the subject of a judicial commission of inquiry under Justice Dennis O’Connor, begun in 2004 (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials Related to Maher Arar; www.ararcommission.ca). Arar, a suspected terrorist, was sent from the United States to Syria without formal legal procedures (“extraordinary rendition”) and, according to a fact-finder report in 2005, tortured there before his release and return to Canada without charge. In 2005, the departing chair of the public complaints commission, Shirley Heafey, complained herself that there was no effective civilian review of the national security activities of the RCMP, having initiated a complaint that the

Royal commission

RCMP might have provided material to law enforcement authorities in the United States without spelling out (caveats) that the information provided was not to be passed to others by the recipient. It was the RCMP’s violation of its own policies that apparently contributed to Arar’s fate. There were complaints as well concerning a naturalized Canadian who was allegedly tortured in Syria and Egypt in 2002. Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin insisted that the O’Connor inquiry already established in Arar’s case would be sufficient in this case. Despite the foregoing, the RCMP is held in considerable public esteem, especially in western Canada. First as the North-West Mounted Police, the RCMP was closely associated with European settlement from the late-nineteenth century when the region was federal territory, and is visible today in the West and Atlantic Canada as provincial police forces. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); Public Safety Act, 2002 (2004). Royal commission An inquiry into some special matter of public interest, in the case of federal commissions under the Inquiries Act or another statute to provide information and advice on public policy. Not all commissions of inquiry, as they are generally known, are designated “royal”; but, apart from the prestige afforded by the name, any other commission of inquiry may have as much authority. A royal commission may comprise one or several members, empowered to hold public hearings and call witnesses, and some have extensive research programs and published studies as supplements to their reports. While commissioners may be appointed on the basis of their expertise and background in the area of investigation, governments are also careful to choose people who are likely to be sympathetic to their general aims. Some reports of royal commissions may have fairly immediate impact in terms of government legislation; other reports may help to create a climate of public opinion favourable to the implementation of comparable proposals later. A commission might be established to allay public concern on a particular matter, giving the impression of government attention to it without actually acting on the matter. The appointment of a royal commission at least signals a government’s interest and concern. Important federal royal commissions since the mid-twentieth century have included the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937–1940), the Massey Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (1949–1951), the Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organization (1960–1962), and the Laurendeau-Dunton Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–1967). The Bird Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1967–1970) provided considerable impetus for the women’s movement. Two royal commissions on Canada’s economic future—one chaired by a future federal Liberal finance minister and the other by a former federal Liberal finance minister—inspired very opposed policy values and prescriptions. Walter Gordon’s Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects in the late 1950s and his economic nationalism was influential when he later became finance minister in the 1960s and a prominent public activist later in private life. In the 1980s, Donald Macdonald, who had been minister of finance in the 1970s, chaired the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for

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Canada. Though established by a Liberal government, it reported during a Progressive Conservative government. Its major recommendations supporting free trade with the United States and government policy to make Canadian business more competitive internationally suited the agenda of the Conservative govern ment, which essentially dismantled any residue of economic nationalist policies it inherited from the Liberals. The Progressive Conservatives, who except for an eight-month period in 1979–1980 had been in opposition for 21 years, were embroiled in various scandals following their victory in the 1984 election. Later, the government established the Lortie Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (1989–1992) following criticisms of the electoral process, including behaviour in the government party. Significant recommendations were subsequently enacted in amendments to the Canada Elections Act. In 1996, the Dussault-Erasmus Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples issued its report, calling for a new relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people based on equality, respect, reconciliation, and self-determination for Aboriginal peoples through self-government. The Baird Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, reporting in 1993, led to federal legislation banning human cloning, growing embryos for research, sex selection, rent-a-womb contracts, and the sale of human eggs and sperm. The report of the Romanow Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, in 2002, framed subsequent federal-provincial negotiations on financing and improving the delivery of health care. Not all royal commission reports have been received by governments with enthusiasm and support. The (Kenneth) Carter Royal Commission on Taxation, established by a Progressive Conservative government and reporting to a Liberal government in 1966, recommended a more progressive income tax system irrespective of how income was earned (“A dollar earned is a dollar taxed”). An editorial cartoon in the generally conservative, business-oriented The Globe and Mail (Toronto) nicely described the response of Canada’s business establishment: an obviously well-to-do couple, advanced in years, are sitting opposite each other at their well-appointed, candle-lit dinner table, each perusing newspaper reports of Carter’s recommendations. The perplexed matron looks across to her husband and declares “Surely that’s not the nice Ken Carter we know!” See Commissions of inquiry (judicial). Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963) A federal commission of inquiry formed by the Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson in 1963 to investigate the status of French Canadians and the use of French in Canada. The co-chairs were André Laurendeau, editor of the Montreal daily Le Devoir, and Davidson Dunton, president of Carleton University. The commission was appointed during the period of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, when French society was undergoing important internal changes and expressing a more assertive nationalism than in the past. The royal commission also sponsored a considerable amount of social science research into questions related to culture, language, the economy, and government. There was little surprise about, and all-party support for, the commission’s major recommendation that English and French be declared the official languages

Royal Proclamation

of the federal government and administration. The commission also recommended that provincial governments in predominantly anglophone provinces extend their services to their francophone minorities. On language, the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act) then only required the use of French and English in parliament, the Quebec legislature (that is, the government), and the federal and Quebec courts (s.133). This individual-rights, or personality, approach to language rights with respect to government service was adopted in the federal Official Languages Act of 1969, the core of Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s program of bilingualism and biculturalism. In 1982, this policy was entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (ss.16–22), along with the designation of New Brunswick as a bilingual province. The legislature and courts of Quebec remain bilingual under section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and minority-language provincial educational rights are entrenched in section 23 of the Charter, beyond the reach of section 33, the notwithstanding clause that conditionally permits violations of particular sections of the Charter without recourse to the courts. While the leadership of the Progressive Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic parties have been unanimously supportive of the “B and B” (bilingual and bicultural) objectives, there has been less sympathy at the public level in Englishspeaking Canada and increasingly so among francophones in Quebec. Notably in western Canada, but also in rural areas and small cities in Ontario and in parts of New Brunswick, there was increasing opposition to “official bilingualism,” which was manifested in support for the Reform party, formed in the late 1980s, its successor the Canadian Alliance, and for other regional parties such as the shortlived Confederation of Regions party in New Brunswick, and in some resolutions of municipal councils in the 1990s. However, the federal Conservative party’s first policy convention in 2005, following the merger of the Alliance and Progressive Conservative party, supported the Official Languages Act. In Quebec, many nationalists, supporters of either the federalist Quebec Liberal party or the sovereignist Parti Québécois, prefer a territorial-rights approach rather than an individualrights approach to the protection of the French language, permitting the provincial government to have greater power to preserve and promote the French language in the province even if this meant less provincial support elsewhere for francophone minorities. See Bilingualism and biculturalism; Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Official Languages Act (Canada, 1969); Parti Québécois (PQ). Royal Proclamation (1763) Instructions received by the colonial governor of Quebec from the British government, effectively the constitution of the colony following its cession by the French in the Treaty of Paris. In affirming British sovereignty, the Royal Proclamation acknowledged Native rights, including land rights. Subsequently, various treaties and agreements were concluded involving the cession of Indian lands in return for money and benefits, such as rights to conduct traditional economic activities on crown land. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms acknowledges the Royal Proclamation as an constitutional document regarding Aboriginal rights and freedoms (s.25). The British government also intended to promote British settlement and assimilation of the French population. Thus the Royal Proclamation instructed Gover-

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nor Murray in 1763 to establish a representative legislature (“a General Assembly of the Freeholders”) “so soon as the Situation and Circumstances…will admit thereof” similar to other North American colonies. The British government, however, changed its mind as the approximately 90,000 French Roman Catholics were by their religion denied the vote, with the franchise then held by the approximately 600 British Protestant settlers whose aggressive mercantile interests were creating friction with the disenfranchised majority. In addition, the British felt that, given the political mood current in colonies south of Quebec, popular colonial assemblies were considered a source of rebellious sentiment. Governor Carleton, Murray’s successor, planned to use Quebec as a base of military operations against any revolution in the American colonies. Carleton convinced the British government to modify its policy as a French population loyal to the Crown, or at least neutral, would be essential to British interests in the event of revolution in other American colonies. In 1774, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 “found upon Experience to be inapplicable to the State and Circumstances of the Province,” the British enacted the Quebec Act, extending the boundaries of Quebec, establishing freedom of worship for Roman Catholics, thus allowing them to be appointed to a legislative council, and retaining French civil law in non-criminal matters. See Indian Act; Native (First Nations) self-government; agreements; and Quebec Act, 1774 (U.K.). Rule of law The principle of “legal equality, or the universal subjection of all classes to one law administered by the ordinary courts” (A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution [10th ed.; London: The Macmillan Company, 1961], 193). The exact meaning of the rule of law is not stated in statutory form, but it is a customary principle of the constitution often referred to as “due process”; it restricts arbitrary authority and requires the law of government to be stated precisely and be subject to adjudication by a judiciary independent of government. The practice of parliamentary delegation of discretionary executive and legislative authority, especially since the 1940s, tended to distance the administrative state from judicial scrutiny. However, protection afforded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) includes judicial review of the exercise of discretionary power under enabling legislation, including subordinate legislation by the government, government tribunals, and regulatory agencies. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Delegated power; Regulatory agencies (regulations). Russell v. The Queen (1882) A decision by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) upholding the comprehensive legislative power of the federal parliament under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” preamble in section 91 of the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act). Specifically, the federal Temperance Act provided for local prohibition respecting the liquor trade. The ruling was an early (and soon to be undermined) decision upholding the comprehensive legislative authority, or residual power, of parliament. One year later, the JCPC ruled that the Russell was not relevant, when it adjudicated another case involving the liquor trade, and established the socalled Aspect Doctrine. In time, the JCPC applied a restrictive interpretation the

Scandal

“Peace, Order, and good Government” clause, asserting in the 1930s, for example, that Canada’s federal constitution comprised “water-tight” federal and provincial “compartments.” Attempting in 1925 to reconcile the JCPC’s restrictive interpretation of parliament’s power under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause with the decision in Russell, Viscount Haldane wrote that, in 1882 the JCPC must have considered drunkenness a pestilential “menace to the national life”— though the Act in question provided for a local option (Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider, 1925). In 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada became the country’s highest court, and it has tended to sanction broader legislative jurisdiction for parliament using a test of “national importance” with regard to the “Peace, Order, and good government” clause and also the federal “Trade and Commerce” power (s.91:2). See Aspect Doctrine; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); “Peace, Order and good Government”; Residual power; Supreme Court of Canada; “Trade and Commerce” power.

S Safe seat An electoral district or constituency that has elected the candidate of the same political party over an extended series of elections with overwhelming margins of support, thus a safe seat for that party. Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship) Events that disgrace a government and can arouse the public sufficiently to have a significant electoral impact. Every political scandal involves the betrayal of the public trust and personal disgrace, and Canada has not lacked them at any level of government. However, few either threaten to, or actually bring down a government or jeopardize the future of a party now in opposition. The Pacific (1872), Customs (1925), Beauharnois (1932), and Sponsorship (2002) scandals in federal politics are in this category, affecting the early Conservative party in government and the Liberal party, both in government and later when in opposition. If otherwise there are distinctions among these scandals, some involved corporations that, in providing some pubic service or facility, also benefited significantly from public contracts and subsequently rewarded the party and politicians whose government was their patron and benefactor. Other scandals have involved betrayal of the public trust for personal and party gain without any public benefit, or betrayal resulting public and personal harm through sheer administrative incompetence and lack of effective ministerial oversight. “Tollgating” is a longstanding feature of Canadian politics whereby agents of a government party (“bagmen”), informed of the value of government contracts received by a firm or individual, would seek a financial contribution for the government party, usually based on a percentage of the value of the contracts and an implied potential value of similar contracts in the future should the party remain in power. However, since the 1960s, there have been extensive party and electoral finance reforms in federal and provincial law, including restrictions, if not outright prohibition on corporate and trade union donations, and otherwise limitations

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and disclosure of party financing with external audits, as well as administrative reforms in management and auditing controls on public expenditure. On the one hand, the Canadian public has been assured these legal and administrative reforms have eliminated the excesses of political corruption, but on the other hand, scandals arise in sufficient numbers to reinforce an increasing public cynicism about party politics and politicians generally. The Pacific Scandal in the 1870s was related to the construction of the transcontinental railway as part of the Confederation settlement with British Columbia and a desire to assert Canadian sovereignty across the continent and develop the western territory. Opposition politicians charged that businessmen had provided funds to senior Conservative ministers during the 1872 election campaign in return for an extremely lucrative charter to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway. Evidence surfaced later that even Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald solicited funds personally. When government members defected, the government resigned in order to avoid defeat in parliament and was replaced by the Liberals under Alexander Mackenzie. In a subsequent election early in 1873, the Conservatives were routed. However, Macdonald stayed on as leader and he and the Conservatives returned to power in the 1878 election. The railway construction was delayed until 1880 with the contract awarded to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Macdonald remained prime minister until his death in 1891, and the Conservatives remained in power until 1896. In 1925, during prohibition in the United States, a large-scale, and lucrative but illicit trafficking in liquor took place between Canada and the United States, including the smuggling of American goods into Canada. It implicated officials in Canadian customs, including the customs minister in the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. In 1926, the opposition accused the government of criminal activity and support, leading to a motion of censure and an inevitable defeat that King hoped he could forestall through a general election. However, the governor general refused King’s request for dissolution of parliament, requested his government’s resignation, and appointed Conservative leader Arthur Meighen as prime minister of a minority government. Meighen’s government was defeated after a few sitting days, and in the ensuing election campaign King managed to turn the governor general’s refusal of a Canadian prime minister’s “advice” into a major election issue, overcoming any lingering odour of the Customs Scandal, and King was returned to office with a majority government. The Liberals lost the election of 1930 to the Conservatives and were in opposition when the Beauharnois Scandal broke in 1931 with allegations that a power company had made significant financial contributions to the Liberal party for government permission for a hydro-electric power development near Montreal. Although a company official testified to a parliamentary committee that Liberal senators had personally received funds, and contributions had been made to the Liberal party, no connection could be made between the contributions and the Liberal government’s awarding of the contract. In this case, the next general election was several years off, by which time Canada was in the depths of the worldwide economic depression and Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s government was defeated in the 1935 election, in which the Liberals told the electorate their choice was

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“King or Chaos.” Like Macdonald in the 1870s and 1880s, King remained prime minister, heading re-elected majority governments, until his voluntary retirement in old age in 1948, still Canada’s longest-serving prime minister. The Sponsorship Scandal dominated Canadian federal politics beginning in 2004 with a report of Auditor General Sheila Fraser, but dated back to 1996 as part of Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s “unity” strategy following the near-success of the 1995 referendum in Quebec on secession from Confederation, and surfaced in 1999 with police investigations and allegations of misuse of public funds. The auditor general reported that from 1996 to 2001 up to $100-million of a $250-million (forensic accountants later reported over $300-million) fund, to sponsor private activities mostly in Quebec to raise the public visibility of the federal government relative to the sovereignist provincial government, was misspent. Numerous laws and regulations were ignored as commissions and other fees were paid to advertising and communication firms associated with the federal Liberal party in Quebec either for work that was not performed, or for which there was no apparent value. Senior officials in Public Works and Government Services and five crown corporations, including Via Rail and Canada Post, were implicated and questions were raised about the role of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office. In 2003, during which police investigations were ongoing and now the opposition was aroused, Prime Minister Chrétien, who pleaded ignorance of details of the unity program, resigned the Liberal leadership and was succeeded by Paul Martin who had been minister of finance. Pleading ignorance of the sponsorship program as well, and promising to “get to the bottom” of it, Prime Minister Martin fired the former minister of public works to whom Chrétien had given an ambassadorial appointment and established a commission of inquiry under Judge John Gomery. With little time remaining in the parliamentary term, Martin called an election in 2004 following which the Liberals formed a minority government. By the time the commission of inquiry completed its televised hearings in 2005, apart from flaunting procedures for government rules and procedures on contracting (“breaking every rule in the book,” according to the auditor general), allegations of abuse included illegal, anonymous cash payments and no-show jobs to Liberal workers, false invoicing, shadow companies, files destroyed in a residential flood, possibly relevant files still in the former public works minister’s personal possession, even fear of personal harm felt by one party official who wanted to fire a particular party worker, and witnesses contradicting each other’s testimony or claiming faulty memory—all implying an illegal parallel finance organization of the Quebec section of the federal Liberal party, involving kickbacks and payoffs with public funds. In the meantime, one person pleaded guilty to 15 counts of fraud and two other accused awaited their trials on fraud charges. During the hearings, former prime minister Chrétien challenged Judge Gomery’s impartiality and initially sought to have him removed as commissioner of the inquiry. Later, the former prime minister simply asserted his right to seek judicial review of the commission’s findings on the grounds of bias. As the inquiry phase of the commission ended and the recommendation phase began, the commission created an advisory committee to conduct research and assist in making recommendations based on facts determined from testimony and documentary evidence in the inquiry phase.

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In this heated atmosphere, Prime Minister Martin promised to call an election within 30 days of receipt of the final report of the commission of inquiry in 2006. However, his minority government was defeated in the House of Commons in 2005, following Justice Gomery’s interim “fact finding” report, that exonerated Prime Minister Martin personally, but outlined in detail “a story of greed, venality and misconduct both in government and advertising and communications agencies, all of which contributed to the loss and misuse of huge amounts of money at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. They are outraged and have valid reasons for their anger” (Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Who Is Responsible? Fact Finding Report [Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2005], xix; www.gomery.ca). Justice Gomery’s condemnation of a “culture of entitlement,” and the anger he referred to, was evidently shared by many voters in the 2006 election, when the government was defeated, and replaced by a minority Conservative government. The final report, published shortly after the election, included recommendations directed to parliament, the prime minister and the prime minister’s office, ministers and their exempt staff, and public officials to rebalance the relationship between parliament and government, and to establish clearer accountability to politicians and public officials (Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Restoring Accountability—Recommendations [Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2006]; www.gomery.ca). The incoming Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, promised to study the recommendations when preparing his government’s legislation to enforce greater accountability. The focus here has been on scandals that threatened governments rather than simply brought down a minister. Significant scandals have also occurred in the provinces, for example involving the decimation of the provincial Progressive Conservative party in Saskatchewan in the mid-1990s with convictions of Conservative members of the legislative assembly, including cabinet ministers, and party staff of fraud, theft, and breach of trust, without Premier Grant Devine’s knowledge. Also in the 1990s, a scandal involving the British Columbia New Democratic party contributed to Premier Mike Harcourt’s eventual resignation as party leader and premier, though he was not involved, respecting theft, fraud, and forgery charges laid against a former provincial NDP minister of finance and former party president, and others regarding assets from bingo charities that were transferred to the party in the 1980s. See Commissions of inquiry (judicial). Scrum Analogous to the aggressive head-on confrontation in close quarters of two rugby teams seeking possession of the ball, the encounter between politicians and the press galley following the conclusion of the daily question period in the House of Commons—a major difference, however, being the lack of any neutral arbiters officiating the encounter in the lobby outside the House of Commons. Similar episodes take place in provincial parliament buildings, but perhaps none so institutionalized as in Ottawa. Microphones are positioned throughout the lobby of the centre block of the parliament buildings for government and opposition representatives to address and reply to questions from the media. From the politicians’ perspective—the prime minister and ministers, opposition

Secession Reference

party leaders and critics—the scrum is an opportunity outside the confines of the house and parliamentary formality to assert their position on issues raised during question period. For the press gallery, the scrum is an opportunity to catch politicians “off message,” forcing them to concede a weakness in their position. Because the ability to manage a scrum has been known to “make or break” a political career, media consultants counsel politicians, for example, not to participate in a scrum unless they have a message to communicate and can communicate only that message regardless of the form of questions being hurled at them from all sides. Yet politicians must not run from a scrum, for the repetition of the flight repeated on television in slow motion transmits not only evasiveness, but weakness, even fear of being questioned. As the staircase from the lobby to ministerial sanctuary is close to the government side of the house, a favourite “shot” for the government is the determined entrance to the house of ministers and aides prior to question period and, on leaving the house afterwards, a favourite televised “parting shot” for prime ministers is to provide a “final sound bite,” while looking down at the press gallery from on high before turning on heel and resuming their upward departure, ostensibly to pursue more important affairs of state. Critics of the scrum consider it undignified and not conducive to public understanding of complex political issues. Other people consider it a useful spontaneous encounter compared to other contacts with prominent politicians, which tend to be more carefully orchestrated and scripted with predictable platitudes. Admittedly, one veteran member of the press galley has likened the scrum to waiting for a crash at a high-speed auto race, hoping for a politician to break down and admit total confusion and ineptitude. Members of press galleries and press corps in other capitals might envy this “close encounter” of a kind. Scrutineer A representative or agent of a candidate who is allowed to oversee the administration of a polling station on election day, including the unofficial count of ballots, in a general or by-election. Each candidate in a constituency is allowed to designate one person to be in attendance at each polling station during the poll and the count, to ensure proper procedures are followed and to report the unofficial count and any alleged irregularities to their party. Secession Reference A ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 on constitutional questions put to it by the federal Liberal government in a reference respecting the secession of Quebec from Confederation (Reference re the Secession of Quebec), and the basis subsequently for the government’s Clarity bill in 2000. The reference was part of the government’s response to the narrow defeat in 1995 of the second referendum in Quebec on sovereignty association. The federal government posed three questions: could Quebec declare unilateral independence under the Canadian constitution; could it do so under international law; and in the event of a conflict between domestic and international law, which would take precedence? The Parti Québécois government of Quebec refused to participate in the Court’s hearing on the Reference. Its position was argued by a court-appointed amicus curiae, “friend of the court.” First the Supreme Court held that its jurisdiction as a “general court of appeal” in the Supreme Court Act allowed it to give advice on these questions that related

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to the Constitution Act “touching on the future of Canadian federalism” and, doing so, it did not “usurp any democratic decision that the people of Quebec may be called upon to make” in the future. The court replied “No” regarding the first two questions, and saw no conflict between domestic and international law. No province has the right of unilateral secession under the Canadian constitution, nor does international law grant Quebec such a right because it “does not meet the threshold of a colonial people or an oppressed people [who] have been denied meaningful access to government to pursue their political, economic, cultural and social development,” though the ultimate success of an unconstitutional, unilateral declaration of secession “would be dependent on recognition by the international community, which is likely to consider the legality and legitimacy of secession having regard to the…conduct of Quebec and Canada.” On the right to unilateral secession, the Supreme Court said: “Democracy… means more than simple majority rule.…[It] exists in the larger context of other constitutional values…that include federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respect for minorities.” Secession can be achieved only with “principled negotiation with other participants in Confederation within the existing constitutional framework.” The justices observed that “the continued existence and operation of the Canadian constitutional order could not be indifferent to a clear expression of a clear majority of Quebecers that they no longer wish[ed] to remain in Canada.” Thus, a “clear majority vote in Quebec on a clear question in favour of secession would confer democratic legitimacy” on the secession movement, which would have to be recognized by “the other participants in Confederation.” The court left it to “the political actors” to determine what constituted a “clear majority on a clear question” as well as “the content and process of negotiation,” but its ruling was relevant to the ongoing public debate over the size of a majority needed in a referendum on secession and objections that the questions in the referendums of 1980 and 1995 linked sovereignty to a partnership with the rest of Canada, thus confusing the issue. While sovereignists took comfort in the Supreme Court’s acknowledgment of the potential legitimacy of the secessionist movement, the federal government enacted the Clarity Act in 2000, in the context of the court’s ruling, setting conditions under which the House of Commons would respond to future referendums on secession, in the context of the court’s ruling. See Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation); Sovereignty-association. Secrecy A dominant feature by convention, but reinforced by statute, of the operation of cabinet government and the public administration in Canada. All members of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada (effectively the federal cabinet) are bound by oath to “keep close and secret all such matters as shall be treated, debated, and resolved on in Privy Council, without publishing or disclosing the same or any part thereof, by Word, Writing or any otherwise to any Person out of the same Council, but to be such only as be of the Council.” Similar oaths pertain to provincial executive councils, or cabinets. Thus, all documents that may be construed as relevant to treatment, debate and resolution by cabinet are

Sections 91 and 92

confidential. Upon entering the federal or provincial public administration, employees swear not to disclose without authority or make known matters that come to their attention during employment. All citizens are subject to various provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada dealing with offences such as breach of public trust, theft and treason. The Security of Information Act (formerly the Official Secrets Act) is the major statutory device of the federal government that describes the offence of possessing or communicating “documents or information” entrusted in confidence, or possessing information while believing it to be illegally obtained. Since 1983, a federal Access to Information Act has required the government and administration to respond to requests for information and established an information commissioner to take court action if necessary on behalf of the applicant. However, there are broad categories of exemption as well as statutory exemptions. In recommendations in 2006 following his inquiry into abuses surrounding the $300-million federal sponsorship program, Justice John Gomery criticized a growing culture of secrecy. Instead of finding reasons to refuse information, the Access to Information Act “should state explicitly that records must be disclosed whenever the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs the need for secrecy” (Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. Restoring Accountability—Recommendations [Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services, 2006], page 182), and that all government institutions and crown corporations be subject to the Act. Justice Gomery made other recommendations to strengthen the Act and the role of the information commissioner to ensure compliance with the Act. See Freedom of information; Security of Information Act (Canada). Secretariat The executive/administrative staff of a government body that may have an integral role in the development and implementation of policy, although ostensibly having only an advisory and administrative support role to a particular government body. The senior officials of some secretariats may be among the most influential of government officials. At the federal level, for example, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat are central executive/administrative secretariats for the cabinet and the Treasury Board, respectively. The Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat (scics.gc.ca) is an example of a facilitating support body that does not have policy influence. See Privy Council Office (PCO); Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS). Secretaries of state Offices within the federal ministry, so designated in the Progressive Conservative governments of Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell, and Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, but in the ministry of Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin designated as ministers of state. See Ministry (minister) of state. Secretary to the Cabinet See Clerk of the Privy Council. Sections 91 and 92 (Constitution Act, 1867) The sections of the Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended (before 1982, the British North America Act) that, in addition to some others, outline in large part the division (or distribution)

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of legislative powers between the federal parliament (section 91) and the provincial legislatures (section 92). The adjudication by the courts of legislation enacted under the authority of these two sections determines the scope of legislative power (and implicitly political power) of the two levels of government. In particular, debate has centred on the extent of emergency and residual power resting with the federal government as a result of the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause in the preamble of section 91, and the scope of provincial competence under the enumerated head “Property and Civil Rights in the Province” in section 92:13. The courts have also adjudicated the scope of federal authority under section 91:2, “The Regulation of Trade and Commerce,” and section 91:27, “The Criminal Law.…” Since 1982, judicial review has also included testing legislation, including subordinate legislation or regulations of government agencies, against provisions of the constitutionally entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Legislative competence established in 1867 in sections 91 and 92, but also section 93 (“Education”), is the source of intergovernmental tension over federal spending power and federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. The federal government, for example, has unrestricted taxation power (s.91:3) while provincial taxation power is restricted to direct taxation within a province for provincial purposes (s.92.2). Yet the provinces are responsible for policy fields considered minor in the late-nineteenth century, but major since the mid-twentieth century, notably health, social assistance and post-secondary education (s.92.7 and s.93). See Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); “Peace, Order, and good Government”; “Property and Civil Rights in the Province”; Spending power; Supreme Court of Canada; “Trade and Commerce” power. Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) (sirc-csars.gc.ca) A federally appointed committee created in 1984 to monitor the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), including its intrusive and secret activities, handle complaints about the behaviour of CSIS, and act as an appeal board respecting security clearances and a review board on matters dealing with immigration, citizenship, and security. Theoretically SIRC, which reports annually to parliament, acts as an independent civilian review agency of CSIS, Canada’s civilian security organization. Comprising five members, sworn in as privy councillors, assisted by a small group of officials and staff, SIRC acknowledges that it cannot examine all CSIS activities in a given period and must be selective, examining activities given the “nature of the threat environment,” changes in technology, and follow-up of earlier reviews to ensure that CSIS operates within the law. SIRC makes recommenda tions in confidence to the cabinet, and although its work is summarized in annual reports to parliament, they are edited to protect national security and personal privacy. In 2004, SIRC provided a confidential report to the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness on the role of CSIS in the detention and deportation of a Canadian citizen from the United States to Syria and allegations of torture there before his release and return to Canada. SIRC “suggested” that the minister make the report available to Justice Dennis O’Connor’s federal commission of inquiry

Senate

established to investigate the matter (Commission of Inquiry into Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar; www.ararcommission.ca). In a separate matter in 2005, SIRC reported that CSIS had inappropriately designated as a security risk a person expected to be given a post abroad. In the past, parliamentarians and others have generally criticized SIRC for ineffectiveness as an oversight body, recommending that it be replaced by a parliamentary committee. See Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); Communications Security Establishment (CSE); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Security of Information Act (Canada) Formerly the Official Secrets Act, federal legislation that was significantly amended following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001. The Act prohibits specific behaviour “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State [acting] in a manner that has significant adverse impact on the health, safety, security or economic or financial well-being of the people of Canada or the functioning of any government in Canada,” including actions outside Canada. The Act forbids impairment or threats to the government of Canada, its armed forces and the central bank, and prohibits the development and use of “anything” not permitted by treaty that would have “the capability to cause death or serious bodily harm to a significant number of people” by various means including chemicals, biological agents, radiation, and explosions. A prejudicial manner includes doing or omitting to do anything that is “directed towards or in preparation of an undertaking” related to these prohibited acts. Miscellaneous offences under the Act include unauthorized possession of, failure to take “reasonable care of,” or communication of “any secret official code word, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information” related to a prohibited place. There are, however, sections dealing with unauthorized disclosure in the public interest. Receipt of such material is also an offence unless, in a reverse onus provision, the recipient proves that it was contrary to personal desire. In regards to prohibited places, there are provisions respecting unauthorized use of uniforms; falsification of reports, forgery, and personal misrepresentation; unauthorized possession of any government die, seal, or stamp; interference with police or military personnel guarding a prohibited place. There are sections devoted to economic espionage and foreign- or terroristinfluenced threats of violence, and attempting, conspiring, or counselling regarding an offence. Anyone commits an offence who, enabling and facilitating an offence, harbours anyone whom one knows has committed or is about to commit an offence under the Act. See Anti-Terrorism Act (Canada); Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Freedom of information. Senate (sen.parl.gc.ca) The upper house of the parliament of Canada, whose composition, appointment procedures and legislative competence have been the focus of much public displeasure and intergovernmental constitutional negotiations. To receive royal assent, identical legislation must be adopted by the Senate and the lower house, the House of Commons. The governor general, acting on the “advice” of the prime minister, appoints senators who remain in office until 75 years of age unless they resign or become disqualified. Representation in the Senate is based on regions, and was intended

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to balance the weight of representation from densely populated central Canada in the elected House of Commons. The Senate’s regional divisions as defined in the Constitution Act are: Ontario (24 senators); Quebec (24); the Maritime provinces (24); the western provinces (24); Newfoundland (6); Yukon (1); Northwest Territories (1); and Nunavut (1), with provision for four or eight more members representing equally the first four divisions (ss.22, 26). Liberal prime ministers have had more opportunities than Conservatives to appoint senators, resulting in a Liberal majority for most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In such partisan circumstances, and facing concerted Liberal opposition, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney employed the never-before-used constitutional authority to make additional appointments (s.26) in 1990 to ensure passage of legislation introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a value-added consumption tax. There are formal (in accordance with the Constitution Act) and informal qualifications for appointment to a seat in the upper chamber. To qualify formally, one must be a Canadian, at least 30 years old, hold residence in the relevant division, and hold unencumbered real property worth at least $4,000. A senator is disqualified by failure to attend two consecutive sessions, loss of Canadian citizenship, ceasing to meet the residence and property qualifications, being adjudged bankrupt, or upon conviction of a criminal offence. No one can hold a seat in the Senate and the House of Commons concurrently. However, a crucial qualification for a “summons” to the Senate is the favour of the prime minister. With few exceptions, Senate appointments are rewards for service to the party in power, and represent a publicly remunerated office from which some senators continue to perform important organizational, fundraising, and election campaign activities for their party. Though it possesses legal powers almost as great as the House of Commons, and is designated the upper chamber, signifying its traditional link to the crown as opposed to the Commons’ link to the electorate, the Senate is the political inferior of the Commons. Revenue (money) bills must be introduced by the government in the Commons; but more significantly, the Senate is not a chamber of confidence. That is, the government is responsible only to the elected House of Commons; a defeat in the Senate does not require the government to resign or for parliament to be dissolved and a general election held. Also, since 1982, constitutional amendments requiring a resolution of both houses of parliament can be effected by the House of Commons alone if, after 180 days of adoption by the house, the Senate has not adopted a similar resolution and the Commons adopts the resolution again. This provision thus allows for important changes to the Senate itself without its approval. In the 1890s, two Conservative senators—Sir John Abbott and Sir Mackenzie Bowell—served briefly as prime ministers, but in recent history, there have rarely been ministers in the Senate other than the government leader who is responsible for guiding government legislation through the chamber. On some occasions, however, a prime minister might appoint senators to cabinet for significant purposes. In 1979–1980, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark had several senators with important portfolios in the cabinet of his minority government. This was done to satisfy a need for francophone representation in his cabinet,

Senate

and included one candidate who had failed to win a seat in the Commons in the election. In forming his cabinet in 1980, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau included one senator from each of the three westernmost provinces following an election in which no Liberal candidates were elected in those provinces. A chief constitutional negotiator for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1980s and 1990s was a senator whom he appointed to his cabinet. In 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Michael Fortier, a senior party campaign organizer, to the cabinet of his minority government as minister of public works and a key Quebec minister through an appointment to the Senate. The announcement was accompanied by a promise that Fortier would stand for election in the next general election. Like the House of Commons, the Senate is organized into government and opposition ranks, with some independent senators, and must approve legislation on three readings. The House of Commons must concur with any amendments made by the Senate to legislation it has already approved. Though created in part as a moderating influence in the legislative process, the contemporary Senate, especially when a majority were members of the government party, did little to frustrate the government. However, after the election of Prime Minister Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in 1984, the Liberal majority in the Senate did hold up important government legislation, contributing, for example, in its refusal to consider the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, to the government’s decision to dissolve parliament for an election in 1988. Also, as mentioned above, the GST would not have been adopted without the appointment of additional senators in 1990 to support the measure. When the Liberals returned to office in 1993, the party positions in the Senate were reversed. The Progressive Conservatives, now having a majority, used their dominant position to delay passage of, and even defeat, some Liberal government legislation. Even when they eventually regained their majority in the Senate, the Liberal government had to remain concerned about the possibility of “independent” behaviour by some Liberal senators. During this rare period of intense partisan clashes in the Senate, in a free vote in 1990, the Senate rejected compromise legislation on access to therapeutic abortions that had passed the Commons, effectively ending legislative attempts to legislate on the subject. Supporters of the Senate see its current value in the legislative process mainly in the “pre-study” of proposed legislation before its actual introduction in parliament, and in its longer-term examination of particular policy areas. In 2004, the Senate created a special committee to examine the impact of policies and procedures under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001. A similar inquiry was begun in the House of Commons in 2005. The Act requires a parliamentary assessment of the Act, given the extraordinary powers it granted law enforcement and security agencies to apprehend threats to public, national, and international security. However, as members of both parliamentary committees are not necessarily privy councillors or otherwise have high-level security clearance, the reviews were necessarily limited. There is a standing joint Senate-House of Commons committee that scrutinizes statutory and other regulatory instruments. The Senate is also known for the examination of government policy and legislation, and for private bills pertain-

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ing to business and finance in its very active committee on banking, trade, and commerce. However, many senators—and particularly some on the banking committee—hold positions with private companies, or are connected with law firms that represent clients who do business with the government. Consequently, the Senate has drawn criticism respecting conflicts of interest. Finally, despite non-partisan senatorial investigations of public policy as well as occasional episodes of partisan activism, the Senate’s public image remains that of a largely indolent body of recipients of party patronage now retired at public expense. A resignation of one inactive senator in 1998 and notoriety surrounding trials of two others, one on charges of influence peddling and the other on charges arising from political activity prior to appointment to the Senate, obviously did further harm to the reputation of the upper house. Senate reform has been one of several permanent items in constitutional negotiations for several decades. In the 1990s, it was the focus of interest in western Canada in particular, where regional representation in federal institutions is an important issue and where demand for a “Triple-E” Senate originated. Supporters of “Triple-E” wanted a Senate similar to the United States Senate, in which provincial representation would be equal, senators would be elected, and the legislative role would be as effective as that of the House of Commons. However, francophone Quebeckers were concerned about the totality of representation in parliament from the only province with a francophone majority. Also, public opinion in some provinces, particularly in Atlantic Canada, expressed concern that an effective Senate might prevent adoption of federal legislation that would be of benefit to the region. A fundamental reform of the Senate, along with an enlarged House of Commons, was an important part of the Charlottetown Accord negotiated in 1992 by federal, provincial and territorial government leaders, and Aboriginal representatives. Although the Accord was defeated in a country-wide referendum, its proposal for Senate reform is worth presenting as an example of a complex response to demands for a Triple-E Senate. Under the Accord, the Senate would have comprised equal numbers of provincial senators (6), and territorial senators (1), elected directly or indirectly by the provincial or territorial legislatures. The Quebec senators were expected to be chosen by Quebec’s National Assembly, effectively the provincial government. There would additionally have been guaranteed Aboriginal representation. Although it would not become a confidence chamber, the Senate would have become more effective, with power relative to four categories of legislation: supply bills (revenue and expenditure items); legislation materially affecting French language or culture (so designated by the initiator subject to appeal to the Speaker with protection for francophones); fundamental changes to tax policy related to natural resources; and other legislation. The Senate would have been obliged to dispose of legislation adopted by the House of Commons within 30 sitting days of the Commons, except for supply bills, which would be subject to a 30-day suspensive veto (that is, would be enacted if, following defeat or amendment in the Senate, they were adopted again by the Commons). Legislation affecting French language or culture would have required a double majority in the Senate (that is, a majority of senators voting and a majority of senators personally designated French-speaking voting) and not be subject to a Commons over-

Senior civil servants

ride, effectively a francophone veto. The Senate would have had the power to defeat legislation on tax policy affecting natural resources by a majority vote. Defeat of “ordinary” legislation would have resulted in a joint sitting of the two chambers with a parliamentary majority deciding the issue (effectively a Commons override only if the government had a sizeable majority in the enlarged Commons and/or opposition support). Any ordinary bill initiated in the Senate and defeated in the House of Commons would also have been disposed of in a joint sitting. Otherwise, the legislative powers of the Senate would have remained the same, notably regarding its role in parliament’s approval of constitutional amendments. However, under the Charlottetown Accord, the Senate would have also acquired a constitutionally entrenched power to ratify the federal government’s appointment of the governor of the Bank of Canada, the heads of federal cultural institutions, and regulatory boards and agencies. Senior civil servants A common term for the high-level policy-makers and advisors in the public administration of federal, provincial, and territorial governments. While there is no precise definition for the term, deputy ministers and those with deputy minister rank, assistant deputy ministers, and directors in government departments are usually considered to be senior civil servants; chief officers of important crown corporations and members of important regulatory agencies may also be termed senior civil servants. The government-of-the-day effectively appoints most senior administrators. Some are easily removed or shifted among departments and agencies; others are career officials, whose appointments are “protected” by a public employment statute, or they are officials with term appointments who can be removed before their terms expire only by a vote of the legislature. The phrase is sometimes used pejoratively. Because of the tendency of long-term party rule in some Canadian jurisdictions, senior officials individually acquire permanency, and can acquire considerable influence over their ministers in the cabinet. Their full-time devotion to administration, their experience and control over information flow give them advantages in influencing their “political masters.” By contrast, ministers are part-time administrators, given their important political duties in the cabinet, the legislature, their party, and their constituency, and often hold their portfolios for reasons other than their personal expertise in the policy field of their department, and only for a relatively brief period of time. In the mid-twentieth century, the federal government’s senior administrators were a relatively small and cohesive body of anglophone men who had experience only with Liberal governments, sometimes styled the “mandarinate.” Since then, the growth of the public administration and the increased size of the senior administration, as well as bilingual linguistic requirements and equity concerns, particularly the representation of women, has made the senior officialdom perhaps less homogeneous and cohesive, but still influential. The final report in 2006 of Justice John Gomery’s federal judicial commission of inquiry into political involvement and abuses respecting the administration of the $300-million sponsorship program focused on the need to delineate clearly the role of politicians from the role of public officials, and to protect senior officials from intimidation by ministers and their political staff. See Public administration (civil service); Scandal (Pacific, Customs, Beauharnois, Sponsorship).

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Separate schools (parochial, dissentient) Tax-supported denominational primary and secondary schools, usually a reference to those operated by the Roman Catholic Church in predominantly Protestant provinces, but also schools in predominantly Catholic Quebec run by Protestant school boards where, since the 1990s, school boards have been re-organized on a linguistic basis through constitutional amendment by the Quebec and federal legislatures. The issue of denominational schools in other provinces historically involved predominantly Roman Catholic French-language minorities, although in the 1990s the basis of denominational education in Newfoundland and Labrador, including various Protestant churches, was modified by amending legislation of both the provincial legislature and the federal parliament. The Constitution Act, 1867 gave jurisdiction in education to the provinces, but it protected “Separate or Dissentient” systems of education established prior to Confederation from prejudicial provincial action, in the case of Newfoundland, for example, in the Terms of Union, 1949. The 1867 Act provided for an appeal from any “Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority” to the governor-incouncil, that is, the federal cabinet, on any prejudicial decision and for “remedial Laws” by parliament (s.93). Nonetheless, since the controversy over Manitoba’s Public Schools Act in the 1890s, federal governments have preferred not be involved in provincial disputes over the provincial denominational schools, but rather wait for the directly interested parties to come to terms through a provincial resolution then requiring federal involvement to amend the constitution, or otherwise for aggrieved persons to pursue their interests in the courts. In 1982, education rights based on provincial minority French and English languages were entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a section (s.23) beyond the reach of the legislative override, or “notwithstanding” clause (s.33). In 1984, the Charter was invoked successfully in the Supreme Court of Canada to void certain restrictions in Quebec on access by children of anglophone parents to English-language primary and secondary education (A.-G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards). However, in 2005, the Supreme Court sustained restrictions on francophones’ access to English-language schools in Quebec (Gosselin et al., v. Attorney General of Quebec and Minister of Education). The judicial route has also been used to obtain francophone minority-education rights in several anglophone provinces. Courts have imposed obligations on education authorities in several provinces respecting facilities, funding and administration of French-language education (Marchand v. Simcoe Board of Education, Ontario, 1986; Lavoie v. Nova Scotia, 1988; Mahé v. Alberta, 1990). See Charter of the French Language (Quebec); Manitoba Schools Question (and French language rights, 1890); Quebec Protestant School Boards Case (A.-G. Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards, 1984). Separation of powers A constitutional division of legislative, executive, and judicial functions involving autonomous institutions in a system of checks and balances. Institutional specialization can be created through different procedures for selection and different terms of office, with each institution having constitutional authority to check the behaviour of the others. Separation of powers is a basic feature of the United States constitution, involving a complex set of relationships among the bicameral Congress, the President,

Separatism

and the Supreme Court reviewing legislation against a federal constitution with a bill of rights, and similar institutions at the state level, involving a governor, a bicameral legislature, and the courts. Like the US, Canada is a federal union, but with a system of parliamentary government at both federal and provincial levels in which a dual executive and legislative institutions are fused in a system of responsible government, with a broad scope for judicial review of a federal constitution including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. The crown’s representatives appoint provincial and federal governments, but they must have the support of the elected legislature to remain in office. The federal parliament is bicameral, with an elected House of Commons and appointed Senate, while the provincial legislatures are unicameral, with one elected Assembly. See Constitution Act, 1867 and subsequently amended; Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Responsible government; Supremacy of parliament. Separatism The term commonly applied to provincial secession from Canadian Confederation associated with an element of public sentiment in western Canada, but more often and more significantly with various movements in Quebec originating in the 1960s, some of which merged to form the provincial Parti Québécois in 1968 and later the Bloc Québécois in federal politics in 1990. Western alienation from federal institutions and policy has found an outlet in various political movements from the Progressives and Social Credit parties, and to some extent the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and New Democratic parties in the twentieth century, and the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties later and into the twenty-first century. In 2003, the Canadian Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservative party, forming the Conservative party, under the leadership of former Alliance leader Stephen Harper. The party’s electoral success in 2006, forming a minority government, might assuage western alienation. See various entries on those parties. Until the 1960s, nationalism among French Quebeckers also generated political movements in the twentieth century, such as the Nationalistes and the Bloc populaire canadienne. However, with the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, Quebec nationalism was transformed from a defensive and conservative posture to maintain traditional rights in Confederation, to a more assertive nationalism on the part of federalists who wished to enlarge the autonomy of Quebec within Confederation, but also “separatists” seeking national statehood for Quebec. Rather than séparatisme, the independence movement later employed the more positive term souveraineté and the more complex and perhaps more strategically appealing phrase souveraineté-association. Public opinion polls suggest that so-called “soft nationalists” among francophone Quebeckers are more favourably disposed to the secessionist project when it is linked to a continued association with Canada. In the early 1970s, a vote for the PQ was considered to be a vote for separation; but prior to its successful 1976 election, the PQ differentiated between electoral support for the party as a potential government, and the question of independence to be voted on later in a referendum. The PQ government lost a referendum in 1980 in which it had sought a mandate to begin negotiations on secession, but it was re-elected in 1981.

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The PQ government opposed the patriation of the constitution in 1982 because, among other matters, the general amending formula did not include a veto for Quebec. The PQ government was subsequently defeated by the Liberals, and the separatist movement remained dormant until the defeat of the constitutional Meech Lake Accord in 1990. In opposition, the PQ also rejected the Charlottetown Accord in the 1992 referendum as “less than Meech.” In the 1993 federal election, the federal Liberal party led by Jean Chrétien formed a majority government, but the new souverainiste Bloc Québécois won 52 seats in Quebec, sufficient to form the official opposition in the House of Commons. Promising another referendum on sovereignty, the PQ returned to office in Quebec in 1994 with a 30-seat margin over the Liberals based on a virtually equal share of the popular vote (44%). In a referendum in 1995, the sovereignty-association option was barely defeated, but unlike the outcome in 1980, a majority of francophone voters apparently supported it. In 1998, the PQ was re-elected, promising a third referendum. In anticipation of another referendum, the federal Liberal government sought constitutional advice in a reference on secession to the Supreme Court of Canada, and parliament adopted the Clarity bill in 2000, based on the judicial ruling. Though the Liberals defeated the PQ government in the 2003 provincial election, the party remained a major electoral force. The BQ retained significant strength in federal elections in Quebec in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006 to be the second opposition party in the House of Commons. In 2006, however, it lost three seats, as the Conservative party took seats from both the BQ and the Liberals; the BQ retained its position, though, as the most popular federal party in Quebec. See Bloc Québécois; Charlottetown Accord (1992); Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation); Meech Lake Accord (1987); Parti Québécois (PQ); Secession Reference; Sovereignty-association. Shadow cabinet A collective term for the critics in each of the opposition parties in the House of Commons and provincial legislatures, particularly those of the official opposition, the largest opposition party, who might be in the cabinet should their party come to power. In small opposition parties, members may be designated critics for several portfolios. Largely because of the smaller number of members of parliament and of provincial legislatures, and the desire of official opposition party leaders to maintain flexibility, a legislator’s experience in the official opposition as a critic of a particular portfolio does not guarantee appointment to cabinet, let alone as minister of that portfolio, should the party form a government. Shared-cost programs Public programs administered by one level of government, usually the provinces, but with financial assistance from the federal government. Federal-provincial shared-cost programs assist especially provincial governments that have jurisdictional competence but insufficient financial resources to provide public services in important policy fields. Lacking jurisdiction in those fields, the federal government exercises spending power, derived in large part from its comprehensive power of taxation relative to the provinces’ limited power of taxation and the great variations among provinces in their tax yield, to involve itself in areas of provincial jurisdiction to maintain country-wide standards of public service. Various conditional programs were established in the early twen-

Singh Case

tieth century. However, by the late-twentieth century, the largest financial arrangements in shared-cost programs were directed to hospital and medical insurance, post-secondary education, and income maintenance under the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), though there were programs in other areas of provincial jurisdiction as well. The current system originated with the Wartime Tax Agreements of 1941. Later, agreements were periodically renegotiated between the federal and provincial governments, and enacted by parliament in its Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act. In the 1960s, Quebec “opted out” of certain shared-cost programs and received financial compensation under the Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act. In 1977, the federal government terminated the costly shared-cost programs, whereby it paid 50 per cent of provincial expenditures in hospital and medical insurance and in postsecondary education. Instead, the federal government granted equalized tax point abatements and block funding unattached to particular programs. Ill-fated constitutional proposals in the 1980s and 1990s included proposals to constrain federal spending power, an outcome not necessarily sought by provincial governments in less advantaged parts of the country, but generally criticized for intruding in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction and “distorting” provincial policy and spending priorities. In 1995, Established Programs financing, concerning education and health care, and the Canada Assistance Plan, concerning income maintenance, were replaced with a single federal block transfer, called the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST). The single block transfer payment would eliminate federal involvement in setting provincial spending priorities across various social policy fields. The provinces, however, were still bound by federal conditions in health care and social assistance, and some were desirous of more federal funds. In 1999, a Social Union Framework Agreement was signed, with Quebec dissenting, on future funding and provincial agreement to any new federal initiatives in areas of provincial jurisdiction, thus applying some restraints to federal spending power. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Contracting (opting) out; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agree-ments (fiscal federalism); Social Union Framework Agreement, 1999; Spending power. Singh Case (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1985) An early decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on appeals from the Federal Court that tested the administrative procedures of a government tribunal against rights protected in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights in Freedoms. The decision involved procedures of the Immigration Appeal Board and section 7 in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” Specifically, the procedure did not offer a refugee claimant an oral hearing, although the board had available a sworn transcript of an earlier meeting between the claimant, accompanied by a lawyer, and an immigration officer. A decision rejecting the claim might have resulted in the claimant meeting with the board if the board thought there was a “reasonable” chance for the decision to be reversed.

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The federal government sought to “save” the case by arguing that the procedure was a “reasonable” limit “prescribed by law” that could be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (s.1). The Supreme Court held that “administrative convenience” and “utilitarian consideration” were insufficient justification to compromise section 7 rights in administrative fact-finding in adversarial hearings. Moreover, it was insufficient for administrative tribunals simply to follow procedures established by statute. “Fundamental justice” required that even procedures established in law must satisfy independent standards and the court was not convinced that, even were the cost of compliance with fundamental justice to be given “considerable weight,” that the government had demonstrated that it was sufficiently prohibitive as to constitute a reasonable limit. Two years later, in Oakes, the court specified guidelines for applying section 1: a provincial or federal government must demonstrate that the objectives of the restrictive measure are “pressing and substantial” and involve only a minimal restriction that is rationally connected to the objectives, and the effect of the limitation must not be greater than the objective. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Oakes test (Oakes [1986]); Supreme Court of Canada. Single-member plurality electoral system The electoral system used in provincial and federal elections in Canada, also known as the “first-past-the-post” system. The winner in each constituency is the candidate who receives at least one vote more than any opponent. Thus, when there are more than two candidates, the winner often has a simple plurality, but not a majority, of the votes cast. Most candidates represent registered political parties. The votes of the defeated candidates have no electoral effect, and when such constituency results are aggregated, a discrepancy exists between the popular vote percentages for the parties and their percentage share of seats in the legislature. Such systemic discrepancies are occasionally significant and lead to demands for some form of proportional representation. See Electoral system; Proportional representation. Social Credit party A social conservative, populist movement party that originated in the Canadian West in the 1930s. It was most successful in Alberta and British Columbia, but had a following as well in Quebec. The movement’s limited success, especially in the two westernmost provinces, was successful in part because of the populism of its leaders—individuals in sympathy with dominant regional cultural values of their respective time who could effectively articulate the economic and social grievances and interests of their region. Without much support in central and Atlantic Canada, the federal party maintained minor representation in the House of Commons until its decline in the 1950s. Its limited western and Quebec bases in the 1960s were never well integrated. The party was electorally successful in provincial politics in Alberta until the 1970s and remained a major force in British Columbia politics until the early 1990s, while in Quebec it maintained only nominal representation in the House of Commons and minor activity in provincial politics through the 1970s. The Social Credit party began in Alberta, a province with a history of militant agrarian activism, under the leadership of evangelist William (“Bible Bill”) Aberhart. It defeated the United Farmers of Alberta in 1935 and remained in power in

Social Credit party

Alberta—for many years under the leadership of Aberhart’s evangelist-politician protégé Ernest Manning—until 1970. It then formed the official opposition to the Progressive Conservatives with a handful of seats, and later fell behind the New Democratic party. Social Credit’s formal monetary theories and policies were secondary to its charismatic, populist leadership in explaining its success. The theory of Social Credit was the so-called A + B Theorem of Major C.H. Douglas, a British army engineer. According to Douglas, there is always a discrepancy between the costs of production and the purchasing power of individuals. The Social Credit party promised to supplement individuals’ purchasing power through direct grants. The Supreme Court of Canada, however, ruled the provincial government’s attempts to effect Social Credit legislation in Alberta in the 1930s to be unconstitutional. Subsequently, the party became a populist conservative party. Prosperity following the Second World War, occasioned in particular by the discovery of oil in the province, reinforced the position of Social Credit as the singularly dominant party of government and administration in Alberta. Following Ernest Manning’s departure from its leadership, the party atrophied in the 1970s, replaced by the Progressive Conservative party in the single-party dominant provincial politics of Alberta. In British Columbia, the party came to power in 1952 under the leadership of W.A.C. Bennett, who had failed earlier to win the leadership of the provincial Progressive Conservative party. Bennett and the Social Credit party held office until 1972. Under the leadership of his son, Bill Bennett, the party returned to power in 1975 and remained there, later under William Vander Zalm, for 16 years. In 1991, Vander Zalm resigned the leadership of a divided party in disgrace and, in the subsequent election, the new leader was personally defeated. Social Credit fell to minor-party status and elected members later drifted away, some identifying themselves as Reformers. The Liberal party eventually replaced Social Credit as the main alternative to the New Democratic party in provincial politics in BC. From 1935 to 1958, Social Credit had minor representation from Alberta and British Columbia in the House of Commons, being eliminated in John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative landslide in 1958. In 1962, the party—which had an organization in Quebec since the 1940s called the Union des Électeurs— elected 26 members of parliament under the leadership of Réal Caouette, and later of Fabien Roy, as the Ralliement des créditistes. The Quebec members and the four western Social Credit MPs elected in 1962 were never integrated; as the western party finally disappeared from the House of Commons, the Créditistes membership in the house also dwindled, eventually to five MPs in the 1979 election and finally none in the 1980 election. In the late 1980s, Manning’s son, Preston Manning, established and led the federal Reform party from Alberta, combining organization skills and the same populist appeal of his father and Aberhart in the Social Credit party, effectively using the slogan “The West Wants In.” However, Preston Manning deliberately kept the populist and social conservative Reform party out of provincial electoral politics, to focus party resources instead on the federal arena and his ultimate objective to “unite the right.” In the 1993 federal election, Reform won 52 seats, all but one in the West, and contributed significantly to the Progressive Conser-

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vative government’s defeat and Manning’s ultimate objective, though not under his leadership. Achieving official opposition status in the 1997 election, but failing again to extend Reform’s electoral support significantly east of Manitoba, and with Progressive Conservatives failing even to achieve official party status in the House of Commons, Manning oversaw the transformation of Reform to the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. However, Manning lost the Canadian Alliance leadership to Stockwell Day, a former Alberta cabinet minister who tended to reinforce the antipathy of central and Atlantic voters in the 2000 election. Though regaining official party status, the Progressive Conservatives did not significantly improve their position. Stephen Harper, another Alberta MP, replaced Day and successfully negotiated a merger between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives in 2003, creating the Conservative party. The merger did not immediately result in electoral fortune, as the new Conservative party under Harper’s leadership received a smaller share of the popular vote in the 2004 election than the combined vote of the two parties in 2000. Whether due to Conservative missteps or Liberal and New Democratic attacks on “social conservatism” and an allegedly hidden right-wing agenda, at least Preston Manning’s objective of uniting “his” party and the Progressive Conservatives was achieved. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservative party formed a minority government, following a campaign when considerable care was taken to moderate the party’s image. It achieved electoral gains in Ontario and Quebec, though largely in rural areas of those provinces, and also in the context of an incumbent Liberal party beset by charges of corruption. See Canadian Alliance party; Populism; Ralliement des créditistes; Reform party; Third parties (political). Social movement organizations Differentiated but interconnected groups and networks that, especially as sponsors of “new” social meaning and action, act on both government and society, promoting discourse on innovative values and a rethinking of basic relationships. Some social movement organizations such as ethnic, religious, nationalist, and labour movements are of long standing. Examples of the “new” discourse of social movement organizations include attitudes related to the environment and consumption, the family, gender and gender relations, human rights, for example of children, gays and lesbians, the elderly and the mentally or physically disabled, peace and conflict resolution, and curbs on the power of multinational corporations in a global economy. Like traditional interest groups, social movements seek to influence public policy, but unlike traditional interest groups, social movements do not seek to do so solely in a collegial, mutually accommodative relationship with political parties and public officials. As primarily social actors, social movement leadership, fearful of being “co-opted,” temper their collaborative arrangements with government and established political parties, and use various tactics of direct action to draw public attention and support for their objectives. Although social movements predate the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, its equality rights section 15, and section 28 on gender equality, have constitutionally legitimized some social movement interests. Indeed, the use of the Charter and the judicial process by some groups, in addition to traditional parliamentary representation, to pursue their interests has led to their description by

Socialism

some people as the court party. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Globalization (globalism); Interest groups; Postmaterialism. Social Union Framework Agreement (1999) A federal-provincial agreement, with Quebec dissenting, on rules for future joint federal-provincial programs in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. By the end of the twentieth century, the federal government’s post-Second World War “entanglement” in policies of exclusive provincial jurisdiction through various conditional shared-cost programs, notably in health care, post-secondary education, and income maintenance, was joined with a desire to remain involved but with a smaller financial commitment. The provinces, always critical of the conditions or “strings” attached to federal assistance, were also critical of the federal government’s unilateral reduction in levels of federal funding. In general, the federal government promised not to introduce new sharedcost social programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction without the support of a majority of the provinces. It would, however, retain the right to make transfers to individuals, which, incidentally, would be direct and visible federal benefits to Canadians, unlike indirect federal transfers through provinces. The agreement would continue to discourage discriminatory provincial employment requirements and residency requirements regarding access to social benefits, and increase public accountability and visibility for intergovernmental transfers, and improve federal consultation with the provinces on funding changes in transfers for social programs. The Social Union Framework Agreement applies to Quebec, although the sovereignist Parti Québécois government dissented from it. This aspect of so-called collaborative federalism by the federal Liberal government followed an agreement in 1994 on internal trade and was concurrent with the federal government’s introduction of a national child benefit and a millennium scholarship fund. Critics of the agreement, especially in Quebec, argued that it further legitimized federal spending power in social policy and allowed for change without the consent of Quebec. Not surprisingly, “centralist” critics argued that the federal government had granted too much to the provinces while supporters argued that the Social Union Framework Agreement struck an acceptable balance between federal involvement and provincial autonomy. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Spending power. Socialism A cross-national set of values according to which economic production, distribution, and exchange should be controlled through public, that is, government ownership and regulation to achieve a basic standard of living for all and a genuine culture of equal opportunity. Thus, the full development of individual personality would be achieved in harmony with others and would be enhanced in the attainment of the common good, rather than through a competitive struggle of self-interested individuals leading to gross inequality and social unrest. Socialism comprises many “schools” and political groupings. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the Canadian left included many sectarian groups. In 1921, the Communist party of Canada was founded on the Leninist model, appropriating for itself the role of official interpreter of the ideas of Karl

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Marx. The party existed as a sometimes legal, sometimes proscribed organization, remaining loyal to the policies of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and undergoing the tensions and schisms that Communist parties experienced elsewhere outside the Soviet bloc until the demise of Soviet Union itself in 1991. Many democratic socialists—advocating gradualist, democratic, and parliamentary means to achieve socialist objectives—eventually coalesced in the Commonwealth Co-operative Federation (CCF) in 1933 following publication of its Regina Manifesto. The CCF was an intellectual force as well as a political movement, especially evident in the work of the League for Social Reconstruction. As a political force, it formed the government of Saskatchewan for almost two decades from 1944 and became an important electoral factor in the provincial politics of Ontario and British Columbia. Though never a consistently strong federal party electorally, some of its policies were either promised or adopted by Liberal governments, by name if not in substance, when the CCF showed signs of becoming popular and constituting a greater electoral threat than the Conservative party. In this manner, the federal CCF in opposition led by J.S. Woodsworth and M.J. Coldwell, or its government in Saskatchewan under Premier T.C. Douglas, can claim credit for the introduction of Canada’s system of unemployment insurance, hospitalization insurance, and single-payer, comprehensive and universal public health care. During post-Second World War prosperity, the CCF underwent a transformation similar to that experienced by other western socialist parties. In the 1950s, the ideological rhetoric of the CCF and its policies of nationalization were replaced by a more moderate brand of socialism, emphasizing public planning through the managerial and regulatory powers of government enunciated in its Winnipeg Declaration. The New Democratic party (NDP) issued from this process in 1961, modelling its policies less on those of the British Labour party, which had been an important model for the CCF, and more on Scandinavian social democratic parties and their governments. The NDP remained influential in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, forming governments in those provinces concurrently in the early 1990s; it developed strength in Manitoba and Yukon, forming governments there, and became an opposition force in Nova Scotia. In view of its socialist outlook and centralizing policies, the CCF was almost anathema in conservative, Catholic Quebec. At the time of the transformation to the NDP’s moderate democratic socialism, under the leadership of Douglas, the federal party made serious efforts to accommodate a “binational” view of Confederation. Although the Quiet Revolution in Quebec resulted in the decline of the Catholic Church’s conservative political influence and a shift in popular loyalty to the provincial state, the provincial Liberals in power at that time and the rise of the social democratic Parti Québécois on the indépendantiste wave foreclosed opportunities for NDP support in the province either provincially or federally. In federal politics, the NDP has remained a relatively minor force, winning between 9 and 25 per cent of the popular vote in general elections, perhaps having its greatest influence on policy during the minority Liberal government of 1972–1974, when it was led by David Lewis. It maintained its third-party status in the House of Commons, achieving its largest representation in the 1980s during

Sovereign

the leadership of Ed Broadbent, winning 43 seats in the 1988 election. Its weakest federal performance occurred in the 1990s, losing official-party status in 1993, though regaining it with minimal popular support in later elections. Led at this time successively by Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough, the party suffered along with the Progressive Conservatives, from a popular trend supporting privatization and deregulation of the economy and a general cynicism expressed towards established parties and politicians. Though failing to hold the balance of power by itself in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority Liberal government following the 2004 election, the NDP, led by Jack Layton, negotiated significant changes to the government’s first budget in return for supporting the government. In the 2006 election, the party increased its representation in the house, but with less than 20 per cent of the popular vote, and did not hold the balance of power during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government. However limited the electoral success of socialists in Canada, the redistributive social policies associated with the movement and promoted by the CCF-NDP have been adopted by other party governments. Indeed, many Canadians who would not think of themselves as socialists or even democratic socialists point to the social security system, including various federal-provincial shared-cost social programs, as an important feature distinguishing Canada from the United States. Despite occasional grumbling from some revenue-rich provinces, all governments are now constitutionally committed to promoting economic development and individual well-being, reducing economic disparities, and providing essential public services to all Canadians (Constitution Act, 1982, s.36). See Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); New Democratic party (NDP); Red Tory (ism); Regina Manifesto; Winnipeg Declaration. Sovereign, the (via canadianheritage.gc.ca) The person on whom the Crown is constitutionally conferred, symbolizing Canada’s status as a constitutional monarchy and the incumbent’s status as Canada’s head of state in whom formal executive power is vested. As Canada’s Sovereign is the same person as the British Sovereign, resident in London, the Crown’s executive authority in Canada is delegated in large part to a representative, the governor general, whom the Sovereign appoints on the prime minister’s recommendation through Letters Patent. On the prime minister’s recommendation, the governor general appoints the Sovereign’s Privy Council for Canada, “to aid and advise in the Government of Canada” (Constitution Act, 1867, s.11), the effective part of which is the federal cabinet. The governor-in-council, that is the federal cabinet, appoints the governor general’s representatives in the provinces, the lieutenant-governors. They appoint their respective provincial executive councils, effectively the provincial cabinets, on the advice of the provincial premier (ss.58ff). At the time of Confederation in 1867, the convention of responsible government was already established in the participating colonies; that is, the governor general and lieutenant-governors were obliged to appoint “advisers” who had the confidence of their respective legislatures, and who would then accept their prime minister’s or premier’s advice in almost all matters, excepting some crown prerogatives notably relating to the dissolution of parliament or a provincial legislature for an election and the appointment of the prime minister or premier.

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All legislation must receive royal assent and be proclaimed to be effective. Judicial functions are conducted in the name of the Sovereign. Command of Canada’s military is also vested in the Sovereign. Canada’s honorary awards are conferred in the Sovereign’s name. The Sovereign is also recognized as the head of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of independent states, formerly British colonies or trusts, and associated states. See Crown prerogatives; Governor general; Letters Patent; Lieutenant-governor. Sovereignty-association The objective of Quebec’s Parti Québécois (PQ), and its federal counterpart, the Bloc Québécois (BQ), in restructuring Quebec’s relationship with the rest of Canada—to achieve national sovereignty in an economic association with Canada. Sovereignty-association was defined first at a convention of the Parti Québécois in 1979 and later the same year refined in a government white paper, QuebecCanada: A New Deal—the Quebec Government’s Proposal for a New Partnership between Equals: Sovereignty-Association. The PQ had won the provincial election in 1976, promising a separate vote on sovereignty. A government-sponsored referendum seeking a mandate to negotiate sovereignty association was defeated in 1980, but the PQ government was re-elected the following year. Out of power, the PQ opposed the constitutional Meech Lake Accord in 1990 and the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, characterizing it as “less than Meech.” The indépendantiste Bloc Québécois won 54 seats in the 1993 federal election and formed the official opposition. One year later, the PQ returned to office in Quebec, promising to hold another referendum on sovereignty. The PQ’s 30-seat margin over the Liberals was, however, based on a virtually equal share of the popular vote (44%). Under PQ Premier Jacques Parizeau, the sovereignty-association option was narrowly defeated in the second referendum in 1995 (50.6% “No”) with a 93 per cent voter turnout, though in this vote a majority of francophone voters apparently voted “Yes.” The complicated and, to many critics, obscure, question read: “Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, with the scope of the Bill respecting the future of Quebec and the agreement signed on June 12, 1995.” Parizeau subsequently resigned and Lucien Bouchard, leader of the BQ became PQ leader and premier, promising another referendum on sovereignty-association only when success appeared likely. The PQ was re-elected again in 1998, though it received a smaller share of the popular vote than the federalist Liberal party. Bouchard resigned in 2001, without conditions gagnantes for another referendum being realized, succeeded by a more hard-line souverainiste, Bernard Landry. Having lost the election of 2003, Landry resigned the party leadership in 2005. In what many commentators saw that year as a contest between two former PQ cabinet ministers representing different generations, André Boisclair defeated the veteran Pauline Marois for the leadership. At the federal level, the sovereignist Bloc Québécois lost its official opposition status to the Reform party in 1997, though it retained significant representation as the third party in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government responded to the close results of the second referendum and the

Speaker

possibility of another with its so-called Plan A and Plan B: Plan A included a non-entrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996, under which no amendment using the general amending formula would be introduced in parliament unless it had the support of the legislatures of designated regions, Quebec being one of the regions; and also a parliamentary resolution recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society, with encouragement to the predominantly anglophone provinces to accommodate themselves to some constitutional “distinct-society” designation for Quebec; Plan B included a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on secession from Confederation and, in the context of the court’s ruling, enacted the Clarity Act in 2000, which set conditions for the federal parliament’s recognition of the validity of future referendums in Quebec on sovereignty-association, including the question itself, the campaign, and the results. The BQ, however, retained considerable electoral popularity in Quebec, less than the Liberals in 2000, but more than the Liberals in the elections of 2004 and 2006. The 2006 election, however, saw a resurgence in Quebec of the Conservative party, which formed a minority government, including 10 seats in Quebec, displacing the Liberals as the second most popular party, while the BQ lost three seats. See Bloc Québécois; Clarity Act (on secession from Confederation); Parti Québécois; Secession Reference; Veto. Speaker (of the legislature) The presiding officer of a legislative chamber. The elected members of parliament choose a Speaker for the House of Commons from among themselves prior to the opening of a Parliament following each general election and for the duration of that Parliament (Constitution Act, 1867, s.44). Until 1986, the prime minister nominated (seconded by the leader of the opposition) a member of parliament—usually a government MP—who assumed the position by acclamation. Since then, the house has effectively chosen its Speaker by secret ballot, announced by the Clerk of the House without identifying vote totals. The Speaker presides at sittings of the house (s.46), enforcing the Standing Orders, or rules, of the house and maintaining the rights and privileges of the house and its members, voting only in the event of a tie. Most procedural rulings of the Speaker are not subject to appeal. The Speaker is also responsible for the internal management of the house, including the estimates of house operations, and sits with government and opposition MPs on the board of internal economy to control the financial and administrative affairs of the house. On the prime minister’s nomination, the house elects various deputies who serve in the chair during the term of the Parliament. Although assisted in rulings by the clerk of the house and legal officers, the Speaker nonetheless must be familiar with the rules and precedents, and retain the respect of members. Because of this, and because a constituency is denied an active participating MP while the person is Speaker, there have been suggestions that the position be a permanent appointment not contingent on holding elective office to the House of Commons. The governor general—but effectively the prime minister—appoints the Speaker of parliament’s upper house, the Senate (Constitution Act, 1867, s.34), who usually serves for the term of the Parliament. The duties of the Senate’s Speaker are similar to those of the Speaker of the house but, because the Senate is much less a site of extensive partisan debate, the position is less demanding.

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Special Operating Agencies

The role of Speaker in the provincial legislatures is similar to those of the Speaker of the House of Commons. However, respect for the position and the decorum of the legislature will vary according to provincial custom. See House of Commons; Parliamentary privilege (immunities). Special Operating Agencies (SOAs) Self-contained operating units within the federal public service, operating relatively autonomously within government departments that have the potential for being financially self-sufficient. The approximately 18 SOAs include the Canada Communication Group, a publishing and copyright agency of the federal government, Passport Canada, the Coast Guard, Defence Research and Development, and the Translation Bureau. The creation of SOAs was part of restructuring and rationalizing within the federal administration begun under the Progressive Conservative government in the late 1990s. Special status An objective sought in a new constitution recognizing that Quebec, the historic homeland of most French-speaking Canadians and the only jurisdiction in North America with a French majority, should have legislative powers in addition to those assigned the provinces generally, in order to preserve its French culture. The demand is associated initially with the provincial Liberal government of Jean Lesage during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. However, the Lesage government spoke of statut particulier only in 1965, during its last year in office. This could be read either as a reference to recently acquired status as the sole province having opted out of federal-provincial shared-cost programs with financial compensation, or as a generalized demand for jurisdiction not shared with the other provinces. Later premiers Daniel Johnson, Sr. (Union Nationale, 1966–1970) and Robert Bourassa (Liberal, 1970–1976) walked the fine line between the “older” Quebec demands for a revised federalism and “new” demands for a constitution recognizing the existence of two nations. The election of the Parti Québécois in 1976 placed sovereignty firmly on the agenda and, following the return of the Liberals to office under Bourassa in 1985, the provincial government sought the agreement of the federal government and the other provinces to constitutional recognition of Quebec as a “distinct society,” with legislative jurisdiction to “preserve and promote the distinct society of Quebec…” (Canada Clause, Charlottetown Accord, 1992, after the Meech Lake Accord, 1987). See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Distinct society clause; Meech Lake Accord (1987); Quiet Revolution; Sovereignty association; Two nations (deux nations). Speech from the Throne The governor general’s address in the Senate, before senators, members of parliament, the judges of the Supreme Court, and the diplomatic corps that opens sessions of parliament. In all provinces but Quebec, the lieutenant-governors read the Speech from the Throne to the provincial legislatures. In Quebec, the premier delivers an Inaugural Address in the National Assembly in the presence of the lieutenant-governor. The prime minister’s (premier’s) advisors actually compose the Speech, which generally reviews the state of public affairs from the government’s perspective and provides a general outline of its legislative priorities in the coming session. At

Standing committees

the next sitting of the legislature, a general “throne speech debate” takes place on a government motion commending the governor general (lieutenant-governor) for the address. Opposition amendments to the motion constitute want-of-confidence motions that the government must win in order to stay in office. Spending power Given its greater constitutional powers of taxation and therefore its capacity to acquire revenue relative to the provinces, the federal government’s ability to make payments to people, institutions, and provincial and municipal governments, notably in policy fields in which the federal parliament does not have the constitutional power to legislate. Spending power grants the federal government a leading role in establishing conditional federal-provincial shared-cost programs to achieve country-wide standards of public service in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. Confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in cases involving federal standards set in the Canada Assistance Plan, federal spending power is based in the broad powers of taxation given parliament (Constitution Act, s.91:3, “The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation”) and the right to make laws relating to “The Public Debt and Property” (s.91:1A). By contrast, provincial governments have powers only of “Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes” (s.92:2). Especially since the Second World War, federal spending power has involved the federal government in areas of exclusive provincial responsibility in a number of ways, notably shared-cost programs such as post-secondary education, social assistance, and health care, but also in a variety of bilateral programs in such areas as labour training, culture, forestry, mining, housing, municipal and urban affairs, tourism, and recreation. Through spending power, the federal government indirectly sets provincial, even municipal, spending priorities and standards for programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Since the 1960s, other provinces have joined in Quebec’s traditional opposition to the federal government’s “entanglement” in provincial policy determination and spending priorities. Not all provinces feel as strongly as some about the exercise of federal spending power, as successive federal governments have maintained an obligation to ensure comparable levels of basic public services across the country and a reduction in regional economic and social disparities. The Canada Health and Social Transfer in 1996 replaced the then-current Established Program Financing and the Canada Assistance Program with a block transfer, the Canada Health and Social Transfer, which reduced federal controls, but also its financial commitment. In 1999, the federal government and nine provinces, with Quebec dissenting, signed the Social Union Framework Agreement to establish rules on the future use of federal spending power in social policies in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Charlottetown Accord (1992); Conditional grants; Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Meech Lake Accord (1987); Social Union Framework Agreement (1999). Standing (legislative, special, joint) committees (of the House of Commons and Senate) Various parliamentary committees: permanent or standing committees named according to major policy fields, some to examine specific prob-

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lems in certain policy fields, joint standing and special parliamentary committees of both houses, and others to deal with matters such as public accounts, miscellaneous private bills, procedures and organization, and privileges and elections. Most of the standing committees of the House of Commons, each with as many as 15 members, are named for major government departments, such as Finance, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Transport, and Health. They report on any matter related to the relevant departments, but in particular examine the estimates of those departments, hearing from ministers, senior officials, and representations from private organizations and individual witnesses. Other important committees include Public Accounts, and Elections, Privileges and Procedure. Separate legislative committees are created to examine government legislation. There are also joint House-Senate committees, notably the joint committee on the scrutiny of regulations and, as occasion warrants, special joint committees on the constitution. Membership on committees of legislatures is roughly proportional to party representation in the legislature. The chairs of all house committees, except the committee on public accounts, are usually members of the government party. Though chairs are ostensibly elected by the committee, the government may occasionally be more directly involved than simply leaving the matter to its majority members. Though there will be differences in style from chair to chair and from committee to committee, generally the chair is simply a presiding officer not exercising any extraordinary control over the committee, and chairs do not always display the studied impartiality or the usually calm demeanour of the Speaker of the House of Commons. Although the proceedings of committee meetings are less formal and might be less party-disciplined than the legislature, public opinion, partisanship, and electoral considerations are often close to the surface in committee meetings. Employees of the legislature serve as staff to the committees and their role is essentially supportive of the whole committee. Neither the chairs nor the staff have roles and influence comparable to their counterparts in the congressional committee system in the United States. Special house or parliamentary committees, such as those on the constitution in 1991–1992, can recruit academics and others to their staff and hold hearings across the country. House standing committees, including legislative committees of the House of Commons that scrutinize government bills, including supply and ways and means legislation, are important in performing the surveillance, legislative audit, and representative functions of parliament. Unless funds are available for standing committees to conduct independent research and to travel, they usually meet only in Ottawa. Thus, committees effectively restrict their reservoir of potential witnesses to representatives of organized or well-financed groups that can afford travel to the capital, or employ or retain permanent lobbyists there. The committees decide whom to call as witnesses and, following testimony, what recommendations to submit to the legislature. Witnesses tend to be public officials, interested private-sector representatives, and academics. On estimates, the witnesses called to support departmental estimates are ministers and officials in their departments who have already overcome the onerous hurdles within the executive apparatus of interdepartmental and cabinet committees, including Treasury Board and its

State Secretariat; and they now have the support of cabinet and government backbenchers in the house. At this stage, however, the minister and accompanying officials are operating for the first time in public, and the committee can be a forum for general criticism of government programs as well as a rare occasion for holding ministers accountable for every estimated expenditure in their departments. Since the late 1980s, parliamentary committee hearings have been selectively recorded and broadcast on the parliamentary channel of cable television systems, when the proceedings of the house itself are not being televised. See Estimates; House of Commons committees. Standing Orders The codified rules of procedure of the legislature, enforced by Speaker. In the House of Commons, for example, the Speaker, and the deputy speakers enforce the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and if challenged, buttress their rulings on the basis of precedents in Canada and other jurisdictions, the latter notably including the British parliament and other countries whose parliamentary traditions also derive from the so-called Mother of Parliaments. However, with the passage of time and events, Canadian precedents tend to comprise Speakers’ rulings on disputes over Standing Orders. As a legislature is the master of its own affairs, a majority can revise the Standing Orders. Disputes usually arise in the context of heated partisan debate, but the disciplined party system in Canadian legislatures also assists the Speaker in enforcing the rules. Each party’s house leader and whip arrange the business of the legislature as best they can, frequently in a highly charged partisan atmosphere. The revision of Standing Orders themselves often becomes a matter of partisan debate—as that the government proposals, while designed to make the legislature more “efficient,” usually mean less time for the opposition to debate government measures. Stare decisis The rule of precedent in judicial decisions by which lower courts are bound by decisions of higher courts in same jurisdiction when deciding current cases. Stare decisis means “to stand by decided matters.” It is an abbreviation for stare decisis et non quieta movere, “to stand by decisions and not to disturb settled matters.” The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in its rulings affecting the Canadian constitution until 1949, considered its precedents as possibly persuasive, but not binding. So, too, justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, the country’s final court of appeal, might be persuaded by rulings of their predecessors, but with sufficient nuances in their own reasoning as to make their majority or minority opinions more persuasive precedents to justices in cases years later. Their majority rulings are final and, as mentioned above, those of superior courts are binding on lower courts. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive). State, the A political community exercising control over specific territory and the population within. The state expresses itself chiefly through a political regime or government that includes a public administration, a judiciary, and police and military organizations. Its chief functions are to manage conflict associated with

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the allocation of resources within the territory, to pursue its own interests in relation to other states, and to protect itself from both internal and external threats. State sovereignty implies the existence of a government and administration that possess control over all other public and private institutions within a specific territory and recognition by other states of that sovereignty without interference from other states, basically a relationship of political power. International law is based on the sovereignty of states in reference to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In recent years, state sovereignty has been challenged by two streams of globalization: multinational corporations seeking to enhance their freedom to operate independently of state controls and non-governmental organizations seeking to establish a supranational regime of laws to regulate the behaviour of both states and private corporations. See Globalization (globalism). Statistics Canada (statcan.ca) A federal agency established in 1918, responsible for the census of Canada and for collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical information relating to social, economic, industrial, commercial, agricultural, and financial activities and conditions in Canada. Statistics Canada is also responsible for collaborating with other government departments for the publication of statistical information based on government activities, and for developing integrated social and economic statistics pertaining to Canada and each of the provinces and territories, in accordance with scientific standards and practices. Statistics Canada disseminates some information without cost and also provides specialized information on a fee-for-service basis. Statute (Act) Styled a bill when introduced, legislation that has passed three readings in each parliamentary chamber (or a provincial legislature) and received royal assent. In bound form, federal statutes are known as Statutes of Canada and legislation amended since original passage is periodically published in updated form as Revised Statutes of Canada (R.S.C.) (laws.justice.gc.ca). See Legislation. Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931) An Act of the British parliament giving effect to resolutions of the imperial conferences of 1926 and 1930. It formalized the national independence of the dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa) and created the constitutional basis of the contemporary Commonwealth. The Statute of Westminster gave statutory sanction to a resolution of the imperial conference of 1926 that the dominions “are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.…” The Act declared that the Colonial Laws Validity Act (by which dominion legislation was void if it conflicted with British statutes) no longer applied to the dominions; that the British parliament would not invalidate future acts of dominion parliaments—in Canada’s case, the imperial function of reservation and disallowance of the governor general under the British North America Act (BNA Act), though no longer relevant, was formally declared obsolete; that no act of the British parliament would affect a dominion unless it had requested and consented to it—necessary in Canada’s case as there was no agree-

Sunset clause

ment among federal and provincial governments on a purely “domestic” amending formula; that dominion parliaments could enact laws with extra-territorial effect; and that the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act (1890) and the Merchant Shipping Act (1894) no longer applied to the dominions, these latter essentially “housekeeping” matters. In 1949, the termination of appeals to the imperial Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from Canada was the severance of a still-effective colonial tie. However, an impediment to full formal constitutional independence was the absence of a “domestic” amending procedure to the basic constitutional Act, which was an Act of the British parliament. Through an amendment of the BNA Act in 1949, the Canadian parliament effectively acquired the power to amend the Act, still on a request to the British parliament, except sections regarding provincial jurisdiction, constitutional guarantees on education and the use of French and English, and the requirement for an annual session of parliament and its five-year term. In 1982, at the conclusion of federal-provincial negotiations that had begun in the 1960s, the British Canada Act patriated the BNA Act, renamed the Constitution Act, including amendment procedures involving only Canadian legislatures as well as a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. See Commonwealth of Nations; Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended. Statutory instrument Any order, rule, regulation, tariff, commission, warrant, resolution, proclamation, or other execution of a power conferred by or under a legislative Act and thus has the force of law. Such instruments are the subordinate legislation of executive and administrative bodies exercising delegated legislative authority. Federal instruments are published in the Canada Gazette, but there remains the question of adequate legislative scrutiny of delegated legislation. At the federal level, the joint Senate-House of Commons committee on the scrutiny of regulations is responsible for ensuring that statutory instruments do not exceed authority delegated by parliament. As such instruments constitute the effective laws of a modern administrative state and number in the thousands, as well as being constantly subject to change, this committee cannot effectively scrutinize all subordinate legislation. The Federal Court, which hears appeals of administrative decisions, assists consequently in the development of administrative law. See Delegated power; Federal Court; Regulatory agencies (regulations). Subordinate legislation Rules, regulations, orders, and any other statutory instruments enacted by executive and administrative bodies under enabling legislation passed by parliament or a provincial legislature. Much legislation is enabling legislation granting discretionary authority to the cabinet or to a department or other administrative agency to adopt and enforce regulations to achieve the purpose of the originating legislation. See Delegated power; Regulatory agencies (regulations); Statutory instrument. Sunset clause Statutory provision for a law to expire at a given time, subject to its re-enactment. An imposed termination date for legislation might be included given a particular set of circumstances such as an emergency that requires a timely govern-

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ment response, including extraordinary power, for which there is no appropriate legislative authority. Hence, the sunset provision allows for an emergency to be apprehended with any further extension of legislative authority subject to further debate, especially on its effectiveness in the circumstances and its necessity in the future. Provisions in the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001, dealing with preventive arrest of suspected terrorists and investigative hearing powers “sunset,” that is, cease to have effect, after five years, subject to an extension for up to a further five years by a resolution of both the House of Commons and Senate. An important example of a sunset clause in Canada’s constitution is the legislative override of specific sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms without recourse to the courts. Section 33 of the Charter was a concession to those supporting the principle of the supremacy of parliament (the legislature). Section 33, the so-called non obstante or “notwithstanding” clause, allows legislatures to adopt legislation that admittedly violates fundamental freedoms (s.2), legal rights (ss.7–14), and equality rights (s.15) of the Charter. However, the override “shall cease to have effect” five years after it comes into force unless it is reenacted; and any re-enactment also has a five-year limitation. Widespread use of a sunset clause is supported in principle by those who feel that the public sector is too large, but who do not wish to oppose some innovation at least for a short period. Also, they are not confident that legislators would later terminate a program or administrative body that has come to be supported either by vested private interests or widespread public opinion. See Anti-Terrorism Act, 2001; Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Supplementary estimates Government requests to the legislature for additional funds to meet financial needs purportedly unforeseen when the main estimates were drawn up and presented earlier. These estimates are usually tabled late in a parliamentary session, and final supplementary estimates at the end of a fiscal year. See Budget and budgetary process; Estimates. Supply bill The informal name for an appropriation measure, that is, government legislation to appropriate funds to finance specified government operations according to departmental and agency estimates that the legislature must approve. In parliament, supply bills are introduced first in the House of Commons. Following legislative approval and royal assent, government departments and agencies may spend money only for purposes authorized by the legislature. See Budget and budgetary process; Estimates. Supply period (allotted days; opposition days) Time allocated in the legislative timetable in the House of Commons for the debate of supply bills, to approve appropriations for government expenditure. There are 21 days in the three supply periods during which opposition motions take precedence over all government business. On these so-called allotted days, or opposition days, which are distributed proportionately by party representation in the house, an opposition party introduces a motion of non-confidence in the government. Such days are rare occasions in the house timetable when the opposition can determine the subject of debate on which the government must defend itself. Prior to adjournment on the last allotted day, the Speaker puts the question to dispose of business related to supply.

Supremacy of parliament

Supremacy of parliament The principle that the legislature is sovereign over other bodies, the centre of legal power not even bound by its earlier decisions: “the supreme architect of law” (J.R. Mallory, The Structure of Government [Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1971], p. 218). In Canada, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty is modified by the federal system which allocates legislative competence between two levels of autonomous jurisdiction, the federal parliament and the provincial legislatures, and an entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, both of which subject legislation to judicial review. In addition to these important constitutional modifications to the principle of parliamentary supremacy is the functional subordination of the parliament and provincial legislatures to the executive, and indirectly the public administration, as a result of party discipline and the executive’s normally firm control over the majority of legislators. Nonetheless, the constitutional principle of responsible government requires that the political executive, the cabinet or government-of-the-day comes from the legislature and must retain its support to remain in office. Thus, the legislature is the focus of debate between the government party and the political opposition, including the party most likely to replace it, and a particularly effective forum of debate in the case of governments that have only minority representation in the legislature. Until 1982, the supremacy of the Canadian parliament and provincial legislatures was restricted only by the adjudicated distribution of legislative powers under the British North America Act, 1867, as subsequently amended (BNA Act, an Act of the British parliament). Disputes over jurisdictional competence were resolved by appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and, until 1949, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Before 1982, supreme legislative power necessarily involved the British parliament respecting amendments to the BNA Act. In 1982, the constitution was patriated as the Constitution Act with a “domestic” amending formula variously involving only Canadian federal and provincial legislatures, but also with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, against which all legislation can be tested in the courts irrespective of the distribution of legislative authority. As a result of opposition from supporters of the principle of the supremacy of parliament, the Charter includes a conditional legislative override (s.33) of important sections (s.2, fundamental freedoms; ss.7–15, legal rights; s.15 equality rights). However, unless a legislature has rescinded an override, it must be re-enacted after five years or it automatically lapses. Otherwise legislation violating the Charter can only be “saved” in the courts if it constitutes “reasonable limits” that can be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (s.1). Any legislation enacted in compliance with the Constitution Act can be subsequently amended or rescinded by the legislature. The functional subordination of federal and provincial legislatures is evident in the convention of party discipline and the strength of party whips, not only in the legislatures, but also in their committee systems, and the dominance of the legislative agenda by government business. The Canadian federal and provincial party systems generally comprise several parties, but most governments are majority governments effectively ensuring the eventual enactment of government legislation and the defeat of the opposition’s non-confidence votes, the loss of which would require the government to resign or ask the governor general (lieutenant-

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governors in the provinces) to dissolve the legislature for a general election. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; House of Commons; Party system; Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Court of Canada (scc.csc.gc.ca) The superior court of Canada, established by federal statute in 1875. In addition to being the court of appeal from all other courts in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada exercises an important political role through decisions on constitutional references and litigations on constitutional matters. The Supreme Court hears appeals selectively from provincial courts of appeal in civil and criminal matters, and appeals from decisions of the Federal Court of Appeal on cases involving administrative law. Until 1949, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London exercised final appellate powers except in criminal cases. As the significance of judicial review by the Supreme Court has increased since the constitutional enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, it has received considerable attention from groups pursuing their Charter rights, and its rulings have been subject to much public debate. As individual justices have become “public figures,” questions have also been raised about the essentially private appointment procedures exercised solely by the federal government. The governor-in-council (that is, the federal cabinet) appoints the nine justices, designating one as the court’s chief justice and the others as puisne (“ranked after”) judges. A judge retires automatically upon reaching 75 years of age and can be removed by the governor-in-council only on a joint resolution or address of the Senate and the House of Commons. Three of the nine judges must be from the Quebec bench or the bar, thus learned in the province’s civil code. By custom, three justices come from Ontario, two from the West, and one from Atlantic Canada. An appointee must be, or have been, a superior court judge in a province or a barrister with at least 10 years of experience. The Supreme Court sits in Ottawa, hearing appeals for which it has granted leave, or on constitutional cases referred to it by the federal government, or on appeal by provinces on decisions of their references to their provincial court of appeal. When hearing appeals on cases originating in Quebec, at least two of the sitting judges must be from that province. Five judges constitute a quorum, allowing therefore a majority of three from Quebec to sit on cases involving civil law. All nine justices will participate in important constitutional questions. The Supreme Court has always been an important constitutional actor, but especially so following the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 against which all government activity in Canada can be tested. Until then, and like the JCPC until 1949, the court’s judicial review function essentially involved distinguishing federal and provincial legislative competence under the British North America Act, with regard for, but not necessarily obeisance to, precedents. Especially after 1949, observers sought to determine patterns on decisions relating to federal-provincial power, especially in the determination of federal jurisdiction under the “Trade and Commerce” clause (s.91:2), and the effectiveness of federal emergency and residual powers under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” preamble to section 91. Unlike the JCPC, the Supreme

Supreme Court of Canada

Court publishes separate concurring decisions and dissenting opinions. Thus, the court’s rulings can be analyzed judge by judge and case by case. With the development of executive federalism in the 1960s and ongoing negotiations on constitutional reform, governments used the court to achieve political advantage in intergovernmental negotiations. For example, the court confirmed the federal parliament’s jurisdiction over western offshore mineral rights, but denied parliament the power to amend unilaterally the British North America Act with respect to the role of, and representation in, the Senate. When the British government balked at a parliamentary resolution to patriate the constitution in 1981–1982 with the support of only two provinces, the federal government referred the matter to the court. It ruled that though the action was constitutionally legal, it was a violation of constitutional convention. The federal government resumed negotiations with the provinces, achieving the support of all but Quebec for the Constitution Act, 1982, patriating the constitution with an entrenched Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As part of its strategy in response to a likely third referendum in Quebec on sovereignty-association, the federal government received a court ruling regarding secession of Quebec from Confederation on the basis of which parliament enacted the Clarity Act in 2000. Since 1982, the scope of judicial review has widened as a result of the court’s willingness to grant Canadians the “full benefit” of the Charter through a socalled non-interpretive approach, adopting a “broad, purposive analysis, which interprets specific provisions of a constitutional document in light of its larger objects” (Hunter v. Southam, 1984). At the same time, Canadians, both individually and as organized interests, have realized the political importance of a citizen-rights-based constitution. So-called Charter interests and groups have developed and linked together in broader social movements to pursue political objectives through the courts in addition to the traditional legislative and administrative processes. The country’s traditional elites of federal and provincial governments, their administrations and dominant interest groups, who have never shied from pursuing their interests in the courts, have thus been joined by other groups, which some commentators have termed the court party. The Supreme Court decided early on that it would review legislation on substantive grounds to ensure “accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” (s.7), so that the meaning of the Charter would not be “frozen in time to the moment of adoption with little or no possibility of growth, development and adjustment to changing societal needs” (Motor Vehicle Reference, British Columbia, 1985). The court accepted, perhaps reluctantly, the “crucial obligation of ensuring that the legislative initiatives of our Parliament and legislatures conform to the democratic values expressed” in the Charter (Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. The Queen, 1988). To this end, the court has broadened its fact-finding capacity to include social facts in hearing Charter cases on legislation and executive and administrative decisions of governments at all levels. For instance, it upheld the federal government’s agreement with the United States allowing the testing of cruise missiles over Canada, in part because it was not possible, “even with the best available evidence, to do more than speculate upon the likelihood [of the agreement] resulting in an increased threat of nuclear war” and hence a threat to Canadians’“right to life, liberty and the security of the person” (s.7) (Operation

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Dismantle v. The Queen, 1985). However, the court accepted as important evidence reports commissioned by the federal government that indicated to the court’s satisfaction that provisions of the Criminal Code permitting therapeutic abortions required observance of a procedure that was “manifestly unfair,” which created “so many potential barriers to its own operation that the defence it creates [to criminal liability] will in many circumstances be practically unavailable to women,” and imposes “serious delay causing increased physical and psychological trauma to those women who meet its criteria.” The federal criminal law respecting abortions was therefore a denial of section 7 rights of the Charter and unconstitutional (Morgentaler et al., 1988). On administrative tribunals, the court has ruled that financial cost and administrative convenience cannot be cited to justify procedures that, given the possibility of error, represent a denial of “fundamental justice” (Re Singh and Minister of Employment and Immigration, 1985). On warrants for search and seizure of property, the court ruled that only someone capable of acting judicially—not administrators who hold investigatory and enforcement powers—can issue warrants, and then only on “probable” rather than “possible” grounds and specifying the details of the search (where, when, by whom and for what purpose) (Hunter v. Southam, 1984). These rules affect police authorities as well as administrative tribunals and consequently the admissibility of evidence in court under section 24. The Charter allows for violations to be “saved” under section 1, as “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” that is, justified before the courts. Recognizing that this involves the judiciary directly in political discourse, the Supreme Court has established guidelines for “saving” violations: limitations are permissible if the objective of the challenged law is “pressing and substantial,” the means to achieve its effect involve “minimal impairment” of otherwise protected rights and freedoms and are rationally linked to the objective, and the objective is greater than, or outweighs the limitation (Oakes, 1986). The Supreme Court has also ruled on traditional constitutional matters, now involving provisions of the Charter. For example, having declared in 1979, before enactment of the Charter, that provisions of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language respecting government and the judiciary to be a violation of section 133 of the British North America Act, the court ruled against provisions respecting access to primary and secondary education in English under section 23 of the Charter in 1984 (A.-G. Quebec. v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards). The court has also developed even further as a political institution in the context of remedial decree litigation under the Charter. Section 24:1 allows anyone whose Charter rights and freedoms have been infringed or denied to “apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.” In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the francophone minority in Edmonton should have administrative control over curriculum, instruction and buildings (Mahé v. Alberta). In this and other cases respecting minority-language education rights, the court was in effect issuing remedial decrees placing “positive obligations on government to alter or develop major institutional structures” (Chief Justice Dickson, in Mahé) (re ss.23 and 24:1).

Supreme Court of Canada

In 1992, the Supreme Court established guidelines that would allow the courts to “read in” missing words to legislation (“A limited power to extend legislation is available to courts in appropriate circumstances by way of a power to read in derived from s.52 of the Constitution Act, 1982”) (Schacter v. Canada [Employment and Immigration Commission]). Section 52 declares the constitution to be “the supreme law of Canada, and any law that is consistent with [its provisions] is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect.” Conferring benefits on people otherwise excluded by the legislation, which the courts determine are a constitutional right by “reading in,” the courts can avoid declaring the legislation unconstitutional, and thus widen the benefit of the law rather than deny it to people already benefiting from it. The Schacter ruling concerned a section of the federal Unemployment Insurance Act dealing with differential parental leave benefits for natural parents and for adoptive parents. Increasingly, gay and lesbian rights have been “read in” to family law and human rights codes, given the Charter’s section 15 on equality rights and section 52.The courts can also “read down” a section of law, to narrow its application, in order to ensure its compliance with the Charter. The court can also nullify a law, but then suspend, or stay its invalidity, allowing the relevant legislature time to conform to its ruling—as in 1985 when it declared unconstitutional Manitoba’s 1890 Act abolishing French as an official language and required laws to be translated into French (Order re Manitoba Language Rights), and in 2005 legal restrictions respecting access to health care in Quebec (Chaouilli). Clearly, because the Charter is a political document, the Supreme Court’s political role has increased in importance since 1982 in direct and indirect ways: directly, as citizens and private interests continue to exercise their Charter rights in the courts; indirectly as governments and administrators determine future policy and decision making in anticipation of possible litigation. Public attention has turned to the matter of appointment power: Should the federal government share the power of appointment with relevant provincial governments? Should parliament have a role in ratifying the appointments? Should the Court be enlarged to lighten the burden on the nine justices? Constitutional discussions in the 1980s and 1990s included changes regarding appointment to the Supreme Court. For example, in both the ill-fated Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords of 1987 and 1992, the federal government would have appointed judges from lists submitted by the relevant provincial governments, with provision for interim appointments if a list were not forthcoming or the names were unacceptable to the federal government. In 2004–2005, the Liberal government altered the federal appointment process to permit greater transparency, in the context of diversity of appointees, but in the context of the merit principle, the constitutional framework, and judicial independence and integrity, in a four-stage process: initially a public consultation by the minister of justice to solicit nominees in addition to traditional sources of the current bench and provincial attorneys-general; an advisory committee, including a member of parliament from each recognized party and various people with legal experience to assess several nominees from the minister and present a short-list; government consultation and a decision; and appearance of the minister of justice before a parliamentary committee for comments and questions on the appointee.

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Opposition parties were not impressed with the role of the parliamentary committee, hearing comments from and questioning the minister of justice on appointments already decided. In 2006, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper had an all-party committee of members of parliament, chaired by the minister of justice, question a nominee recommended in a process begun under the recently defeated Liberal government. Following the hearing, Harper confirmed the appointment. More than before, the Supreme Court is subject to scholarly examinations. There have been several studies of judicial review under the Charter, focusing on the decisions of individual justices (individual voting patterns and inter-agreement levels with broad [liberal] or narrow [conservative] consideration of their constitutional role); the categories of Charter cases (fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, equality rights, and so forth); the object of cases (legislation, regulations, and so forth); the litigants (federal and provincial government, and various categories of interest groups and social movements). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); and entries on various items mentioned here. Surveillance (function of parliament) Maintaining the constitutional principle of responsible government, the chief function of parliament (and provincial legislatures) is to scrutinize government policy and behaviour, holding the executive accountable to the legislature. Short of voting no confidence and forcing the government’s resignation or a general election, various procedural devices of surveillance include exchanges during question period, debate on supply motions (especially so-called opposition days in the House of Commons), emergency debates, and general debates (for example, on the Speech from the Throne, the budget and departmental estimates). The surveillance function of parliament is also seen in the detailed examination of government bills and statutory instruments in committees. See Estimates; House of Commons; Question period; Responsible government; Standing (select, special, joint) committees (of the House and Senate). Suspensive veto The power to oppose and delay the passage of legislation. The Canadian constitution contains a traditional, now obsolete, example, as well as an important contemporary example of a suspensive veto. Traditionally, the governor general had the prerogative power to “reserve” legislation received for royal assent “for the Signification of the Queen’s Pleasure,” that is, of the British government (Constitution Act, ss.55- 57; and ss.61 and 90 for the lieutenant-governors of the provinces, for the “Signification of Pleasure” by the federal government). By the Statute of Westminster (1931), the governor general no longer does so; by convention, neither do the lieutenant-governors, though by law they could. An effective contemporary example involves the federal parliament’s role since 1982 in amending the constitution. Most of the amending procedures require a resolution of the bicameral parliament, that is, a similar resolution adopted by both houses. However, the Senate can exercise only a suspensive veto. By not adopting a proposed amendment within 180 days of its adoption by a resolution of the House of Commons, by adopting it amended, or even defeating a resolution adopted by the House of Commons, the Senate can only delay parliamentary approval of an amendment. In such an event, if the house adopts its resolution

Tariff

again after 180 days, the amendment has the approval of parliament without authorization by the Senate (Constitution Act, 1982, s.47). Such was the case in the 1990s, following the Senate’s amendment of a constitutional amendment adopted by the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and the House of Commons on the denominational basis of the province’s education system. See Senate; Veto.

T Tariff (non-tariff barriers) A tax levied on imports from abroad to protect domestic industry, labour, and agriculture from external competition. Protectionist measures also include so-called non-tariff barriers, such as excessively restrictive health and environmental laws regarding the importation of goods from abroad. Traditionally, tariffs were applied to protect so-called infant industries in early stages of development. The National Policy initiated by the federal Conservative government in 1879 included protective tariffs. The policy continued under the Liberals from 1896, although earlier they had championed free trade, or reciprocity, with the United States. Canadian goods also benefited from British imperial preferential treatment of goods imported from Commonwealth and Empire states until the United Kingdom entered the European Economic Community in the 1960s. Because the economic prosperity of many countries, including Canada, depends on export trade, there has been a desire among industrialized countries since the Second World War to reduce barriers to international trade under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT)—now the World Trade Organization (WTO). The world increasingly comprises several trading blocs of countries, involving freer trade within blocs centred primarily on Europe, Japan, and North America. Following unsuccessful attempts by the federal Liberal government to forge a “contractual link” with Europe in the 1970s, the Progressive Conservative government of the 1980s committed Canada’s economic future to a North American trading bloc through a free trade agreement with the United States and later with Mexico as well. In the twentieth century, Canada’s tariffs and the imperial preference eventually resulted in the creation of a miniature replica of the United States economy, as branch plants of foreign (predominantly US) firms were established within the national and imperial barriers. By and large these Canadian firms were intended to satisfy the local market and were not committed to further research and development. Thus, from an international or global perspective, they were small and inefficient. At the same time, primary resources were exported to the manufacturing sectors of other countries. People in the eastern and prairie regions of Canada have historically complained about national tariff policy that benefited the protected manufacturing core in central Canada at the expense of Canadians living elsewhere. who did not benefit from freer international trade. The postwar development of the oil and gas industry in western Canada also pitted regional support for free trade in those primary products against the national policy of the federal government.

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Although Canada constitutes an economic union, provincial jurisdictions have established various non-tariff barriers to achieve local objectives similar to the purpose of national tariffs. The Constitution Act, 1867 prohibits barriers to the movement between provinces of “Articles of Growth, Produce, or Manufacture” (s.121) and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 includes mobility rights for individuals “to pursue the gaining of a livelihood” subject to provincial affirmative action programs to deal with high unemployment (s.6). Over the years, various non-tariff barriers erected by provincial governments have included the marketing of agricultural products, preferential labour hiring laws and professional accreditation procedures, and regulations regarding securities, investment funds, land ownership, environmental protection, purchasing practices, and the retailing of goods and services. While all provincial governments are in some sense protectionist, Quebec, as the only predominantly Frenchspeaking jurisdiction in North America, has traditionally been reluctant to abandon any tools available to strengthen its society and culture. However, both provincial Liberal and Parti Québécois governments supported the Canada-US and the North American free trade agreements. According to PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard, “the language difference, the very strength of Quebec’s identity, made us less apprehensive [than English-speaking Canada] about lowering economic barriers” (Address, New York City, April 15, 1999). However, while pursuing its North American free-trade objectives, the federal Progressive Conservative government in the 1980s and 1990s was less successful in convincing provincial governments to adopt a more effective constitutional provision on Canada’s economic union. However, restrictive provincial and federal barriers are increasingly under attack from other national governments as violations of regulations of the WTO. See Economic union of Canada; Free trade; (World Trade Organization [WTO]). Task force An informal term designating either an independent investigative body established by a government to obtain information and make recommendations on policy matters, or a small working group established to advise a larger or higher-level group of decision-makers. The use of independent task forces is one way of obtaining non-government advice for possible implementation in legislative form. A task force is a less formal body than a royal commission, but with a staff and budget to carry out research and possibly hold public hearings. The effectiveness of a given task force is a function of its terms of reference, members, and financial resources, but also of the relevance of its recommendations to the electoral future of the government. Generally the work of independent task forces is easier to ignore than the reports of higher-profile royal commissions, and their appointment may be only a dilatory or symbolic government response to a problem. For example, the federal Task Force on Canadian Unity of 1978–1979, cochaired by former Ontario Progressive Conservative premier John Robarts and former federal Liberal minister Jean-Luc Pépin, made recommendations that were not entirely in accord with the views of Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The government, however, pursued others in constitutional negotiations leading to the patriation of the constitution in 1982 (A Future Together: Observations and Recommendations [Ottawa: The Task Force on Canadian Unity, 1979]).

Tax expenditures

Earlier, when new to government in the late 1960s and heading a Liberal majority government party whose members had been restrained by their earlier minority status, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau satisfied the favoured interests of some cabinet ministers by appointing them to chair task forces on house and urban development (Paul Hellyer) and foreign investment (Herb Gray), not necessarily committing the government to their recommendations. In the 1980s, a task force on conflict of interest established by the Trudeau government and chaired by two former cabinet ministers, Liberal Mitchell Sharp and Progressive Conservative Michael Starr (Ethical Conduct in the Public Sector), was at least a significant initiative on the subject. Also in the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government was committed to privatization of public services and deregulation of the economy when he established a ministerial Task Force on Program Review chaired by the deputy prime minister, Erik Nielsen. It engaged several study teams of private- and public-sector personnel to investigate the effectiveness of government operations and used their published reports as a basis for its recommendations to the cabinet. Ultimately, however, the consequences for the public administration were minimal relative to what had been expected from the government. Tax abatement and tax points Federal tax abatement involves withdrawal by the federal government from a tax field, and a tax point is a percentage point of personal or corporate income taxes. In the Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act (1965), the federal government gave provinces the opportunity to opt out of certain shared-cost programs and pursue similar provincial programs without financial penalty, through the abatement of tax points allowing provincial governments to increase their provincial tax revenue. Abatements of tax points and cash transfers were the basis of negotiated federal transfer payments under parliament’s FederalProvincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act of subsequent years, and later of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST). Cash transfers to the provinces under the CHST are affected by the provincial revenue generated as a result of the federal tax abatement, the cash and tax point transfers ensuring that the provinces have the same per capita support. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Tax expenditures Potential public revenue foregone through tax-incentive programs. Governments use such policies, notably with business but also individuals, to direct private spending in particular ways. Such incentives, for example tax “holidays,” credits, and deductions, constitute indirect public spending or public subsidies. Popular with individuals and companies that benefit from them, their existence and dollar value in terms of public revenue foregone are generally unknown. Because many are largely known only to those who benefit from them, they do not receive much public attention. Debate over tax expenditures did receive some public attention when the federal New Democratic party’s election campaign in 1972 focused on what leader David Lewis referred to as “corporate welfare bums.” See Budget and budgetary process.

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Tax rental agreements (payments) Early federal-provincial agreements under which the provincial governments might abandon, or “vacate” to the federal government their power to levy taxes in such fields as corporate and personal income tax and succession duties in return for financial compensation, or “rent.” Under the Wartime Tax Agreements of 1941, all provinces entered agreements to abandon the fields until 1946 in return for a calculated tax rental payment. A tax rental payment scheme existed until 1957, after which there were periodically negotiated “tax-sharing agreements,” enacted by parliament in its Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act, now the Canada Health and Social Transfer. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federalprovincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism). Territorial governments Governments in the northern territories of Canada that do not have provincial status—Yukon (gov.yk.ca) in the western Arctic, Northwest Territories (gov.nt.ca) in the central Arctic, and Nunavut (gov.nu.ca) in the eastern Arctic. Each comprises an elected representative assembly and a cabinet headed by a premier, responsible to the assembly. In NWT and Nunavut, with small, widely dispersed, and predominantly Aboriginal populations, legislative governance operates on a collegial basis, rather than with a competitive party system, consistent with the customs and practices of their Native populations. Like the federal and provincial governments, Yukon’s elections and legislature operate on the basis of a competitive party system, comprising the Yukon, Liberal, and New Democratic parties. Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territory, subsequently the Northwest Territories, were admitted to Confederation as federal territories shortly after Confederation. Yukon was created out of the Northwest Territories in 1898 and Nunavut similarly in 1999. Unlike provinces that are autonomous political jurisdictions under the Constitution Act, territories are constitutionally subordinate to the federal government in the person of the commissioner appointed by the minister of northern affairs. However, increasingly since the 1970s, commissioners have been encouraged to withdraw from personal involvement in territorial politics and decisionmaking and adopt a “dignified” role akin to provincial lieutenant-governors in a system of responsible government. The territories do not have power similar to the provinces in the sale and management of public lands. Most of the northern territorial land is federal crown land, and Aboriginal governments with established land claims are large landowners as well. Other restrictions on territorial governments include the borrowing of money and the incorporation of companies. The establishment of new provinces and the extension of existing provincial boundaries into the territories can be accomplished using the general amending formula of the Constitution Act (s.42.1,e,f.) Third parties; third-party campaign advertising In a legal context, third parties are individuals or groups, that is, parties not directly involved in a matter, but with sufficient interest to receive standing in a court case or before a judicial inquiry. In electoral politics, third-party campaigning refers to advertising by individuals or groups other than registered political parties, candidates of registered parties, and their agents in election and referendum campaigns.

Third parties (political)

Following extensive debate, legislation and court challenges over many years, the Canada Elections Act since 2004 restricts and makes transparent “third party” advertising in federal election campaigns. Such advertising had been used effectively to evade controls on party expenditures especially during the free-trade election campaign of 1988. There have been several court decisions, beginning in Alberta in 1984, that declared sections of the federal Canada Elections Act prohibiting third-party advertising in support of particular parties or candidates to be a violation of fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (s.2). In 1999, possibly encouraged by a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that sustained the principle of such restrictions in a decision respecting Quebec’s referendum legislation, the federal government once again enacted restrictions on third-party advertising in federal elections, and once again they were challenged in court. During the federal election of 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada lifted an injunction that had been granted by an Alberta court against restrictions. Without judging the constitutionality of the restrictions on third-party advertising, in an 8–1 decision the majority cited a “rule against granting the equivalent of final relief in interlocutory challenges to electoral statutes, even in the course of elections governed by those statutes” (A.G. of Canada v. Stephen Joseph Harper, 2000). The court’s final determination came in 2004: “The egalitarian model of elections seeks to create a level playing field for those who wish to engage in the electoral discourse, enabling voters to be better informed.” The restrictions in the Act discourage the possibility “for the affluent or a number of people pooling their resources and acting in concert to dominate the political discourse, depriving their opponents of a reasonable opportunity to speak and be heard, and undermining the voter’s ability to be adequately informed of all views.” Given the Charter right to freedom of expression (s.2), the right of “meaningful participation” in federal and provincial elections including the right to vote (s.3), the restrictions were deemed sufficiently limited to be “saved” by section 1 (Harper). The restrictions in 2004 applied to any advertising expenses beyond $500, including a total ceiling of $168,900 including an individual constituency spending limit of $3,478. The specific ceilings will likely be adjusted from time to time. Details of those who contributed to the advertising campaign six months before the issuance of writs for a general election must be submitted to the federal chief electoral officer, along with details of advertising expenses. Contributions from foreign sources are banned. Third parties must be named in their advertising. Third party advertising reports are available on the chief electoral officer’s website (elections.ca). In the 2004 federal general election report, there were over 60 reports from individuals and groups. See Electoral law (controls; subsidies). Third parties (political) Political parties other than the Liberal and Conservative cadre parties of nineteenth-century origin that have come into existence since Confederation. They displaced one or both of the “old” parties as a dominant party in some provincial party systems during the twentieth century, notably in the western provinces and Quebec. With the exception of the Progressives in 1921, none other did so in federal politics until 1993, when the Bloc Québécois and the Reform party won the second- and third-largest representation, respectively, in the House of Commons while the Progressive Conservative party and the

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New Democratic party, a long-standing third political party, lost their official-party status. Various explanations exist for the rise of third parties in Canada. An institutional explanation focuses on such contributing factors as the parliamentary, federal, and electoral systems. The parliamentary system contributes because the focus of general elections is the numerous constituency contests, and the election of only a few members gives some legitimacy and credibility to new movements. Under the rules of the House of Commons, a group with at least 12 members of parliament receives public funds for a leader’s salary, additional office space, research facilities and staff, and procedural recognition in question period and during debate, for example, to introduce resolutions and motions, respond to ministerial statements and qualify to determine the subject of debate on one or more opposition days. The disciplined parliamentary party system contributes indirectly because it demands conformity from backbenchers, thus potentially alienating regional representatives who find it difficult to criticize publicly, let alone alter, the policy of established parties to suit the interests of their region, and resulting in popular support for new political forces. The constituency-based electoral system contributes because it disproportionately rewards parties with legislative representation based on concentrated regional popular support. The federal system contributes because small movements articulating regional or localized grievances may be more successful in provincial than in federal elections, and may eventually form provincial governments and exercise considerable influence in federal-provincial relations. Structural factors related to the economy, society, and culture comprise another explanation. Changes that heighten class, regional, or ethnic concerns may contribute to the success of new parties. Finally, in the constant day-to-day jockeying for electoral advantage, established parties may ignore some long-standing or newly emerging interests, allowing a new party to take over the vacant “issue space.” Examining the rise of the Ralliement des créditistes in Quebec in the 1960s, Maurice Pinard suggested that third parties develop in times of social or economic discontent when a single party has dominated electoral politics in a large area for a long time. Thus, the long period of Liberal dominance in federal politics led aggrieved Quebeckers to conclude that the alternate parliamentary party, the Progressive Conservative party, was not a credible choice. However, the thirdparty, the Ralliement, an indigenous populist movement led by Réal Caouette, provided such an alternative (The Rise of a Third Party: A Study in Crisis Politics [Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971]). Pinard’s explanation seems to apply also to the case of the populist Social Credit party ousting the United Farmers of Alberta in 1935. However, C.B. Macpherson suggested that the one-crop agricultural economy of the prairies at that time created a “colonial” society in relation to central Canada and resulted in widespread electoral support for a party representing the interests of the single-class society in Alberta and a “quasi-party system” (Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party System [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953]). Examining the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan, predecessor of the social democratic New Democratic party, Seymour Martin Lipset argued that the one-crop agricultural economy

Tory

of the province led to the creation of co-operative organizations and a class of experienced and relatively well-off activists who transferred their experience and energies to the CCF. Consequently, the CCF became a successful and entrenched political party in that province (Agrarian Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950]). Following the 1921 election, the western-based Progressive party held the second largest number of seats but, because it rejected the role of official opposition, the third-place Conservatives were able to maintain their strategic parliamentary role against a minority Liberal government. The success in the 1990s of the Bloc Québécois and Reform/Alliance parties can be analyzed with respect to all explanations mentioned above. Some observers viewed the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative party in 2003, under the Alliance leader Stephen Harper, as an Alliance takeover. However, at a policy convention in 2005, the newly established Conservative party rejected many of the Reform/Alliance’s populist proposals, notably such direct democracy devices as referendums, popular legislative initiatives and recall, and major policy positions such as opposition to official bilingualism. A similarly moderate approach in the 2006 election campaign resulted in a minority Conservative government. Prime Minister Harper’s senior advisors in the transition included important former Progressive Conservatives, and while his cabinet included senior Alliance members, other appointments reflected a flexibility and pragmatism associated with the Progressive Conservatives. See various entries on political parties named here and different elements of the political system. Throne Speech (Debate on the…) A speech by the governor general (lieutenantgovernor in the provinces), opening a session of parliament (provincial legislature), followed by a general debate on a government motion commending the speech. In Quebec, the debate is on the premier’s Inaugural Address. The speech, written by the government, generally outlines the state of national or provincial affairs and the government’s legislative program for the legislature. Debate lasts several days, with the opposition parties moving amendments, in effect confidence motions, referring to some deficiency in government policy. Apart from the initial remarks by the parties’ chief speakers, who attract the attention of the mass media, the debate is a rare opportunity for backbench members to speak on matters of import to them and their constituents. The debate ends with votes on opposition party amendments to the government motion and on the main government motion itself, each constituting a vote of confidence in which the disciplined party system almost always ensures a majority government’s success. In legislatures in which the governing party does not have a majority of seats, a defeat would lead either to the government’s resignation or the dissolution of the legislature for a general election. See Crown prerogatives; King-Byng Dispute. Tory A common reference to the Conservative party, its post-Confederation predecessors, and its supporters, perhaps more so in central Canada and the Maritimes than in the West. Historically, in pre-Confederation British North America, Tories were generally in favour of maintaining the power of the colonial governor and the appointed and non-responsible executive council against encroachments by the representative legislative assembly. They would also be well

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represented in the appointed colonial upper chamber, the legislative council. Because Tories are often associated with the privileged colonial elites of church, state, and society, the term is also used pejoratively to refer to upper-class privilege. Privilege was supposed to be accompanied, however, by the observance of social responsibilities and obligations. Contemporary reference to “Red Tories” are to those Conservatives whose sense of obligation extends beyond personal charity to support government measures to deal with social problems, especially as they might pose a larger threat to social order. Such “conservatives” are distinct from the so-called “neo-conservatives” who wish to minimize the role of the state in economic life and “social conservatives” who wish likewise, but who want the state to enforce a strict moral code of behaviour on individuals. See Red Tory (-ism). “Trade and Commerce” power Legislative jurisdiction granted the federal parliament under the Constitution Act, 1867 (s.91:2), and, as a form of residual power, one way by which the federal government has sought to enlarge its legislative competence. Historically, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) denied section 91:2 as a source of broad legislative power. After 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada, as the final court of appeal, tended to be more accommodating to federal arguments for jurisdiction under the “Trade and Commerce” power. From its earliest adjudication of “Trade and Commerce” power, the JCPC was careful not to allow it to become effectively an emergency or residual power clause. It felt that if the framers of the constitution had intended it to be so, then the subsequent enumeration of other matters in section 91 would have been unnecessary. Thus, the “Trade and Commerce” head was not to permit federal interference in the business or trade “in a single province” (Citizens’ Insurance Co. v. Parsons, 1881) that “would seriously encroach upon the autonomy of the province” (Montreal v. Montreal Street Railway, 1912). In adjudicating federal “Trade and Commerce” power, the JCPC distinguished between goods in intraprovincial trade and those in interprovincial and international trade, and the result made effective legislation by governments at both levels difficult. Following the abolition of appeals to the JCPC, the Supreme Court was relatively flexible in accommodating the federal constitution to contemporary need. On marketing, for example, the Supreme Court declared interdelegation of powers between parliament and a provincial legislature unconstitutional, but it permitted the delegation of power from one level to a regulatory body of another level (Nova Scotia Interdelegation Case, 1951; PEI Potato Marketing Board v. Willis Inc., 1952). In the 1950s, the Supreme Court introduced the notion of the “flow of trade,” to replace the difficult categories of intraprovincial and interprovincial and international trade, thus at least recognizing the need for federal-provincial co-operation (Reference Re Farm Marketing Act [Ontario], 1957). Such “co-operation,” allowing a federal role, had implications for provincially owned natural resources, clarified in the constitutional amendment of section 92.A in 1982. Generally, the court has interpreted “Trade and Commerce” power according to a “dimension” doctrine respecting the national importance of the matter being legislated, and supported provincial legislation intended to have effect only in the relevant province though there might be an incidental extra-provincial effect. For an opinion in 1971 by Justice Bora Laskin (later chief justice), which reviews the

Treasury Board

adjudication of the “Trade and Commerce” power, including the Judicial Committee’s attenuation of federal power and the Supreme Court’s generally restorative decisions, see Attorney-General for Manitoba v. Manitoba Egg and Poultry Association, 1971, the so-called Chicken and Egg Reference. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal Combines Investigation Act, which included provisions for “a private cause of action,” or “civil right of action” normally within the jurisdiction of the provinces (ss.92:13, 16), was constitutional. Although the encroachment in this case was not considered serious or intrusive, but limited, the court nonetheless ruled that “the federal government is not constitutionally precluded from creating rights of civil action where such measures may be shown to be warranted.… The Act is of national scope aimed at the economy as a single integrated national unit…and falls within federal jurisdiction in its intraprovincial dimension.…” (General Motors v. City National Leasing, 1989). See Interdelegation Reference (Nova Scotia, 1951); Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Supreme Court. Transfer payment Any payment in the form of cash or “tax points” from one level of government to another (usually from the federal to the provincial governments), or a benefit in the form of cash payment from a government to an individual. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Canada (Quebec) Pension Plan (CPP, QPP); Conditional grants (special-purpose transfer payments); Equalization grants (unconditional transfer payments); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Tax abatement and tax points; Unconditional grants (general-purpose transfer payments). Transferable vote (preferential ballot) An electoral system no longer used in Canada that allows the voter to rank candidates in single-member constituency elections according to preference. Instead of marking the ballot in favour of a single candidate, the voter ranks candidates preferentially, 1, 2, 3, and so forth. In a simple variant of the system, should the count of first preferences not result in a candidate having a majority of the votes cast (that is, at least 50 per cent plus one), the least popular candidate is dropped from consideration and the second choices on ballots that listed that candidate as first choice are counted. This process continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes. The transferable vote, or preferential ballot, was used in provincial elections in Manitoba and Alberta in the early part of the twentieth century. It was also used in the British Columbia general election in 1952. In 2005, there was insufficient voter support in a referendum in BC (3% less than the required 60%) for the introduction of a complicated single transferable vote system (bc-stv.ca). Treasury Board (via tbs-sct.gc.ca) A statutory federal cabinet committee (that is, formally a committee of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada), chaired by a minister designated president of the Treasury Board and including notably the minister of finance. The Treasury Board and its Secretariat, headed by the secretary and including the federal comptroller general, constitutes an important central executive agency in the federal government with key financial, administrative and personnel responsibilities.

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Treasury Board Secretariat

The Treasury Board is responsible for the management of the federal public administration, including financial management. Overseeing a rolling multi-year expenditure planning cycle, it is responsible for annual recommendations to cabinet on the selection of programs and projects, and the appropriate allocation of funds to achieve government objectives. In its management role, the Treasury Board has powers under the Financial Administration Act for administrative policy for financial management in the public administration, and for matters related to personnel, office space, supply, and contracts for services. In 2006, Justice John Gomery’s final report on abuses respecting the $300-million sponsorship program included recommendations that Treasury Board and the Department of Finance, as central agencies experienced in administrative procedures, should manage special reserves and report to the House of Commons annually on the status of each reserve, including the use of the funds and the criteria employed in funding decisions. With the federal government as employer, exerting control over job classifications and salaries, the Treasury Board also negotiates for the government in collective bargaining arrangements with public service unions and associations. See Auditor General of Canada; Budget and budgetary process; Comptroller General of Canada; Estimates; Treasury Board Secretariat. Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) (tbs-sct.gc.ca) An important central staff agency in the federal government whose powers are based in the authority of the Treasury Board, the only statutory committee of cabinet. The head of the TBS is a very senior public official, the secretary of the Treasury Board. The secretariat, which includes the office of comptroller general, assists the Treasury Board in the determination of federal program priorities and review of expenditures, administrative policy and organization of the public administration, financial administration, personnel management, staff relations, federal property management and transactions, and official-languages policies within the administration. On program determination and expenditure review, it is intimately involved in the budgetary process when program forecasts are reviewed and an expenditure plan is established, and recommends estimates or expenditure plans of departments to the Treasury Board for cabinet approval and submission to parliament. The office of comptroller general develops and enforces financial control mechanisms as the TBS oversees the implementation of approved expenditure plans to ensure that intended results are achieved. The TBS also deals with administrative management to ensure effective government operations and personnel management. The secretariat advises the Treasury Board on the management of real property, including land use and capital plans. The TBS administers collective bargaining agreements on behalf of management with employees of the federal government. The recommendations in 2006 from Justice John Gomery’s inquiry into abuses respecting the $300-million sponsorship program included transferring the title “head of the public service” from the clerk of the privy council (who is also deputy minister to the prime minister and secretary to the cabinet) to the secretary of the Treasury Board. Also recommended was a formal process for informing the comptroller general in the TBS when a minister overruled a deputy minister’s objections to some course of action in which the deputy had statutory or delegated respon-

Treaty power

sibilities. These and other recommendations were designed to clarify responsibility and accountability respecting politicians, their political staff and public administrators. See Auditor General of Canada; Budget and budgetary process; Comptroller General of Canada; Estimates; Treasury Board. Treaty power The exclusive authority of the federal government to negotiate and ratify international agreements and treaties, but an authority tempered by the federal-provincial division of legislative power and occasionally a prudential reference to parliament for consideration prior to executive ratification. The need to appreciate the precise nature of federal power arises because the Constitution Act, 1867 grants treaty powers to the “Parliament and Government of Canada…for performing the Obligations of Canada or of any Province thereof, as Part of the British Empire…” (s.132). As Canada developed an international personality separate from that of the Empire in the twentieth century, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) was obliged to clarify federal treaty power. It ruled that if section 132 did not apply, the power of the “Parliament and Government of Canada” depended on the distribution of legislative powers between the two levels of government. Thus, there was no such thing as “treaty legislation,” that is, legislative scope for the federal government in an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction simply because the federal government committed Canada in a treaty to legislative action in such areas. In the 1930s, the federal government acquired jurisdiction in aeronautics and broadcasting, policy areas unforeseen by the framers of Confederation in the 1860s: in the Aeronautics Case, 1932, through an Imperial treaty, but, in a judicial aside, Lord Sankey wrote that legislation dealing with air transportation would have been intra vires the federal government under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” preamble of section 91 as the legislation was on a matter of “such dimensions as to affect the body politic of the nation”; in the Radio Case, 1932, in which Lord Dunedin wrote that, as an independent dominion, the federal government acquired treaty power under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause, as a residual power, since legislative authority in empire treaty-making was treated as a separate section apart from sections 91 and 92 and a non-imperial treaty “comes to the same thing.” (In 1952, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld federal jurisdiction in air transportation and navigation although the British Empire treaty on which the Aeronautics Act had been based was replaced by the Chicago Convention. The Supreme Court noted Lord Sankey’s “dimensions” doctrine in affirming federal jurisdiction through the “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause [Johannesson v. Rural Municipality of West St. Paul].) However, the JCPC denied parliament scope in labour legislation by virtue of the federal government incurring an obligation by treaty. In the Labour Conventions Case, 1937, Lord Atkin wrote that while the federal government had the full power to make treaties, there was “no existing constitutional ground for stretching the competence of the Dominion Parliament…to keep pace with enlarged functions of the Dominion executive…merely by making promises to foreign countries.…” Since the 1960s, Canada’s international relations have increasingly involved matters in which the provinces have jurisdiction. Consequently, the federal government has accepted some provincial involvement in international meetings and

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consultations in the negotiation of conventions and treaties, to ensure their implementation. In 1961, the federal Progressive Conservative government had signed the Columbia River Treaty with the United States regarding upstream dam construction on the Canadian portion of the river. However, its implementation was delayed until the successor Liberal federal government and the government of British Columbia reached an agreement in 1963, necessitating then a negotiated protocol between Canada and the United States to accommodate the CanadaBritish Columbia agreement. The federal Liberal government’s negotiation and ratification in 2002 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change encountered opposition from several provinces, which called into question whether Canada could actually honour its commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions. Following executive ratification, the minister of foreign affairs conceded that the “next challenge” was the implementation stage, which would require “consultation” with provincial and territorial governments “in the months and years ahead” (Foreign Affairs and International Affairs press release, December 17, 2002). The federal government’s acknowledgment that treaty negotiation and implementation are two separate functions is countered by provincial assertion that they are inseparable functions and thus treaty making and implementation are a concurrent power shared by both levels of government. Among the provinces, Quebec has been the most assertive, exercising the (Paul) Gérin-Lajoie doctrine through its ministry of international relations: “In areas in which the government of Quebec is the only government empowered to keep a commitment, it is normal that such commitment be made by the Government of Quebec and that any foreign agreement in this area be made by the Government of Quebec” (address, April 12, 1965). The federal government responds that section 9 of the Constitution Act, 1867 grants such executive action to the Crown, the evolution of which has vested the power of negotiating international commitments in the governor-in-council, that is, the federal government. Gérin-Lajoie was deputy premier and minister of education in Liberal Premier Jean Lesage’s government during the Quiet Revolution, assuming for Quebec the role of defender of the interests of French society in Canada. This role took the form of Quebec representation (eventually along with other provinces with significant francophone minorities) in Canadian delegations to international conferences on education and culture. In 1971, Quebec and the federal government concluded an agreement on participation in the international francophone Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (since 1996 the Agence de la Francophonie). Under the agreement, Quebec ministers or officials attend Agency conferences to express Quebec’s point of view on matters within provincial jurisdiction. This status is also extended to New Brunswick, a province with the largest provincial concentration of Acadians, and officially bilingual since 1982. With the creation of the Parti Québécois and its ascension to power, first in 1976, the nationaliste project became the souverainiste project, with implications for the “soft nationalist” provincial Liberal party and successive governments, complicating Canadian foreign policy at least as it affects relations with France and the rest of the Francophonie, but to some extent with other countries. Since the late 1960s, the federal government has acknowledged the right of provinces to maintain offices abroad. In 2005, Quebec had a variety of represen-

Two nations

tation abroad in over two dozen cities. The most important were general delegations in Government Houses dealing with all matters of provincial jurisdiction in the economy, education, and culture, in Brussels, London, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Other provinces also have representation abroad, usually to promote provincial commercial and trade opportunities and tourism. In his successful 2006 election campaign, Conservative leader Stephen Harper promised to elevate Quebec’s international presence, notably in relation to UNESCO, the United Nations educational and cultural organization. See Declaratory power; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Ratification; Treaty power. Triple-E Senate A characterization of a reformed Canadian Senate that would be “Elected, Effective, and Equal.” The Senate is the upper house of the federal parliament, with representation by regions. However, the Senate lacks popular legitimacy fundamentally because the federal government appoints senators. At the same time, representation in the elected lower house, the House of Commons, based on modified representation by population, combined with the operation of a disciplined party system, weakens regional representation from less populated regions of the country in both numbers and public voice. Consequently, demands for Senate reform have arisen, especially in western Canada, to make the upper chamber a truly effective federal institution where sectional interests could be better addressed than in the House of Commons, the majority of whose members are elected from central Canada. Thus, it is argued, senators should be elected, with equal representation from the provinces and with effective legislative power. The failed constitutional Meech Lake Accord of 1987 would have required the federal government to appoint senators from lists of nominees proposed by relevant provincial governments. The Charlottetown Accord of 1992, rejected in a country-wide referendum, included both Senate and House of Commons reform that would have allowed for a Senate with equal representation from each province and some representation from the territories. Effectiveness was defined variously according to several classes of legislation, but the House of Commons would remain the only chamber of confidence. Senators would also have acquired the power to veto the government’s nominee to head the central bank and other unspecified “key appointments,” such as the heads of cultural institutions and regulatory boards and agencies. To stress the role of senators as publicly vocal regional representatives, they would not have been eligible for appointment to the cabinet. See Charlottetown Accord (1992); Senate. Two nations (deux nations) A phrase denoting the view that Canada comprises “two founding nations,” one French- and one English-speaking. Debate over the concept focuses on special legislative powers sought by Quebec as the only predominantly francophone jurisdiction in Canada. Formally, Quebec has special status respecting the civil code in the province, the requirement that both English and French be used in government and the courts in Quebec (though New Brunswick became constitutionally bilingual in 1982), and the statutory requirement in the federal Supreme Court Act for representation from the Quebec bar or bench on the Supreme Court of Canada. Informally, Quebec achieved “special status” in 1965 under the federal Liberal

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Two-party system

government’s Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act. All provinces were given the option of withdrawing from federal-provincial shared-cost programs without incurring financial penalties, but only Quebec accepted the offer. Also, the federal Liberal government in the 1970s allowed provincial governments to participate in international conferences on matters related to provincial jurisdiction as long as Canada retained a single international personality. Thus, in 1971, Quebec and the federal government concluded an agreement on provincial participation in the international francophone Agence de Coopération culturelle et technique (since 1966, the Agence de la Francophonie). Under the agreement, Quebec, as well as New Brunswick ministers or officials, given that province’s large Acadian population, may attend Agency conferences to express their points of view on matters within provincial jurisdiction. Provincial parties in Quebec continue to press for “self-determination” for Quebec either in the form of “renewed” or “restructured” federalism proposed by the Liberals, or in sovereignty or sovereignty-association proposed by the Parti Québécois. In 1982, Quebec opposed the patriation of the Constitution Act because of the general amending formula that did not include a veto for Quebec and aspects of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, such as the entrenchment of minority-language education rights. A subsequent Quebec round of constitutional negotiations resulted in the Meech Lake Accord under which Quebec would have been granted four of its five demands by their extension to all provinces. The fifth demand agreed to was the constitutional recognition of Quebec as a “distinct society” with a legislative and executive role to “preserve and promote the distinct identity of Quebec.” The eventual failure of the Accord in 1990 led to renewed debate and negotiations resulting in the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, which included a Canada Clause defining Quebec as a distinct society “which includes a French-speaking majority, a unique culture and a civil law tradition,” and affirming Quebec’s role “to preserve and promote the distinct society of Quebec.” The 1992 Accord was defeated in a country-wide referendum. In 1995, another referendum held in Quebec on sovereignty-association was narrowly defeated. In addition to other relevant entries, see Quiet Revolution; Renewed/ restructured federalism; Sovereignty-association; Special status (Statut particulier); Treaty power. Two-party system A party system in which there is long-standing electoral competition between only two major parties. The use of this or other phrases to describe the competitiveness of a party system is somewhat arbitrary—except with reference to those countries where only one party is permitted by law. Distinctive regional political cultures and federalism have resulted in an extremely fragmented party system in Canada. The Atlantic provinces have the most traditional two-party system both provincially and federally, although in some of them “third parties” have occasionally been competitive. Provincial party systems elsewhere in Canada may be described either as competitive multi-party systems or as one-party dominant multi-party systems. Moreover, numbers aside, some parties dominant or competitive federally or provincially in one part of the country may actually be non-existent elsewhere, or be only organizations on paper. See One-party (single-party) dominance; Party system; Third parties (political).

Union Act

U Ultra (intra) vires A phrase that describes a statute of federal or provincial legislatures as beyond (within) their legislative competence as determined through judicial review of the Constitution Act with final appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until 1949, and later only to the Supreme Court of Canada. See Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Judicial review (interpretive; non-interpretive); Supreme Court of Canada. Unconditional grants (general-purpose transfer payments) Federal grants to provincial governments that are not designated for any specific expenditure program. The statutory subsidies originally provided for in the now-spent section 118 of the Constitution Act, 1867 were, in effect, unconditional grants (see the notes pertaining to section 118 in the consolidated text of the Act). Unconditional federal payments are now made under the equalization program established in the second half of the twentieth century and entrenched in the Constitution Act, 1982. According to a periodically redefined formula, provinces whose per capita revenue base is lower than the national provincial average qualify for unconditional federal transfer payments “to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation” (Part III “Equalization and Regional Disparities” s.36). See Conditional grants (special-purpose transfer payments); Equalization grants (unconditional transfer payments); Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Regional disparities. Unicameral legislature A term denoting one chamber in a legislative system as opposed to two (bicameral). All the provincial and territorial legislatures in Canada are unicameral, while the federal parliament is bicameral by virtue of having a lower house, the House of Commons, and an upper house, the Senate. Union Act, 1840 (U.K.) The imperial statute that reunited Upper and Lower Canada in 1840, forming the United Province of Canada until becoming the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Confederation in 1867. Following rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837, the British government suspended the colonial constitutions and dispatched Lord Durham as governor to report on conditions. His two main recommendations were the unification of the Canadas in order to assimilate the French population and the granting of responsible government to encourage popular support. However, the Union Act provided only for unification. Responsible government came later by constitutional convention. The Act provided for a British-appointed governor, a Legislative Council (upper house) appointed by the Crown for life, and an elected Legislative Assembly (lower house) of 84 members equally divided between Canada East (Lower Canada, later Quebec) and Canada West (Upper Canada, later Ontario). The Act consolidated the revenue of the two colonies and initially only English was recognized as an official language of government. The constitution thus favoured the initially less populous and financially less well-off but predominantly anglophone Canada West, and was clearly intended to achieve the assimilation of the French community.

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Eventually the conventions of domestic politics subverted the assimilative purposes of the union and brought about responsible government, but also a political deadlock that led to the Confederation project. Governments of the Province of Canada included dual leadership—anglophone and francophone—from each of the Canadas, a double-majority convention that required support for the legislative leadership from both sections, hence bicultural legislative accommodation, and eventually the recognition of French as an official language of government. As for responsible government, governors such as Lord Sydenham remained instructed to appoint to the Executive Committee people “who, by their position and character, have obtained the general confidence and esteem of the inhabitants…” (Instruction to Lord Sydenham, Sept. 7, 1839). It was politically impossible for the governor to choose an Executive Council without considering the opinions of the Legislative Assembly, but there was no obligation to alter the Council if it lost the Assembly’s support. In 1848, a legislative want-of-confidence vote following an election in Nova Scotia led to the Executive Council’s resignation under Governor Sir John Harvey, and thus the introduction of responsible government in British North America. Two months later, under the governorship of Durham’s son-in-law, Lord Elgin, a defeat of the Executive Council on a non-confidence motion in the Assembly of the United Province of Canada resulted in a change of government, the first instance of responsible government in that colony. As a result of the balancing of sectional and cultural interests, the governance of the Province of Canada eventually led to the political deadlock mentioned above. In 1839, Lord Durham had rejected the union of all British colonies as premature. However, by the 1860s there were separate and shared reasons for the colonies, as well as the imperial government to reconsider the matter. In the 1860s, the Canadian leadership prevailed on the leadership of the Maritime colonies to discuss the confederation of British colonies, which was partially effected in 1867. See Confederation; Lord Durham’s Report; Responsible government. Union government A wartime federal government that was formed in 1917 to effect military conscription, won a general election later that year, and remained in office until 1920. Although the Union government included anglophone Liberals, it was essentially a Conservative administration created by Prime Minister Robert Borden, who had been in office since 1911. Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier rejected participation and most of the Liberals who sat in opposition following the wartime election of 1917 were French-Canadians. The union of Conservatives and Liberals collapsed following the end of the First World War and both Liberal and Conservative party leadership changed: Liberal opposition leader Sir Wilfrid Laurier died in 1919, replaced by William Lyon Mackenzie King who was not a member of parliament during the Union government; Prime Minister Borden resigned because of ill health in 1920, replaced by Arthur Meighen who had effectively been the promoter not only of the Military Service Act, but of the War Time Elections Act that altered the franchise to ensure the Union government’s victory in the 1917 election. This was a time of intense French-English discord as francophone members of parliament sat as a distinct minority on the opposition side in the House of Commons, facing an anglophone government of Conservatives and Liberals intent on

Upper Canada

introducing military conscription for a war generally opposed by French Canadians. Apart from the difficulty of discerning a Canadian interest in the First World War, French Canadians were concerned that their cultural survival would be jeopardized by consigning a generation of young men to a European slaughter. The Union government has been the only attempt at coalition government in Canadian federal history, other than the Confederation alliance in 1867, although from time to time minority governments have remained in office through informal alliances with opposition parties. Unitary state (legislative union) A political system in which all legislative authority in a state is derived from a single legislature or parliament. By contrast, a federal system of government involves the distribution, or division, of exclusive and perhaps concurrent legislative jurisdiction between autonomous levels of legislature and government as outlined in a written constitution with appeal on disputes to the judiciary. The United Kingdom is an example of a unitary state and Canada is an example of a federal state, both otherwise with similar systems of responsible parliamentary government under a Crown. Colonial leaders meeting in Charlottetown and later in Quebec City in 1864 to discuss union of the British North American colonies opted for a centralized federal state, a compromise between supporters and opponents of a legislative union, or unitary, state. See Confederation. United Farmers of…(Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario) Associations of farmers and rural interests that contested elections and formed governments in several provinces in the early twentieth century. Their success, though manifested later in different parties, shattered the two-party system in Canada and established “third parties” as competitive regional forces. The Alberta group was the most successful, holding office in that province from 1921 to 1935. The movement supported the notion of occupational or functional group representation in legislatures rather than the conventional party system. Provincial party supporters elected Progressive members to the House of Commons during the 1920s, and in the 1930s some participated in founding the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, precursor of the New Democratic party, and others participated in the eventual success of the Social Credit party in Alberta in 1935. In Ontario, the United Farmers formed a provincial government from 1919 to 1923, with the support of Labour and independent members. In Manitoba, the United Farmers formed a government in 1922, but were later absorbed by the Liberals, who remained in office as the Liberal-Progressive party until 1958. See Third parties (political). Upper Canada A colony in British North America from 1791 to 1840. Under the Quebec Act of 1774, the colony of Quebec extended west to include land between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; the political system included provision for freedom of worship for Roman Catholics and for the use of the civil law on non-criminal matters unless changed by the colony. The American Revolution resulted in the migration of Empire Loyalists to the Maritime colonies and Quebec. In Quebec, loyalist settlement took place notably south of Montreal and around the north shore of Lake Ontario and in the Niagara Peninsula.

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The loyalist newcomers to Quebec insisted, however, on living under entirely English law with representative institutions. Thus, in 1791, the Constitutional Act divided Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada (geographic designations in relation to the St. Lawrence River system), creating representative institutions for both colonies and allowing for the maintenance of French civil code in Lower Canada (later Canada East and Quebec). One of the earliest acts in Upper Canada (later Canada West and Ontario) was the introduction of English common law in civil matters. By the 1830s, demands in the representative assemblies for control over the executive through responsible government led to unrest in both Upper and Lower Canada. Following unsuccessful rebellions in both colonies in 1837, and agitation in the Maritime colonies, the British government sent Lord Durham as governor to investigate conditions. Durham recommended responsible government for the colonies and the reunion of the two Canadas in order to assimilate the French population of Lower Canada. In 1840, the Union Act reunited the two colonies once again as the United Province of Canada, without mention of responsible government, in order to achieve assimilation. See Constitutional Act, 1791 (U.K.); Lord Durham’s Report ; Union Act, 1840 (U.K.). Upper chamber (house) In a bicameral legislature, the chamber that usually represents regional or sectional and minority, rather than majoritarian, interests. It might be less regularly accountable (if at all) to the electorate than the lower house, and is theoretically a conservative, moderating influence on the lower house. In Canada’s bicameral parliament, the upper house is the Senate, to which the governor general “summons” people (on the prime minister’s “advice”) to represent regional divisions as specified in the Constitution Act, 1867 (ss.21–36). Elsewhere, upper houses may be elected for longer terms and from larger constituencies than representatives in the lower house, with only partial election at a given time and hence staggered terms (for example, the United States Senate); elected concurrently with elections to the lower house, but on a different electoral system (for example, the Australian Senate); appointed to represent state or provincial governments (for example, the Federal Republic of Germany’s Bundesrat); have representation based on life appointments and selectively on heredity (for example, the British House of Lords). Constitutional negotiations in Canada since the 1970s have focused in part on proposals for reform of the Senate. See Senate. Urgent business (emergency debate) Provisions in the rules of a legislature for the opposition to move adjournment of ordinary business in order to debate an urgent matter. In the House of Commons, the opposition can request the Speaker’s approval for an emergency debate, but precedents govern the Speaker’s ruling. Only one motion can be made in one sitting of the house and not have been the subject of an earlier emergency debate. The alleged emergency must fall within the government’s responsibilities, be genuine and of country-wide interest, and not otherwise be the subject of possible debate in the house. Nor should the alleged

Veto

emergency be an ongoing situation or concern the general administration of a government department. The Speaker need not give reasons for a ruling, but if the ruling is favourable the debate begins in the evening (afternoon on Fridays), with a 20-minute time limit on members’ speeches. Requests by the opposition for the debate and the debate itself attract the attention of the mass media and can be an effective way to convey criticism of the government. See House of Commons.

V Veto The power to overrule a decision of another person or body, from “I forbid” in Latin. In the Canadian constitution, there are several forms of veto. The royal prerogative of reservation and disallowance of legislation exists in Canada by constitutional statute: federally appointed lieutenant-governors in the provinces retain the constitutional authority to reserve legislation for consideration by the governor-in-council, that is, the federal cabinet. The federal government has the legal power to disallow provincial legislation within one year of its passage (Constitution Act, 1867, ss.55–57, 90). This power mirrored the governor general’s authority to reserve federal legislation “for the Signification of the Queen’s Pleasure” (s.55), that is, the British government’s, until the Statute of Westminster of 1931 made that constitutional provision obsolete. In effect, then, the federal government has legal constitutional authority to veto provincial legislation, but by convention has not since 1943. The courts can nullify legislation, including the subordinate legislation (or rules and regulations) of public executive and administrative bodies, either through a constitutional reference or litigation, declaring it either ultra vires, beyond the jurisdictional competence of the relevant legislature in Canada’s federal system, or a violation of the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The procedures adopted in 1982 for amending the constitution involve a variety of vetoes, including the general amending formula requiring a resolution of the federal parliament and two-thirds of provincial legislatures representing at least 50 per cent of the population of all the provinces (Constitutional Act, Part V “Procedure for amending Constitution of Canada,” s.38). Thus parliament or combinations of provinces (possibly comprising regions) can exercise a veto on constitutional change, though a province affected by certain amendments could dissent and receive compensation (Constitution Act, 1982, ss.38, 40). In specific matters where the constitution requires the unanimous consent of parliament and the provincial legislatures, all legislatures have a veto (s.41). Except in cases where an amendment can be made to a provincial constitution by the relevant province only (s.45), parliament has a veto over constitutional change. In response to Quebec’s opposition to the Constitution Act, 1982, particularly its “loss” of a veto on constitutional amendments in the general amending formula, but motivated by the near-success of the Quebec referendum on sovereignty-association in 1995, the federal Liberal government enacted the nonentrenched Constitutional Amendments Act, 1996. The federal government will

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Victoria Charter

not introduce a constitutional amendment using the general amending formula unless it has been approved by designated regions—British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, two or more of the Atlantic provinces that combined have at least 50 per cent of the region’s population, and two or more of the Prairie provinces that have at least 50 per cent of that region’s population. Thus, though the requirements of the general amending formula might otherwise be met, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec can each effectively preclude the introduction of a constitutional amendment in parliament. Given population distribution by province, Alberta in the Prairie region and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Atlantic region must be involved in triggering the parliamentary veto in those regions. Finally, where the consent of parliament is required in sections 38 and 41–43, the Senate exercises only a suspensive veto that can be overcome by a reaffirmation of the amendment by the House of Commons any time after 180 days of its authorization in the absence of Senate authority for the amendment (s.47). See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); Senate; Statute of Westminster (U.K., 1931); Supreme Court of Canada; Suspensive veto. Victoria Charter (1971) The agreement reached in Victoria, British Columbia, among the Canadian heads of governments, including initially Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa of Quebec, to patriate the constitution. However it was subsequently rejected by the Quebec government. In many respects, the Victoria Charter presaged elements in the Constitution Act, 1982, that patriated the constitution, but without the support of Quebec. The Victoria Charter comprised a domestic amending formula and an entrenched bill of rights, provincial consultation on federal appointments to the Supreme Court, entrenchment of federal equalization payments to fiscally hard-pressed provinces, and minority-language rights. Quebec rejected the Victoria Charter, as it had the earlier Fulton-Favreau Formula in 1964, because of the provisions regarding the federal role in matters of social policy. In 1982, the constitution was patriated by a parliamentary resolution to the British parliament supported by the Canadian parliament and all provincial legislatures except Quebec’s National Assembly. Two rounds of constitutional negotiations leading to the Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottetown (1992) Accords, each an attempt in part to accommodate Quebec to the constitution, failed. See Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982); Charlottetown Accord (1992); Constitution Act, 1867, and subsequently amended; Fulton-Favreau Formula (1964); Meech Lake Accord (1987). Vote of confidence (want-of-confidence motion) A vote in the federal House of Commons or a provincial legislature on an opposition motion amending or fundamentally altering an important government motion, or a vote on the main government motion itself, the loss of which represents defeat for the government. The government then will either resign or obtain a dissolution from the governor general (provincial lieutenant-governor) for a general election. The upper house of parliament, the Senate, is not a chamber of confidence. Through a rare exercise of crown prerogative, the governor general (lieutenantgovernor) can compel the resignation of a prime minister, that is, reject their prime minister’s or premier’s “advice” for dissolution and an election, and instead

War Measures Act

appoint another government from the same legislature (see King-Byng Dispute). Usually, however, dissolution is granted and governments resign following an election defeat, though even a government defeated at the polls has the right to meet the newly elected house and seek its confidence, notably if no party has won a majority of seats and the prime minister or premier hopes to be able to govern with support from opposition parties. After most general elections, however, it is clear which party has won and therefore whether the incumbent government can remain in office or which party leader the governor general or provincial lieutenant-governor should “invite” to form a new government. In Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures, the norm is for votes on government measures, but especially money bills and major legislative initiatives, to be matters of confidence. On rare occasions, a government, acknowledging divisions among its members, might permit a “free vote” on a matter of conscience, removing the whip and allowing its members to vote as they wish. In such cases, only cabinet solidarity is usually retained, with ministers compelled to vote the same way, but the government not compelled to resign if defeated. Opposition parties, however, need not follow suit; seeking to maintain the appearance of unity, and to portray the government party as weak and divided, opposition parties might maintain discipline and vote as one. When the government party controls more than one half of the representation in the legislature, confidence votes, and perhaps even “free votes” among government backbenchers, will predictably favour the government. Especially in the context of minority governments, there have been suggestions for a narrow definition of confidence measures in order to ensure government stability. Similar demands come from those who feel that, whether the government commands majority support or not, party discipline in Canadian legislatures is too strict. For example, confidence votes could be specifically limited to the government motion on the Speech from the Throne that opens each session of the legislature, money bills, and legislation that the government designates on introduction as a matter of confidence. In 2003, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin introduced the three-line whip on house divisions: only three-line whips were votes of confidence on which the government would stake its future, thus all government members of parliament were to vote as one; two-line whips would involve a government position on which ministers and parliamentary secretaries only were compelled to support; and a one-line whip would allow all government members to vote as they wished. See Confidence (of the House; Chamber of…); Responsible government. Voters list See Enumeration (of voters).

W War Measures Act (Canada; emergency powers) A federal statute adopted in 1914 that served as Canada’s emergency enabling legislation under the “Peace, Order, and good Government” provision in the preamble of Section 91 of the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act) until it was superseded by the Emergencies Act in 1988.

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War-crimes legislation

Under the War Measures Act, the cabinet had to report the proclamation of an emergency immediately to parliament if it was in session; otherwise, within 15 days of the opening of the next session. When introduced, 10 members of either the House of Commons or Senate could move revocation and force a debate. The Act was in effect during the First and Second World Wars. During the wars, the economy was effectively nationalized, and censorship was imposed. The Act was also used to register, imprison, or deport “enemy aliens.” In the Second World War, for example, more than 20,000 Canadians of Japanese descent had their property confiscated, including businesses and heirlooms, and were interned in camps under the Act. None was ever charged with an act of disloyalty and, in 1988, the Canadian government approved a Redress Settlement including an apology, modest financial compensation and a program to promote tolerance. Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the Act in peacetime during the “October Crisis” in 1970. Declaring the existence of an apprehended insurrection, the government invoked the Act following the kidnapping and holding for ransom of a British trade official and a Quebec cabinet minister in Montreal by two cells of the Front de libération du Québec. The minister was later murdered. Public order regulations made the FLQ, successor organizations, and any other organization that advocated force or illegal activity as a means of changing government to be illegal, and specified indictable offenses for people associated with them. Police and the military were given extraordinary powers of search and arrest, and provincial attorneys-general had the power to enforce a three-week detention before a specific charge was required under the regulations. The federal government asserted that the regulations, though national in scope, had particular reference for Quebec only, and that the provincial government remained chiefly responsible for activities during the emergency under the “normal” powers of the British North America Act (s.92:14, “The Administration of Justice in the Province…”). In the event, there was a strong military presence in the capital and in Quebec, and hundreds of people were detained. Subsequent debate focused on whether the extraordinary powers granted police under the Act in 1970 had been needed in the eventual apprehension of the kidnappers, including those who murdered the cabinet minister after the Act was invoked. After 1982, all legislation, including emergency legislation, had to conform to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Emergencies Act, which replaced the War Measures Act in 1988, distinguishes several types of emergencies, with orders and regulations appropriate to each, and requires parliamentary approval and an ongoing, though secret, parliamentary review of regulations as well as a report to parliament within a year of the expiry of the emergency declaration. See Emergencies Act (Canada, 1988); October (FLQ) Crisis (1970). War-crimes legislation (trials) Amendments to the Criminal Code in 1987 permitting prosecutions in Canada for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed outside the country, both prior and subsequent to the enactment of the amendments. In 2000, the federal parliament enacted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act to implement Canada’s obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (icc-cpi.int). In amending various statutes including the Criminal Code, Canada can co-operate with the ICC,

War-time Elections Act and Military Voters Act

notably to gather evidence, identify, apprehend, and surrender people to the ICC on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Under the Criminal Code amendments in 1987, a war crime is “an act or omission” committed during an international military conflict, regardless of the law that prevailed in the place and at the time of the alleged crime, but which was a offence against “the customary international law or conventional international law applicable in international armed conflicts.” A crime against humanity is “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, persecution or any other inhumane act or omission that is committed against any civilian population or any identifiable group of persons,” again regardless of the law in the place and at the time, but which contravened “customary international law or conventional international law” or constituted a crime “according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.” An act or omission involves “attempting or conspiring to commit, counselling any person to commit, aiding or abetting any person in the commission of, or being an accessory after the fact.” Although the motivation for war-crimes legislation and trials arose from concern that Canada was a haven for Nazi war criminals from the Second World War, Canadian immigrants can also be prosecuted on allegations arising from personal behaviour in their country of origin. Following unsuccessful criminal prosecutions, the federal government resorted to quasi-judicial procedures regarding the violation of immigration regulations, in order to deport alleged war criminals, procedures that could be appealed to the Federal and Supreme courts. The Extradition Act had already been amended in 1999 to facilitate the work of international criminal tribunals respecting the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. However, the Criminal Code and the Extradition Act were among statutes amended to conform to the provisions of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act and the ICC. War-time Elections Act and Military Voters Act (Canada, 1917) Two federal statutes involving the Union government’s manipulation of the franchise to ensure victory in the wartime election of 1917. Both Acts enfranchised some women for the first time, but disenfranchised some voters. The Wartime Elections Act gave the vote to mothers, wives, sisters, and widows of servicemen in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, but disenfranchised conscientious objectors, men born in enemy alien countries, and others of European birth speaking an enemy alien language, who had been naturalized since 1902. The Military Voters Act enfranchised all Canadian men and women in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and created a floating vote, allowing the military vote to be cast in constituencies that might be suggested to the voters on election day for maximum advantage to government candidates in close contests. The newly enfranchised voters were expected to vote for the pro-conscription government led by the Conservative-Unionist prime minister, Robert Borden, while the disenfranchised might have voted Liberal. The Liberal party was led by former prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who opposed conscription and refused to participate with his anglophone Liberal colleagues in the Union government. See Union government.

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Wartime Tax Agreements

Wartime Tax Agreements (1941) Agreements by which the provinces “vacated” and “rented” the personal income and corporation tax fields to the federal government in 1941–1946 in return for a rental payment for revenue foregone. The federal government also encouraged the provinces not to levy succession duties. The rental payment was based on revenue yields in the abandoned fields in 1941 or on total costs of servicing the provincial debt. British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec chose the former, and the remaining provinces the latter method of calculating the rental payment. The federal government deducted provincial succession duties from the rental payment to those provinces that opted for the servicing of the debt. The federal government also compensated the provinces for revenue losses from wartime rationing of gasoline and liquor. The Agreements became the basis for later periodically negotiated federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. See Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST); Federal-provincial taxsharing arrangements (fiscal federalism). “Water-tight compartments” Doctrine (constitution) A metaphor used by Lord Atkin, indicating a narrow interpretation by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) of federal and provincial legislative competence under the British North America Act, 1867 (since 1982, the Constitution Act). Dealing with the treaty power of the federal government in the Labour Conventions Case (Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario, 1937), the JCPC said that “the competence of the Dominion Parliament [could not be] enlarged to keep pace with enlarged functions of the Dominion executive…merely by making promises to foreign countries.…”“While the ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters,” Lord Atkin wrote of the Canadian constitution, “she still retains the water-tight compartments which are an essential part of her original structure.” Despite broader interpretations of the BNA Act, as illustrated in Lord Sankey’s “living tree” metaphor in the Persons Case of 1930, interpretation by the JCPC generally restricted the powers of the federal parliament. See Emergency powers; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC); “Living tree” Doctrine (constitution); Persons Case (1930); Treaty power. Westminster A reference to the British parliament, built on the site of Westminster Palace in London. Thus, references to “Westminster” or “the Westminster model” are references to the British parliament and its practices. Whig (interpretation of Canadian history) A reference to a political reform movement and party in Britain that had some relevance to the reform politics of nineteenth-century Canada (although the term “Clear Grits” was more common in Canada). The so-called “Whig interpretation of Canadian history” is a pejorative reference to the view of Canadian history as a steady evolutionary process leading to national independence notably under the auspices of the federal Liberal party and its leaders during most of the twentieth century. As the Liberal party is identified as the chief architect and defender of Canadian nationality according to this “interpretation,” the Conservatives are portrayed as reactionaries, clinging to outmoded notions of British imperialism and opposed to Canada’s constitutional development as an independent nation.

White paper on employment and income

Whip (party) The member of a party’s caucus who is responsible for ensuring the presence of party members in the legislature or at committee meetings to maintain adequate representation should a vote be held. The division bells of a legislature sound for a vote until the party whips are satisfied that as many members of their own party as possible are present. Whips arrange “pairing” among legislators on both government and opposition sides, which allows members to be absent without affecting the relative voting strength of the government and the opposition. The party whips are also responsible for arranging the order of members speaking in legislative debate; this facilitates the Speaker’s job of recognizing members during debate. Party discipline enforced by the whip is an integral feature of Canada’s parliamentary system of responsible government. Members of parliament are elected, and governments are appointed and remain in office, on the basis of the generally accepted convention of strict party discipline. This discipline is maintained in practice by the party leader’s threat of withdrawal of various perquisites, denial of caucus or even potential ministerial responsibilities, and the ultimate sanction of expulsion from caucus and denial of official designation as the party’s candidate in the next election. See Party discipline. White paper A government document tabled in the legislature that outlines government policy in a particular area and the direction of future action possibly including legislation. Other coloured papers are official documents that discuss policy and alternative proposals and might suggest government preferences. Should a government encounter serious opposition to proposals in a white paper, it might “withdraw” it. Withdrawing a white paper containing government proposals after a period of “study” is less an embarrassment to a government than withdrawing a bill that has been introduced in the legislature. White paper on employment and income (1945) A federal government document issued in April 1945, as the Second World War was ending, that outlined the Liberal government’s policy for postwar social and economic reconstruction, essentially adopting policies associated with the British economist Maynard Keynes. In the white paper, the federal government committed itself to the maintenance of a high and stable level of income and employment; an extension of the wartime tax rental agreements; the achievement of federal-provincial co-operation to develop a welfare state; and the development of an international economic order based on principles of free trade (Employment and Income with Special Reference to the Initial Period of Reconstruction [Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1945]). The white paper, preceded by the report in 1940 of the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, along with the proposals in the Green Book of 1945 and the Dominion-Provincial Conference on Reconstruction in the same year, set the agenda for federal economic and social development policy, and subsequent federal-provincial relations. See Federal-provincial tax-sharing agreements (fiscal federalism); Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937–1940); Wartime Tax Agreements (1941).

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World Trade Organization

World Trade Organization (WTO) (wto.org) Successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT) under which since 1947 member-states have periodically negotiated the removal of barriers to international trade, with disputes subject to determination through a dispute settlement procedure. In 2006, 149 nations were members of the WTO. Nations seek membership in the WTO in order to enhance their export trade, but must comply with WTO regulations that prohibit policies and practices, such as tariffs, import quotas, marketing boards and government subsidies that effectively protect domestic industries from foreign imports or enhance the competitiveness of domestic products in international trade. In recent “rounds” of negotiations, the WTO has failed to agree on the reduction and elimination of national agricultural subsidies. If a country loses a case before the WTO, it must either comply with the removal of the relevant trade barrier, or the complainant-nation can impose penalties on the offending country’s exports. Canada’s experience with WTO adjudication has been mixed. It has, for example, won a case against Brazil’s subsidies to its aerospace industry, in competition with a Canadian firm for the supply of airplanes. But it has lost cases, for example, regarding the export of asbestos and beef to the European Union, and subsidies and an excise tax to protect the Canadian periodical industry. The WTO, along with the International Monetary Fund (imf.org) and the World Bank (worldbank.org), is designed to promote international trade. The IMF, with over 180 member countries, in which voting strength varies according to a member’s financial contribution, encourages stability in international money markets, by lending money to member states, while the World Bank focuses its lending policies on approximately one hundred member countries that cannot qualify for support from other sources. The three organizations are key actors in the global economy, which critics complain effectively enhance the larger and more globally competitive firms, and implicitly their predominantly western countries of residence, at the expense of the economies of smaller, less developed nations and hence of their societies. Thus, the trend to globalization has both its supporters and critics. See Globalization (globalism); Social movement organizations. Writs (election) The formal announcement of a general election or by-election, issued by the governor-in-council. Within the constitutional five-year term of a Parliament (“from the Day of the Return of the Writs for choosing the House…”) (Constitution Act, s.50; also, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s.4), the governor general virtually always accepts the prime minister’s advice on the dissolution of parliament and the date for an election. In federal elections, the chief electoral officer transmits the writs to the returning officers of each constituency who then administer the election. Following the vote and any judicial recount that may be required, each returning officer returns the writ to the chief electoral office, certifying the results. Provincial legislatures have the exclusive power to amend their own electoral laws (Constitution Act, 1982, s.45, replacing s.92:1 of the British North America

Writs

Act). British Columbia and Ontario have fixed quadrennial provincial election dates, though the lieutenant-governors in those provinces can dissolve the legislature for a general election before the next fixed date, thus preserving the principle of responsible government (Constitution [Fixed Election Dates] Amendment Act, 2001: elections.bc.ca; Election Statute Law Amendment Act, 2005; electionsontario.on.ca).

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