Normally, Canadian budget consultations would take place in the House of Commons finance committee. Deliberations in committees of the elected house are especially important when the government, and hence the finance minister, are from a political party with less than half the seats in the house.
However, there is a small problem. You see, the House finance committee can’t meet because the House can’t meet, having been prorogued to prevent a likely no-confidence vote earlier this month.
So, instead of confronting the opposition parties–whose leaders have signed an accord claiming they, and not the governing party, have the confidence of the house–in an assembled committee of the house, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is meeting individually with the finance critics (or what in the UK would be shadow ministers) of the opposition Liberal and New Democratic parties.
Oh, how I would love to know what is being said in those meetings! Most of all, I would love to know to what extent the Liberal and NDP critics are ‘on the same page’ in their meetings, and the extent to which Flaherty is offering separate assurances for each party’s core concerns.
The potential coalition hangs in the balance as much as does the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The budget proposal must be tabled on 27 January, and it is by definition a confidence vote.
(Meanwhile, the federal Conservative government and the Liberal government of the province of Ontario have reached an accord on a bailout of the Canadian auto industry. More importantly, Ontarians can now drown their economic sorrows in beer at the movies!)
It is a weakness of the monarchical legal form of the Westminster system that voting down the budget is the only legally effective method of voting out a Chief Minister and Cabinet.
Under the older Anglospheric constitutions, only the Monarch or viceroy can de jure dismiss Ministers or dissolve the legislature, but the Lower House (or, in some creative variations, the Upper too) can de facto compel such dismissal or dissolution.
Unfortunately this means the budget, and thus the country’s economy, can become a pawn in an intra-party struggle for executive power. As vividly illustrated in November 1975 when the Liberal-National Coalition, after blocking Whitlam Labor’s Supply bills so as to (sucessfully) persuade the Governor-General to dismiss Whitlam, immediately passed basically identical Supply bills once their own man (Fraser) was appointed Acting PM.
At least when Gingrich temporarily shut down the US govt in the 1994 budget battle, he was actually arguing over the budget’s economic merits, rather than using it as a proxy for “Shall Bill Clinton continue in office as head of govt?”
I would hope that the drafters of a parliamentary-executive Constitution would give the lower House an explicit legal power to remove or replace a PM or Cabinet by a direct, legally effective vote of no confidence. That way, much of the budget could be left in place as standing appropriations (or at least given a 5- or 7-year, rather than an annual, sunset clause), instead of being an annual ritual for deciding whether a majority of the lower House has confidence in the incumbent Ministers.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 20 December 2008 @ 09:07
PNG uses the constructive vote of no confidence where the motion must designate the new prime minister. The interesting variant is that the vote itself appoints the designate as acting prime minister until they can be formally appointed by the governor-general. Frankly, the simplest bright line rule is South Africa where the National Assembly directly appoints and dismisses the first minister. The Brits have a deeply quaint habit of framing votes of no confidence as ‘that the salary of the prime minister be reduced by one pound’.
Evatt called for a bright line rule in The King and his dominion governors in 1936. We are still waiting.
It would be wrong to reopen a festering debate by saying that Evatt, then a justice of the high court, later attorney-general, still later the first president of the UN, and even later chief justice of NSW, held that Lord Byng had acted perfectly correctly.
Seed planted by Alan — 20 December 2008 @ 09:29
Is PNG the first (and only) Westminster system to have the constructive vote of no confidence? Was it part of the constitutional innovations in PNG in recent years?
I have sometimes used PNG as a case of “purest” parliamentarism, because it barely has parties, and the parliament has brought down many a government between elections. I believe the package of reforms about ‘party-hopping’ and, apparently also the constructive vote, has changed the short tenure of cabinets. I have not kept up regarding whether anything like a national party system has emerged.
PNG could be a ‘critical case’ for the literature on the impact of executive-legislative rules on parties.
Seed planted by MSS — 21 December 2008 @ 18:58
They’ve had the constructive vote of no confidence since independence. They have an elected governor-general. Formally the gg is ‘designated’ by the parliament and the prime minister is bound to advise the queen to appoint the person designated. The constitution also lays down detailed provisions for parliament to designate the prime minister and for the gg to make the formal appointment.
All were original features of the constitution. Strangely enough, some of the provinces have presidential systems.
I would not define PNG as an example of Westminster because of the constructive vote of no confidence, the elected governor-general and the bright line rules on government formation and dismissal. It is somewhat of a model for other pacific constitutions, perhaps we could talk of the Port Moresby system or the Waigani system.
Seed planted by Alan — 22 December 2008 @ 00:21
I know Ben Reilly has written about some major constitutional changes that took place in or around 2002 (from my memory). I know some of them had to do with rules on forming and dissolving governments, so I am somewhat surprised to learn that the constructive vote dates back to independence (but willing to defer to local knowledge over my memory of something read a few years ago).
As for PNG’s Westminsterness, I guess I simply meant as a child of Westminster (or grandchild would be more like it). Naturally, the (grand)children can grow up and develop their own new family customs. Yet the family resemblance is still quite noticeable.
(’Elected’ GG–but not popularly, if I read you correctly, Alan. Else it would be well outside the family, and into the semi-presidential clan.)
This thread no longer has much to do with Canada, eh?
Seed planted by MSS — 22 December 2008 @ 16:42
There were significant changes around 2002 but the system was already fairly exotic in Westminster terms. ‘Head of State’ means the Queen or the Governor-General according to context. The other Commonwealth realms in the Pacific tend to have the same pattern of institutions.
Seed planted by Alan — 22 December 2008 @ 17:43
The Canadian discussion, like the parliament and its budget process, may have been prorogued.
Seed planted by Alan — 23 December 2008 @ 00:47
Meanwhile, the democratic legitimacy of the coalition is still being hotly debated.
Seed planted by Scott M. — 07 January 2009 @ 17:27