In my Guide to Canada’s chapter on the Canadian Parliamentary system, I note:
So-called “party discipline” is one of the most defining characteristics of the Canadian system of government — indeed, it’s very hard to understand the system at all unless you grasp this concept. Essentially, party discipline means that all MPs of a particular political party are all expected to vote the same way, all of the time. So if there’s a bill introduced in the House on say, gun control, all the members of the Conservative Party will either vote unanimously for it, or unanimously against it.
That’s not hyperbole. The Globe and Mail did a depressing study a while ago and revealed that the single most “rebellious” member of the federal parliament, Conservative MP James Bezan, still “votes with his party nearly 99 per cent of the time.”
Yet in my experience, a lot of Canadians don’t know this simple fact. They proudly “vote for the person, not the party” during elections and write letters and send petitions to their MPs in an effort to affect their votes in the House. It’s sad, because reform will never come as long as so many remain in denial of the problem.
Sean Holman is a journalism professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. In April of this year he released a documentary called Whipped: The Secret World of Party Discipline that exposes just how pervasive the practice of voting-as-you’re-told is in Canadian politics, using the provincial legislature of British Columbia as his case study. This summer the video was finally put online, and can now be watched in its entirety on the website of the Canadian Public Affairs Channel.
It’s a wonderful and powerful film, and I wanted to ask the guy responsible for making it a couple questions.
What’s the reception to your film been like so far?
The response to Whipped has been very positive. I think many Canadians feel they aren’t being listened to by their elected representatives. Canadians may suspect that has something to do with party discipline. But what makes this documentary special is that Canadians can now see and hear specific examples of how that discipline forces their representatives to vote the party line — even if it means ignoring the wishes of constituents.
What would you say is the wrong lesson to learn from your film? I’m sure you must occasionally hear from people who reached a conclusion after watching that wasn’t what you were going for at all.
That’s a very interesting question.
I think it would be a mistake to pass quick judgement against party discipline after watching Whipped. Such judgements are easy when an elected representative toes a party line you disagree with. But what happens when that representative breaks ranks to vote against a tax cut or gay rights? What happens when a loosening of party discipline means a governing party can’t fight climate change or the deficit? What happens when freedom and democracy compromise other principles you believe in?
I suspect I know the answer to that question. That’s why I hope this documentary instead causes Canadians to think about what their political values are, what those values say about us as a country and whether we want to change them.
You obviously focus on British Columbia in this film. Do you have any sense of any of the other provinces being better or worse, in terms of the strictness of party discipline? How about the federal parliament in Ottawa?
My sense is party discipline is prevalent to a greater or lesser extent in most other Canadian legislatures — and certainly that’s true in Ottawa.
For example, just 0.7 percent of the votes cast in the House of Commons between October 2004 and May 2013 broke party ranks. That suggests an astonishing homogeneity of opinion or an astonishing degree of discipline. And, in any case, as one of the MLAs I interviewed put it, “there’s got to be times, random chance if nothing else” that some of those politicians disagree with what they are voting on.
Were there any particularly lurid anecdotes that didn’t make their way into the final cut?
There were a number of anecdotes — and even entire interviews — that didn’t make the final cut of the documentary. All were interesting, although none were lurid.
For the most part, those clips weren’t used because of the time and narrative constraints of the documentary format. For example, former cabinet minister John Van Dongen spoke with me about party discipline soon after quitting the BC Liberals to become a BC Conservative. But what he said, unfortunately, got left on the cutting room floor. So I’m considering posting some of that content online in the future.
You make some analogies to Britain in the film, and suggest theirs is a system in which individual legislators are permitted to vote against their party from time to time. Which seems to somewhat dispel the idea that party discipline is integral part of the so-called “Westminster system.”
Do you have any sense of when or why Canada moved so sharply in the direction of ultra-disciplined legislatures? Your film doesn’t get into too much history, but is there any specific time period or event we can blame for entrenching this practice?
Party discipline is often said to have been looser during the early years of Confederation. But, by the twenties, such independence was being described as a rarity. And, by the seventies, that rigidity had become the subject of public debate.
As for the reasons behind such discipline, I think the best answer is “it’s complicated.”
There are, of course, structural explanations. Party leaders, for example, have the power to reward and punish their MPs, And, since we have 308 MPs rather than the United Kingdom’s 650, the chances of receiving one of those rewards — such as a cabinet or prominent critic appointment — are greater. As such, there’s an increased incentive in this country to toe the party line — especially in provincial legislatures, where the number of elected representatives is even smaller. But this system only exists because those representatives permit it to.
In a collective, MPs have the power to resist or even reform this system and yet – with a few exceptions — they haven’t. That’s why I suspect Canada’s rigid party discipline has just as much to do with our culture. Ours is not a country whose politics and government was birthed by rebellion. Nor are our economic and societal cleavages as pronounced as those in, for example, the United States and the United Kingdom. That means there has been less reason to practice rebelling — and more reason to defer to the majority or authority. Such deference doesn’t appear to be punished by the electorate, cheapening the inconsistent rewards of being rebellious or independent. All of this advantages Canada’s political leaders, who have expanded their power at the expense of our legislators — many of whom are now seen as little more than “trained seals.”
I think that perception keeps many Canadians who would otherwise run for provincial or federal office out of formal politics. And since those Canadians would be the ones most likely to break ranks, party discipline is reinforced.
I suspect the culture I’m describing isn’t dominant among all of this country’s demographic groups. Indeed, that culture may be changing — especially among young Canadians. And that makes me wonder about the sustainability of party discipline.
What about the idea of “confidence voting,” this idea that if the governing party doesn’t enjoy the support of all its members that entails a loss of confidence and the government should fall. Did you find fear over that sort of thing often being cited as a justification for keeping legislators in line?
Interestingly, none of the legislators I interviewed — both on and off-the-record — brought that up as a reason for not rebelling.
But, that being said, I believe the confidence convention is in need of reform – something the group Your Canada, Your Constitution and Independent MP Bruce Hyer have both proposed.
Is there any particular reason you didn’t discuss the US in your film? I feel like they provide an even stronger counter-example than Britain, in terms of how far it’s possible to take legislator independence.