“O wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us” – Robert Burns

And isn’t that the truth. The problem is that I see Canada as others see us through the eyes of the many non Canadians meet from foreign on trips – and they have it wrong. That doesn’t make the great Scottish bard wrong; it’s just that I have taken considerable time studying how others ought to see us. The reasons others see us wrongly, and why it is Canadians do as well is that Canadais based upon a falsehood.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a patriotic Canadian – at least as patriotic as it’s possible to be in the far flung province of British Columbia.

The falsehood?

That we live as democratic people under what’s called “responsible government”. The word “responsible’ in this context means that our government (prime minister and cabinet) are responsible to parliament as a whole and if they lose the confidence of parliament they must resign.

The trouble is, that so far as I can determine, only once, back in 1873, has a federal majority government has been toppled and never in any of the 10 provinces whose governments are bound by the rule of “responsibility”. It happened in consequence of a huge scandal involving the first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald happened before party discipline became ironclad.

Responsible government is a terrifying thought for a  prime minister.

Lose power?

To those idiots across the aisle? You must be mad!

Something must be done! And it has been.

Power is now exercised entirely out of the Prime Minister’s office by unelected grey faces appointed by the prime minister who are never under any parliamentary restraints.

How does this happen?

First, every Canadian child learns that “responsible” government, which we inherited from Britain, is the only form of democracy that God approves of.

Second, those same little kiddies have the constitutional motto, “Peace, Order, and Good Government”, drilled into them. Our national moment has very few unpeaceful moments: where the US image is probably Custer’s Last Stand where Sitting Bull and his braves massacred the palefaces, we remember one Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman leading the same Sitting Bull, with 10,000 braves, over the border without so much as a bloody nose let along gunplay.

The Prime Minister maintains his one man dictatorship by very powerful instruments of persuasion.

   1. He can, under law, deny any candidate the right to run under the party banner, even if the party selected him to do so. That’s a huge weapon for under our system of “first past the post wins”, independents very rarely get elected.
   2. He makes the cabinet and unmakes them. Another hugely important weapon for as Napoleon observed, every corporal has a Marshall’s baton in his knapsack. Ministers make a hell of a lot more money and have perks too many to list.
   3. He appoints parliamentary secretaries, largely a sinecure that pays much more than lowly MPs get with lots of perks like travelling to warmer climes than Ottawa expense free.
   4. He appoints government members and the Chairs of parliamentary committees. This is the institution that is supposed to be made up of MPs holding the Prime Minister and his cabinet’s feet to the fire but with government members, a Majority, do no such thing and do what they’re told.
   5. The Prime Minister hands out the lolly, the goodies constituencies with good loyal MPs.

Believe me, the list gets longer!

Then when we do have a minority government and the government must pay attention to parliament the country – at least the chartering classes – rise as one and decry the “lack of discipline” crying that “things” are not getting done! We have had such a government for 5 years and instead of relief that Stephen Harper was restrained we seem bound to give him a majority on May 5th.

Well you may ask, why doesn’t the majority of MPs form a coalition; after all (this is true) there is almost no philosophical difference amongst all three opposition parties?

Because 47 MPs out of 308, without whom no coalition government can be formed, are members of the Bloc Quebecois whose stated purpose is to separate Quebec from Canada. Neither of the other two parties dare form any sort of an alliance (even an informal one which was tried) with the BQ.

Thus it is we have the worst of all worlds – a “first past the post system” that almost always entails a “top” down government or, rarely, a minority government that can’t be restrained by a united opposition because the opposition dare not unite!

The irony is that when we do have a majority government they win with barely 40% of the popular vote which itself is rarely over 50% of the voters’ list. (I would argue that this public apathy is because voters see no point in voting.)

I’ve spent a good deal of time studying different systems and over the years thought the German system (because it’s a federation like Canada) New Zealand because they mix “first past the post” with “proportional representation,” and Ireland have better systems.

British Columbiatried twice to reform its system and, by referenda failed. This means, amongst other things, that the Green Party, which many British Columbians support, can’t in practice elect a single member. That is clearly not democratic.

I can hear readers (I really have those powers so you be careful out there!) saying “Mair must be mad to want the Germans, the Dutch, Swedish or whatever system because they are this that and the other thing and are disliked at home. Mair should try living under such systems!”

I understand this and know that every system is more criticized than loved. I would be the last one to suggest that Canada or BC copy someone else’s system or that even if the best system possible were mandated by God that we’d like it.

What truly saddens me is that we’ve foreclosed change because we’ve allowed perfection to trump improvement, the fundamental error that I wager adversely impacts all jurisdictions represented by readers of this column.