For some years now, observers of Canadian politics have noted the centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office.
This occurred at the expense of other institutions of the state, the most important being the Parliament where sits the elected representatives of the people.
Consequently, our government—run by the PMO and unelected bureaucracy—has been increasingly at odds with Parliament. The sponsorship scandal presently under investigation by Justice John Gomery is an effect of this phenomenon.
In our system of parliamentary democracy, inherited from Britain, the secret for successful government comes from the union of legislative and executive powers within the elected Parliament.
The public face of this union is the cabinet, with the prime minister—the leader of the largest political party in Parliament and having the support of a majority of its members—as its chief executive.
The cabinet’s efficacy rests on the support of a legislative majority. This depends first on the makeup of Parliament (i.e., the will of the voters) and second, when the largest party still lacks a majority, the skills of its leadership to secure support.
The increased eminence of the PM has coincided with new techniques in politics arising from developments in communication and information technology, and the rise of the welfare state. The PMO now has an expanded role in directing governmental affairs, setting priorities and making appointments to all branches of government.
This has distorted the delicate balance between legislative and executive powers, and the necessary check on executive power by elected representatives of the people has been eroded.
Pierre Trudeau’s flippant remark that elected members, especially those of the opposition parties, were “nobodies” illustrated how successive Liberal governments had, even decades ago, diminished parliament’s role.
But the parliamentary opposition is integral to the making of good government. Herein lies the genius of the English tradition, of providing for the protection of people’s freedom through the effective presence of a loyal and vigorous opposition inside government’s most powerful institution.
We might remind ourselves here of Lord Acton’s famous observation, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Paul Martin was perhaps mindful of this quote when he spoke about the “democratic deficit” during his campaign for the Liberal leadership. In other words, he was acknowledging how centralization of power in the PMO had hollowed Parliament’s role.
Lord Acton, in the same letter containing his quip on power, also wrote, “There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
Martin, like his predecessor, has allowed himself to be corrupted by the absolute power of his office. We have seen the effect this week in his party’s disregard for Parliament’s expressed opinion that the government lacks the democratic mandate to remain in power.
The appropriate response of the Liberal minority government to the vote last Tuesday calling on it to resign would have been to arrange—without delay—a vote on a substantive motion of confidence, and abide by the result.
Instead, the Liberals have spent the week trying to explain away the vote on technicalities, and by clinging to power have displayed their arrogant belief they may suspend the traditions and conventions that sustain our system of government.
The only remedy for this unprecedented situation, if the people are not to be abused, is an election of a new Parliament, with restoration of the balance between legislative and executive power.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
- Israel: Decades-old conflict not about to cease - Saturday November 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
- The better man lost the U.S. election - Saturday November 10, 2012 at 9:16 am
- The puzzle in U.S. presidential elections - Saturday November 3, 2012 at 8:43 am
