Want your Senate to answer to you or be ‘independent’?

Canadians are sensitive to the corruptive power of hot patriotic rhetoric in American politics. We’re unmoved by flag-waving braggarts. Instead, we’re soft on a sedative: the proposition that our decision-makers serve us best, ever more intelligently, when we’re not in their face.

An extra measure of independence for legislators and public executives is presented to us as time-tested good housekeeping—a virtue that sets Canada above the more tactile and demanding politics to the south.

The Americans inherited the slave industry and we embedded in our political culture a British constitution of limited democracy and the good citizen’s general willingness to go along. 

Yet, any morning, in every public institution, from the PMO down to every crown agency and regional government outpost, those who hold power are reminded in little, unpleasant ways that they hold that power at our pleasure. Their unease about their professional mortality is palliated directly by obsessive market surveys, focus groups, and waves of fetching press gallery spinners, bureaucratic neologisms, and incomprehensible ‘accountability’ data dumps.

Also, there’s the confusing verbiage of our constitutional monarchy—a magical system of government that hides in every legal statute who exactly is the boss. On the outside, popular public intellectuals also write papers shoring up the credibility of independent decision-making and the impossibility of improving on the democratic reforms secured in the 1980s.

 A House Undivided: Making Senate Independence Work by former Senators Michael Kirby and Hugh Segal is a classic, bringing nuts-and-bolts authenticity to the task of trying to organize Justin Trudeau’s new Senate of 105 un-elected, free-thinkers into a workable legislative assembly.  

There will be, they proposed to the Public Policy Form, weekly Senate caucuses of the four regional power blocks that formed British North America back in 1867. To give Justin Trudeau greater latitude in guessing who would best represent these regions, the age limit of 30 and the property minimum of $4,000 for Senate appointments will be eliminated. Necessarily, the PM’s freshman Senate existentialists will need to meet regularly “in conference” to sort out their differences with the less sober, rather harried elected politicians from the people’s House of Commons.

(The Senate’s own reform committee outdid Kirby and Segal by recommending that the Senate allow their debates to be televised. Idle masochistic Canadians surely can’t be satisfied watching only unaccountable US Senators indifferent in what they think.)

Some sandboxes should be for the children or sent to the museum of civilization.

Trying to make a Canadian law-making institution less offensive by reforming its appointment procedures and business practices is, at best, a sincere waste of time.

Placing our upper house beyond electoral redress by the people has not, as Victorian authoritarians told us, led to more “sober second-thought.” The Senate is illegitimate today because, time and again, we’ve seen that informed adults voting are superior guarantors of durable progress than organizations of aloof worthies.

Yes, too much democracy—via plebiscites, recall of legislators, and too frequent elections—could drive us into a ditch. And with that concern very much in mind, the US constitution evolved a democratic balance: elections every two years for the “people’s assembly” and every six years for its Senate. They accepted that scrambling for money and voter approval shouldn’t go on constantly. They didn’t go so far, however, as to eliminate elections for the US Senate altogether.

Michael Kirby and Hugh Segal were superior Canadian senators. And they are listened to in Ottawa today. Lyndon Johnson, Ted Kennedy, Robert Taft, and Evert Dirksen, however, made political history, and did so, in large part, because they could win big elections and scare presidents.

Either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be elected shortly; and neither will be subdued by The Guardian or The Globe or the UN. To govern, however, the winner must regularly secure majorities and super-majorities in a separately elected US Senate.

Will Justin Trudeau’s government ever be subdued or driven off course by the Senators Justin Trudeau appoints to the Senate? Against that test, our $90-million-plus Senate is more bling-bling than a check on the awesome power of the PMO.

Democracy’s catch-22: for an effective Senate to be “independent” of the PM of the day, its Senators must first be empowered by being elected and, along with the PM, obliged to answer regularly to the people.

Big Brother isn't running an alliance

Last week, American liberals got a whiff of what it would be like to have the Clintons and the Bushes back in the White House—and they hit the roof. Washington is alight with passion. Foreign policy choices and cornerstone liberties are up for debate.

Canadians, with essentially the same constitutional values and global interests at stake as Americans, are following what’s going on in Washington and asking questions, doggedly exercising their freedom to imagine that they make their own decisions about their security and personal privacy.

Thanks to the leaks of Edward Snowden, Americans are learning that their government can now find out—almost instantaneously—what they do, whom they spend any time with, and what they say anywhere. At the same time, Canadians are learning that their government and the American government as well can access their privacy.

In response, Harper’s government cannot assure Canadians that they can secure separate, let alone better, treatment by surveillance bureaucracies.

It was a humiliating week for Barack Obama. Imagine, for a minute, what last week was like for Stephen Harper.

Canadian nationalists and opposition critics ask reasonable-sounding questions that only further entrench Harper’s reputation for secrecy.

A Toronto Star editorial cleverly set him up:

“To what degree do Canada’s data-aggregation methods mirror those in the U.S.? Is Parliament adequately briefed, as key members of Congress are? Once data is collected, can it be transmitted to foreign services? Under what safeguards? And do our laws clearly spell out all this?

“We badly need a spirited debate along these lines, and some healthy public consciousness-raising. It’s not reassuring to see opposition MPs rise in Parliament to confirm that they’re stumbling around in the dark.”

Senator Hugh Segal suggests that a committee of thoughtful Senators and Members of the House of Commons be put in the “loop” in managing these new state powers to aggregate and manage intelligence.

Behind these modest suggestions are several extremely ambitious assumptions: that after a “spirited” debate, Canada’s government could unilaterally run a different anti-terrorist security regime than the US government’s; that we could be in the loop in Washington; that we could maintain a relatively open Canada-US border; and that we could run things differently in Canada. 

(One of the reasons passions are high in the United States is precisely because Americans have discovered that the participation of legislators in secretly managing surveillance practices is ineffective.)

For most of the 12 years since 9/11, a Quebec separatist party occupied some 50 seats in the House of Commons—and, conceivably, could do so again. Could the Canadian government level with its MPs on what it’s doing in cooperation with the US security machinery? Would Washington understand? Alternatively, could the Prime Minister of the day set up a formal security committee of only bona fide federalists? Would the Prime Minister be best to just keep chatting with "respected" Parliamentarians informally? And, if so, how would that assuage people’s concerns?

The Star imagines that Canada’s government has choices in sharing security intelligence and “meta” data with US security officials—that Big Brother is an alliance of equal, sovereign states. Really?

Let’s play that out:

The Americans discover "accidentally" that 3 men in Mississauga are brainstorming with a pal in Detroit on how to blow up the transmission lines around Ontario’s nuclear reactors. Does the Canadian government: (1) complain about how they got the tip (2) complain about their “political obsession with terror,” as The Star puts it, or (3) accept the information, initiate surveillance measures, and promptly tell the Americans what they find out and plan to do.

If you’re a Canadian and think (3) is a no-brainer, wouldn’t it be best to worry more about the real debate in Washington rather than the pseudo-debate in Ottawa? 

“Balance” and talking clearly about North American politics

Along with the word “iconic” we should be wary of the promiscuous use of the word “balance.” Both convey feelings of perfection or authority that discourage light-hearted conversation and reasoned debate. Their use, in this listless time in Western politics, is unhelpful.

The hint of gravitas which accompanies the use of “balance”, of course, is exactly why it’s sexy in political discourse. It is intended consciously to calm unruly passions.

However, having the word beside your idea is valuable.  A “balanced” idea likely won’t offend. It feels as if it takes far more into account than an idea that’s merely clear. Indeed, it invites you to believe that only what can work is left in the proposal—that the proposal is not merely a proposal but the only workable outcome.  Democrats, policy professionals and dreamers, there is your problem.

The process of weighing and judging—balancing—the evidence before taking action is the essence of enlightened behavior. However, the best answer and necessary answer is not always balanced or a balanced package of half-measures heading off in opposing directions.

The virtue of balance has clouded several policy areas. Indeed, it has been used effectively to kill coherent reform. Electricity reform in Ontario is a classic example. The oxymoron, the “commercial crown corporation” exists to balance public accountability and market discipline. “Balanced” federalism has become a euphemism that allows each level of government to do bits of the other level’s job while spreading the blame.

In the “Art of War” Sun Tzu advised those who live by their wits that defence is usually the best way to deploy your resources. But, when it is to your advantage to turn to the offense you must be ferocious.

If you’re an activist and your government is nearly broke, it’s tempting to go for numerous little measures and say they represent a “balanced” approach. However, if you’re a serious reformer or even a serious conservative when the status quo is untenable, than whole-hearted reform should be undertaken. And balance left for sunnier times and lesser players.

Fellow speech writer and old friend, Senator Hugh Segal is wedded to the word. He also takes delight in thinking of politics as a heroic adventure. Segal concludes his most ambitious book, however, by straining balance and boldness to the breaking point.

“The time is ripe for a White Paper that discusses what a North American Assembly would look like, how its members could be elected within three founding countries, and what initial advisor, consultative and auditing role it might play, as the European Parliament did in its early days.”

Hugh Segal, The Right Balance: Canada’s Conservative Tradition, Douglas & McIntyre, Toronto, 2011, p. 224

He insists Canadian sovereignty would be enhanced in his North American Community. His North American Assembly would “not be unlike” the early European Parliament. It operated for some 30 years without direct elections; its members were assigned by member parliaments. Everything from income distribution to drug safety and continental security would be on the assembly’s agenda.

Political integration—jointly legislating the people’s business—is not an affectation or habit you acquire incrementally hanging around auditing and advising and consulting fellow North Americans. There is no slippery slope that will eventually take down the border and create a true North American—or,  realistically, a Canada-US—political community. To make a difference, Segal’s White Paper would have to challenge the national sovereignty of the constituent parts. Otherwise, his North American Assembly would be only another “constructive conversation” largely attended by political staffers.

The first expression of a big idea is less a matter of calculation than of conviction. Quebec’s Rene Levesque and France’s Jean Monnet were candid and effective. One spent most of his career trying to create a separate Quebec, and the other worked even longer to unite Europe. Both were self-described gradualists and probably liked the word balance.  Yet, early in their public utterances they were clear about how far they’d like to go. In 1950, in negotiating the European Coal and Steel Union (initially between France and West Germany), Monnet wanted it publicly understood that its binding joint authority was only a first step toward European federation.  His idea was a union of peoples, not merely co-operation between states.

Let’s not get started in North America by going back 60 years without a roadmap. This century, like the last, demands far more than balanced responses.