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Main Page Churchilliad Online Index "THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT ITS MASTER" Winston Churchill Oslo 1948	"Churchill as Parliamentarian: The Lasting Legacy" The Honourable Dwight Duncan, MPP Ontario Minister of Energy Chair of Cabinet Government House Leader A text of his speech delivered at the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy Annual General Meeting Thursday, April 29, 2004 Trinity College, Toronto *Web Exclusive* You made reference to the importance of all aspects of parliament. My staff said to me today, “what are you going to say?” This was about an hour ago. I said, “I don’t know.” What I’ve done is I’ve gathered a series of quotes from Churchill, the ones that I could find and I want to address them. Let me put them in the context that I want to address them: Federally and provincially we are looking at a number of reforms for our parliamentary institutions and for our electoral systems. I am deeply troubled that nobody is pausing and saying “do we need to reform?” And if we agree to reform them, then how do we reform them - proportional representation? A very interesting concept. Do we want to do that in this country? I think we need to engage in a discussion about it. And it’s all predicated on the idea that people have lost interest in politics. That people have lost interest in our parliamentary institutions. When I became opposition House Leader, I began to study our parliamentary institutions and I began to study their history and their significance in a way that most members of parliament never will. And what I came to understand was the profound beauty and elegance of the institutions. And I am very nervous whenever somebody starts talking about change to those institutions. Those institutions have evolved over time. They have evolved and will continue to evolve over time. But let’s be careful that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. "Democracy is not some harlot in the street to be picked up by some man with a Tommy gun." - Winston Churchill First Churchillian quote: "Democracy is not some harlot in the street to be picked up by some man with a Tommy gun." He said that in condemning the Greek communists in the closing weeks of World War II. Democracy is based on reason, a sense of fair play, and freedom and respect for the rights of other people. In our parliament, in our first-past-the-post parliamentary system, we elect our members of parliament. Churchill ran 21 times and he lost as often as he won, interestingly enough. And most people don’t realize that - four times. Interestingly enough, when he was first elected to the British House they had a system where they had two members in some ridings. So the system has evolved over time. And I try to put myself in his shoes and I say “what would Churchill say about this talk about proportional representation and so on?” And I can’t find any specific writings, obviously. And I am certainly not worthy to try and interpret what he would say, but let me share with you some of my observations: Is there a failure of Parliamentary institution, or is there a failure of the people in it? Is there a failure of Parliamentary institution, or is there a failure of the people in it? And ask yourself that seriously – the people in it? Or is their a failure of political parties? This country, its great history, has been coalition building - where political parties bring together very different views. We are not an ideologically driven society. And when I listen to the people that advocate for things like proportional representation, most of them are people that haven’t won elections. I say that somewhat humourously, but as we look at changing the rules we need to consider that issue very, very carefully. What would it mean for a country like Canada? Well, I know what I would do as a politician: I would form the Windsor First Party, I would get elected, and then I would negotiate with the party that had the most chances of forming a government. Now think about the implication of that: governing parties would come up with plans after the election. There would have to be some way of appointing or apportioning members. And there are a variety of systems of proportional representation in the world, some that have worked and some that haven’t worked. Scotland has a modified system they’re bringing into force now. I had a chance to speak with the then-Speaker of the House of Scottish Parliament and some members, and they’re already experiencing difficulties. I think Churchill would counsel us to respect the institution and the tradition of the institution. “The purpose of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs.” - Winston Churchill We tend to focus on Question Period and the shenanigans that go on there, but you know, the House was meant to be a very divisive place; it’s not meant to be a gentile society where we come together over a cup of tea and discuss our differences. It’s the nation’s kitchen table. It’s where we come in, together, and we debate - sometimes ferociously. Churchill said “the purpose of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs.” We do not want to erode that essential partisanship. Darn it, if an issue makes it to the floor of the House of Commons and the Legislature, it should be divisive. And it should be debated. The people should be angry, they should be ecstatic, there should be all the emotions associated with that – now, within rules. Ancient rules that have evolved, and when one looks at the symmetry of the rules of Parliament – and they are complex, everything from the Law of Privilege to what we call the Standing Orders, the Orders that govern the affairs of the place – we change that all the time, but we have to be careful of how we change it. Let me give you an example. British tradition says that (we don’t have regular calendar days, we have sessional days) and the British tradition holds that for every sessional day the government gets, the opposition gets a Question Period. That is, if the government has the right to debate a bill then the opposition gets a chance to ask questions. That rule was changed in Ontario in 1997. You can now have two sessional days in one calendar day. So, a government can pass twice as much legislation with half as much accountability. Now, the average person doesn’t know that, and frankly would probably be bored to tears when you talk about it, but they have to start appreciating the institution. And it’s not enough to say “I’m turned off by it.” That’s nonsense. We’re always looking for reasons why people aren’t engaged. People have to look at themselves. The province of Ontario this year will spend $70 billion – all of that out of your pockets. Admittedly, it’s not of the magnitude of things that Churchill had to deal with when he was Prime Minister, but it certainly is of the same magnitude of when he was Secretary of State, or when he had responsibility for labour. And we have to look into ourselves and say, ‘what responsibility do we have to the institution?’ Parliamentarians have to look into it as well and say, ‘what responsibility do I have to behave civilly as we debate things?’ It’s one thing to get very worked up about something; it’s another to act silly. Of course, the media always focuses on the silly stuff. And frankly, as a politician competing in a thousand channel universe when you’re trying to draw attention to something, you’re sometimes forced to do that. "In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the state and would be ashamed to be its masters.” - Winston Churchill So, I guess the first point I wanted to make is that we have to be careful. Churchill said, “I’m a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father’s house to believe in democracy. Trust the people - that was his message. I owe my advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the state and would be ashamed to be its masters.” Parliamentarians have an obligation, whether Conservative or Liberal (Churchill, as we know, was both), out of principle, he would argue, politicians have an absolute obligation to ensure that the institution thrives and prospers. Churchill said about that, “some men change their party for the sake of principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.” He was a man of great principles – a man who was vilified, as you know, he was seen prior to World War II as being past his prime. He lamented his own demise before he was called upon to lead his nation in its greatest struggle ever. I understand you’re hearing from John Turner soon. He is, like me, concerned that the institution of Parliament is now eroding. You know, I don’t know how many of you know this, but every physical aspect of the Chamber has a history to it. In most Westminster style of parliaments, the opposition and government benches are precisely two-and-a-half sword-lengths apart because it wasn’t unusual for the members to bring in their swords. And so we’ve evolved this system of rules to make this system work. In the old days of Churchill’s era, it would take a long time to pass a bill – sometimes weeks and months. I regret to inform you that, as Government House Leader which I am today, if I had to I could pass a bill in five working days. That’s very troubling. Why? You make mistakes when you’re writing laws. Even if on principle what you’re doing is right. You ever look at some bills, some laws, you get a comma wrong, a word wrong, it makes mistakes. Unfortunately, in this province, and in this country, we can pass sweeping laws without public debate, without public hearing, very, very quickly. Some choose to use it, others don’t. Where I’m coming from and what I’m suggesting to you as you begin to engage in this debate around the form of parliament, think not only of reform of parliament and reform of the electorate, but reform of the institutions themselves in the existing electoral system. It’s simple to decry “we have a first-past-the-post system, therefore, it’s not going to work.” It’s very simple to say that. And by the way, in jurisdictions where proportional representation is in place, turnouts have been going down equally quickly at election time. But let us resolve that we will come to understand the symmetry and beauty of our parliamentary institutions before we wholesale change them. I’m not advocating for a moment that we shouldn’t change them – the issue of whether or not Supreme Court Justices should be called before parliament, it’s a lively debate. Issues again that wouldn’t be of significance to you, but let me cite one: omnibus legislation. Omnibus bills are bills that bring together, historically in the British model, lots of obscure things – things that need cleaning up. You don’t want to waste parliament’s time on every aspect of them. That’s evolved over time in this country and in this province. Now we often have omnibus legislation that brings in very controversial change and puts it into one bill. So, as government House Leader, I could put 10, 15, 20 controversial topics in one bill, and get it passed in five days without public hearings. So as you reflect on electoral reform, reflect on parliamentary reform and how we can make the institution work better. Britain - the House of Commons - is experimenting with more use of another Chamber where members can go and debate because Westminster is so busy not everything gets onto the floor of the House of Commons and not every member can speak. They’re experimenting with things like debating potential legislation before it’s actually introduced. Pretty good idea. If you’re the government it makes sense. Here in Canada, governments send up trial balloons and wait and see if they get shot down. Well this might be an actual forum where you can do it – we used to call them Royal Commissions - we don’t do those anymore. This is one way of doing it. There are other ways. For instance, there’s something in our Standing Orders in Ottawa and here at Queen’s Park called sending a bill to committee after first reading. Now what is the significance of that? (And again, this isn’t the kind of thing that you’re going to see on the National tonight). The significance of that is Second Reading passage (or sending a Bill to Committee after Second Reading) means you’ve already adopted the bill in principle. So, the government’s saying, “you know what, you can dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but this is how we’re doing it”. Governments now can send a bill to Committee after first reading, which says “Opposition, people of Ontario, we understand this is complex, we understand this is difficult. We’re not committed in principle. This is how we think you should do it – tell us what you think”. We just did the health privatization legislation in that format. And what did we come up with? Consensus. Our Parliaments have evolved over time, across continents, over differing types of states. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. So, my message today – and I’d be happy to answer more questions – is that as we consider electoral reform, as we consider sweeping changes to our institutions, for goodness sakes let’s be very, very careful. Our Parliaments have evolved over time, across continents, over differing types of states. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And as we study these things let’s look at how we make the existing institutions work better. Let’s look at other failings – not just the failings of our electoral system. The failing of our political parties to the point where you’ve people who feel they’ve got to have proportional representation because the bigger parties can’t amass all these views under one roof. It’s extremely important that we do that. Churchill said it’s the people who control the government, not the government who control the people. The parliamentary institution, in my estimation, is perhaps the best institution that’s evolved to do that. So, with that, none of what I just said represents the views of the government of Ontario. It represents my views as a concerned citizen; somebody who has spent a bit of time looking at these things. I’d welcome any questions if you have time for that now. QUESTIONS Q. Is there any coordination going on between what changes might be made in Ottawa versus what changes might be made in this province, or this province versus any other province? In other words, is there any grand scheme at all? A. Regrettably, no. Now, we’re all watching each other very carefully. What’s really amazing is that we have a Westminster model but we’ve really evolved our own little system that’s very distinct from Westminster. From simple physical things (like there’s a seat in the House for every member) right through to the nature of our Standing Orders. Now I should tell you that there’s considerable dialogue between the Clerks of the various legislatures and parliaments within the Commonwealth – quite a bit of dialogue. And we, of course, watch very carefully what goes on at Westminster, what goes on in Ottawa. One of the most interesting jurisdictions right now is Australia. There have been some really unique modifications to the British system that show some real promise. I was talking about, again, the subtle fine points like the introduction of sending a bill to Committee after first reading is present in four jurisdictions including Ontario – Saskatchewan, Ottawa, Quebec and Ontario. Now, Ottawa, when they did it, really screwed it up. It’s a form of time allocation, and a government House Leader can use it to limit debate. What happens is, if the government decides to send a bill to Committee after first reading and the Opposition doesn’t agree, you get three days of debate and then that’s it. The bill is sent to Committee, but there’s no second reading when it comes back to the House. In the Ontario model, which we agreed to (the three parties), the government can send a bill to Committee after first reading – there’s no debate on it, there has be agreement that it go – and it comes back and it goes to Second Reading debate. So, there’s no opportunity, unless consensus is reached, to use that as a form. And let me give you two examples of how the federal – it was the Chretien government - they did the Air Canada (??) privatization and the changes to the old employment insurance regulations under that system - which is (effectively) a way to shut down debate. So it’s specifically the Clerks of the legislatures, the House, and other Parliaments do meet – the Canadian Parliamentary Association along with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. But do the elected officials who work these things out sit down? Very rarely. Q. Will they have a citizen forum looking at parliamentary reform? A. Citizen’s forums, and we’re looking at citizen juries, are again, a fairly new way that have been tried in several US jurisdictions. I’m not aware of other jurisdictions. But what they’re designed to do is try to get a group of people together (who are representative of the population) to run ideas by. I’m a little bit troubled by them because that’s what members of parliament are supposed to be. While I welcome it as another input, the problem is that we’ve eroded the ability of members of parliament to do their job through rule changes. And by the way, most members of parliament don’t realize what the role of a member of parliament is. The role of a member of parliament is not to make law – the government makes law. The role of a member of parliament is to hold the government to account. That is the British model. Now you can introduce Private Members’ bills to bring attention to something, but in my case, I’m a member of the government, 19,000 people voted for me. So, the role of the Member of Parliament (this is not well understood either by the members of parliament themselves or by the population) is to hold the government to account. There’s separate legislation that governs the Executive (in Ontario it’s the Executive Council Act. I forget what it’s called in Ottawa). But the government makes legislation. The House has to pass it, the government has to command a majority in the House, but the role of the Member of Parliament is to hold the government to account. Q. What is your personal opinion on fixed election dates? A. I like them because too many government leaders have been able to manipulate to the advantage of themselves. As long as you preserve the notion that government can be defeated, as long as you preserve the notion of special wartime situations – you know, I can’t contemplate them – personally I like that idea. We do have it now. We always have. Most people don’t realize that we have the five years fixed-term. Now, the tradition has been for the Prime Minister or the Premier to call the election after four. But now it’s five years plus ninety days after the return of the previous writ. So we, in effect, have always had that. Q. But do you think we’re taking the decision out of the hands of the Premier or the Prime Minister? A. Yes I do. It still rests with the Parliament, by the way, if the Parliament decides to defeat the Prime Minister or the government. Q. (Inaudible) A. I wasn’t aware of that history, but thank you for sharing that with me. I support the monarchy. I don’t feel the great attachment to it that some do, but again I think that as we evolve our institutions (and I use the word evolve very carefully) and in the context of the Westminster model, the sovereign is key and historic. So I wouldn’t support a movement to remove the monarchy. Certainly in my lifetime I don’t see that happening. Not in this country. And the monarchy is an integral part of our parliamentary institutions. People forget that. Even though it has evolved into a largely ceremonial function, it’s still an integral part of that. I mean, when our institutions started they had to use weapons to keep the monarch out, so there’s a rich history there. I don’t think we should discard it overnight. Q. (Inaudible) A. Yes. For instance, you’ll see two of them this session. One of them deals with French language translation on income tax-matters, which we have circulated to the opposition parties in advance of introduction and welcomed comment. And I believe the Minister would be more than happy to share those proposed amendments with the Bar Association and whomever else. The second one dealing with, again, changes to consumer protection – introduced today as a matter of fact. And, again, we provided the opposition with this long before introduction and we will invite comments. Interestingly enough, we have a unicameral legislature here (as you know). Where there are bi-cameral legislatures you often get better study of this kind of thing. For instance, in terms of the Canadian Senate, one of the most effective committees is the Regulations Committee, which is full of lawyers who literally pour over these things at some length and get a lot more comment than we do in a unicameral assembly such as the Ontario Legislature. And the same is present in the House of Lords at Westminster. What I would urge you to consider is an overture from the Law Society to the Legislature asking for some mechanism to allow that to happen. The one I’m most familiar with is in 1995, the previous government introduced legislation to repeal the NDP government’s labour legislation. And they brought in 400 pages of amendments to the bill at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and had passage at 5 in the afternoon. And my friends who are labour lawyers bemoan that to this day because, I guess, there have just been all kinds of problems with obscure words and grammar and everything else. So, you may want to approach the legislature formally for some kind of mechanism to deal with that. Q. (Inaudible) A. Well, technically it’s the Legislature. Now that function doesn’t happen …but first of all, I don’t necessarily agree with everything you’ve just said. First of all, there are advantages to our system. Number 1 (Dalton Camp wrote far more eloquently about this than I ever could) is that our system is far more difficult to influence from the outside because caucuses work together. Now I would suggest to you, and this was lost on many people last year, that one of the most significant developments in Canadian Parliamentary history was the way the Liberal Caucus changed leaders. That was probably the most empowering thing that has happened with backbenchers in this country’s history. Now that’s a regular occurrence in Britain, but that’s the first time it’s happened – now, Diefenbaker ran into problems with his caucus – but that’s the first time we’ve seen a Prime Minister removed (albeit very pleasantly) against his will by his own party, by his own caucus. Regardless what you think of Mr. Chretien, or whether that was right or wrong, as a student of Canadian Parliament that is a very, very significant development. We’re evolving other things that have evolved in Britain such as whips and so on. You’ll be seeing some changes in the Ontario Legislature along that way, but I guess the point still comes back to let’s first, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s consider how can we make it work better? And there are lots of things like that we can do to make it work better and we can still maintain what I think is one of the most beautiful and symmetrical institutions one could ever find. Thank you.