Confidence game: playing fast and loose with parliamentary conventions has weakened responsible government.
Inroads: A Journal of Opinion › Nbr. 2009, January 2009
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Summary
CANADIAN POLITICS
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Extract
Confidence game: playing fast and loose with parliamentary conventions has weakened responsible government.
Canada has been governed under responsible government for 160 years. It came to Nova Scotia in 1848 and--thanks in part to leaders like Robert Baldwin, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Governor General Lord Elgin--to the old United Province of Canada a year later. However, if the parliamentary crisis of December 2008 is any indication, we have still not mastered all the subtleties of this very sophisticated form of government.
The prorogation (suspension) of the 40th Parliament on December 4, after it had sat for only 13 days and with a motion of nonconfidence pending, raised a number of important questions about our institutions: * Did the government breach any fundamental, albeit unwritten, principle of constitutional behaviour? * Was the Governor General correct to accede to the Prime Minister's request to prorogue in such circumstances? * Was the opposition irresponsible in seeking to replace the government just two months after an election? Many answers to these questions have been offered. But the fact that Canada found itself in this position in the first place raises a more profound question: Do we have a political class capable of sustaining Westminster-style responsible government for another 160 years? Considering what has gone on in Parliam...See the full content of this document
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