CKNW Editorial
for October 12, 2000

Just briefly, this is in reply to the barrage of email I’ve received re the possibility of Glen Clark joining CKNW. I’m just not physically able to answer it all personally but will send you a form letter reply to show you that I have indeed read your thoughts. I think one of the things management has missed here is that Mr Clark is not loved by the NDP any more than by anyone else … they see him as having badly damaged the party, not just in terms of the next election but on a far more permanent basis.

On to other things and continuing the cry for reform of the political process. I received an email yesterday – about the only one that wasn’t about Glen Clark – pointing out that the Canadian Alliance constitution gives the leader the power of veto over candidate selection. I suspect that other parties have similar powers. Mr Day must be persuaded to see that this is changed.

As matters progress, the Alliance is moving more to the center and the Liberals a bit to the left. This means that the Alliance must spell out with some care just where they part company with the Chretien Liberals. I discount statements of fiscal policy, not because they’re not important but because whatever promises are made, the cold splash of reality strikes the moment a party takes office. Moreover, the differences between the Liberals and the Alliance in this area are not large.

Where there can be a big difference twixt Mr Chretien and Mr Day is in the area of reform … something that is part of the Alliance’s short heritage. What we must look for here, from the Alliance, are some specifics. We need seek nothing from the Liberals because Mr Chretien is a troglodyte who basks in the glory of the dictator’s role.

Stockwell Day talks reform, however, but it’s in pretty vague terms. There will be senate reform and free votes in the Commons for example but I think he should be pinned down on more substantive questions … here are a couple.

would he repeal section 81 (1) (h) of the Canada Elections Act which gives the party leader power to deprive a duly nominated candidate of his party’s name on the ballot? This, as addressed by me here yesterday, is the main, unspoken (because there is no need to) clinching power the leader has over his caucus members.

Will he take steps to see that the party removes the leader’s power to dictate who will and will not be candidates?

Will he permit the caucus to name all the members of the parliamentary committees and let them decide who will be chair?

Will he consider permitting secret ballots by MPs on confidence motions?

Let me deal with the last point because many I talk to including politicians throw up their hands in horror at the mere thought of a secret ballot. The standard answer is "we want to know how they voted". In fact, that’s the problem – we now know in advance how they’re going to vote.

When a matter of confidence in the government is in play, there is no confidence vote at all. Everyone votes just as they are told, no ifs, ands, or buts. What if, on the petition of, say, 40% of the MPs a confidence vote was by secret ballot. Wouldn’t that restore independence to your MP and thus, by short extension, to you the voter?

The question of the free vote often comes up and Mr Day promises more of them. But don’t be fooled by this apparent reform. In fact it is no reform at all. Take the Nisga’a vote, declared by both the government and the official opposition to be "free votes". They were nothing of the sort. In fact it’s hard if not impossible to remember when a vote was so "whipped" as this one. That’s why the strictly controlled secret ballot should have appeal to those who wish to see their MPs vote as they think, not as the prime minister directs.

There are other reforms Mr Day might consider but the foregoing are the main ones. It will take leadership the likes of which we’ve never seen in this country to make these reforms. For it is never easy to forgo the routes which took you to power.

If Mr Day really wants to put lots of clear, blue water between himself and the Liberals he’ll pledge himself not just to the soft pitch, puffy reforms like free votes but to the tough ones that really will move power from the prime minister’s office to the MPs thence to those who elected them.