The Written Word
for October 21, 2001

Back in the 18^th and early 19^th century there had grown up in Britain the "rotten borough" which referred to political constituencies with so few people in them that they were controlled by the local landlord who usually employed all the voters who in any case weren’t the rabble. In fact, the "controlled" seat wasn’t really abolished until quite recently when Oxford and Cambridge lost their "university" constituencies. It took various Reform Bills, starting in 1832 (which split the Tory Party into "Peelers" who supported Prime Minister Robert Peel and his opponents, a rift that wasn’t to heal until Disraeli four decades later) to bring about the notion of democratic representation. That is still a foreign notion in the UK where Scotland remains grossly over-represented at Westminster while having its own local parliament.

Of course the notion of a "rotten borough" is much to be disparaged. No one in Canada would suggest that such a thing would be good for out country. Except, of course, Prime Minister Jean Chretien who, like the British landlord of old, controls over 200 of them.

How can this be?

Very simple. The Prime Minister of Canada now controls all the levers of federal power personally. Because our system of so-called "Responsible Government" has become utterly corrupted, instead of the Prime Minister and his government being "responsible" to parliament it is now quite the other way around. There is not a simple vestige of federal power the Prime Minister doesn’t personally control. Even the almost invisible residual power that rests in the monarchy reposes in a governor-general personally selected as a political appointment by the Prime Minister.

The real crunch comes in the Canada Elections Act that gives to the prime minister the power to approve party support for any candidate. This means that the all powerful elected dictator of the country can withdraw the party’s name and support from whomever he wishes. This is a power that seldom needs to be exercised because every MP or prospective MP knows that if he doesn’t do what he is told, this power exists. It has been used, of course, as recently as 1997 when Liberal MP John Nunziata was tossed out of the Liberal caucus for insisting on voting against a bill that broke a Liberal campaign promise of 1993 and party support was thus denied him by Jean Chretien.

How does this lead to the "rotten borough"? Simple. "Safe" government seats, which from the beginning of time have been either Tory or Liberal, mostly the latter, are absolutely controlled by the Prime Minister. The nomination of someone not directly approved of by the Prime Minister is not possible. If the Prime Minister wishes to "parachute" in an agreeable person, as he has done with Sophie Leung and Stephen Owen, he simply does so.

Thus while it is possible to vote against the personal selection of the Prime Minister, if you happen to be of the Liberal persuasion you can only do so by voting for someone with whose political philosophy you don’t agree.

It is, I concede, the modern version of the "rotten borough" but in practice the party bosses, under the direct personal supervision of the Prime Minister, get to select who will win the majority of constituencies in Canada.

And Canadians, always supine and obedient, saluting the notion of "peace’ order and good government" and the trappings of democracy, reject the fact of democracy and seem not to care.

The "rotten borough" is alive and well if not in Britain, certainly in the largest of its former colonies.