Why Does Chong Stay?

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Michael Chong used to be Stephen Harper's Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. The story of how he came to resign his position makes interesting reading. Michael Harris writes:

Chong was the Intergovernmental Affairs minister back in 2006 when the prime minister broke all the known rules with his unilateral declaration that Quebec was a “nation.”

Harper did not bother to put the measure through cabinet, but simply did it by decree. Even though Chong was the minister responsible, he wasn’t informed about Harper’s decision until he was on his way to Wednesday caucus back in November, 2006. His then deputy minister, Louis Levesque, gave him the news.

The deputy also informed his minister that he, Levesque, had been in talks about the nation status issue the night before. It was staggering news. Chong’s deputy was involved in this hugely important decision and the minister was not? It was the clearest example of executive governance under Harper yet on record.

The rising star of the Conservative party was shocked by the PM’s unilateral action. He believed that it was the duty of the Clerk of the Privy Council to tell Harper that even the PM had to obey the rules. But with the Clerk’s office politicized under Harper, just like every other part of the government, that never happened.

Harper’s unilateral authoritarianism did not come as a complete surprise to Chong. As an MP and cabinet minister, he had noticed that Harper liked to make most of the big decisions at meetings of Planning and Priorities, a small but powerful committee of handpicked subordinates which the prime minister chairs. In the early innings of the Harper government, full cabinet rarely met and P&P did most of the heavy lifting.

Chong mulled over whether there was a way he could rationalize support for nation status for Quebec. He concluded that it was policy and procedural poison. There was nothing he could do but become the first Harper cabinet minister to resign.

Now the unelected Conservative majority in the Senate has gutted Chong's Reform Act  -- which passed the House by a vote of 260 to 17. The Duffy trial has shown us that Mr. Harper makes sure that caucus votes his way. He can't claim that he knew nothing about what was going on in the Upper House.

Garth Turner refused to endure such arrogant insouciance. So did Bill Casey and Brent Rathgeber. Why does Chong stay?

By The People

It's an indication of just how far we have strayed that Michael Chong's bill merely seeks to put centuries old parliamentary conventions in writing.  Not surprisingly, Andrew Coyne writes, there are a chorus of naysayers:

The bill, it was said, would never pass. Or if it did, would make no difference. Worse, it might. Parliament would be destabilized, said some, by a series of democratic “palace coups” against party leaders by their faithless caucuses — the same caucuses who, others maintained, had shown no interest in using their existing power to do the same, and thus had demonstrated it was unwanted. Or rather they had, many times — and thus had proved its superfluity.

Remove the power of the leader to decide who may run under the party banner, warned some, and it would lead to a wave of neo-Nazis hijacking nomination meetings. At best, it would empower tiny parliamentary factions to divide and disrupt the party’s business. No, claimed others: giving a majority of caucus the power to expel a member would inevitably give rise to mob rule, and the suppression of unpopular opinions.

Some claim the bill will not pass. But, Coyne writes, "more and more MPs and other influential voices, from James Rajotte to Bob Rae to Hugh Segal, have come out in its favour. "It is people like Pierre Poilievre, with the Orwellian title of Minister for Democratic Reform, who are against the bill.

Others claim the bill would legalize coup d'etats. We should fear the unknown they say. That's a red herring:

It is easy, of course, to conjure up all manner of devils from the unknown. But in this case the unknown is well known. The proposal before us is merely to replicate the model already in place in the other Westminster democracies: the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. It is, indeed, the model on which this country was founded, and under which it grew to maturity, but from which we have strayed in recent decades. It is to that system — the system of Macdonald and Laurier — that the bill would return us, nothing more.

Chong's bill would reinstate responsible government. We used to believe in it -- government of the people, by the people, for the people.

"I Could Care Less"

That was Stephen Harper's message to the Conservatives Halloween convention. This week -- after watching their western numbers drop, after refusing to call witnesses to testify to the Senate Committee looking into Mike Duffy's expenses, and after listening to Paul Calandra's absurd answers in question period -- it's obvious that the Harper Party could care less about the truth or parliamentary democracy.

Chantal Hebert writes in this morning's Toronto Star:

How else to describe a strategy that systematically involves the government maniacally digging itself deeper in what is fast becoming a bottomless credibility hole?

With every innuendo-laced answer, Calandra leads the House of Commons — and his government along with it — further into La La Land.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is an approach that (understandably) inspires little confidence and even less enthusiasm within the ranks of the Conservative caucus.

It can’t just be the burden of having to sign hundreds of Christmas cards before the House rises for the holidays that accounts for the dejected body language of so many Conservative MPs as Calandra does his PMO-orchestrated song-and-dance.

Stephen Harper was found in contempt of parliament in 2011. Since then, there has been no change in his approach.  The man is contemptuous of everything and everybody. But the situation may change  -- and the impetus for that change may come from his own party. Conservative Michael Chong -- who resigned from Harper's cabinet when the prime minister declared that Quebec was "a nation within a nation"  -- is about to introduce a private members bill which would enable MP's to vote out their leader:

In the big picture of parliamentary democracy, that would be a positive development, for it is only by taking matters in their own hands that MPs will restore some much needed meaningfulness (and dignity) to their roles in the Commons.

It will be interesting to see how far Chong's bill gets -- and whether the Conservative caucus cares more than their leader does.