Week 2: The executive Flashcards
Why is the Prime Minister so dominant - responsible for many things?
The Prime Minister has many powers and responsibilities that make it dominant. These largely stem out of the PM being the leader of the party. As the leader, the PM is able to decide who the ministers are and can at any time resign or reassign cabinet. The PM is responsible for the cabinet, so when it makes any controversial decisions it is also blamed on the PM. The PM also assigns the senate and the governor general. The PM also makes decisions on national security. Due to powers such as having the final say on cabinet disagreements, the PM essentially controls cabinet, and other parts of the executive, and sets government policy and direction.
However, the PM is not a dictator as some argue, the PM is not elected by the people and this entails that the PM to some extent must maintain the confidence of their caucus and cabinet - it’s rare but known that if an entire cabinet resigns then the PM is not seen as maintaining confidence of their own party and should also resign. Major caucus members talking against the PM in Parliament also shows that the PM is loosing confidence in the House.
What is Cabinet and how does it work?
Cabinet or the governor in council, is essentially the team of ministers that the PM has assigned specific portfolios to; Cabinet works largely through closed-door debates. In these settings, ministers meet to discuss and debate divergent opinions on where to direct policy. The PM at times, depending on who it is, can either defer decision to cabinet or just tell them what’s going to happen without much ministerial input. Regardless of disagreements that occur behind closed doors, cabinet solidarity ensures that when faced to parliament or the public, every one in cabinet must express the decision or outcome that the debates arrived at, and by doing so, no matter how much they disagree with it they have to show solidarity. If a Minister doesn’t want to agree, they can either resign, but if they choose not to, the PM will essentially fire the Minister. Because government is large, and there are many policies, there are also Cabinet Committees, and it doesn’t always follow that Ministers who are responsible for the subject of the Committee are participants. Sometimes you have ministers who have a different portfolio participate in a very different subject field. These Committees typically lead to Committee recommendations and are important because it means that not all decisions are made in full-cabinet or when all ministers are present.
How does Cabinet make a decision - MC’s
Government departments and agencies send a memorandum to cabinet, which occurs when they want clarification and approval. Mostly, for proposing a new policy, clarifying an existing one or just seeking approval to execute. MC’s inform cabinet of the policy direction and asks them to make a decision. Oddly enough, Parliamentarians are not really law makers, because when introducing new legislation you need Cabinet approval and they decide that it’s a government bill so Parliament only really deals with what’s approved by Cabinet?
Touch on Cabinet Conventions - solidarity, responsibility, PM, federal balance, gender balance
As discussed in week 1, constitutional conventions are flexible ways of doing this that aren’t typically written down in the constitution but have been tradition and the normal way of doing things so that the public holds the government to account, such as, when the PM calls for an election (the crown calls the election) usually before their four year term is up, if they didn’t the public would know that this convention would be broken.
Cabinet conventions are cabinet solidarity such as for demanding the confidence of the House, cabinet must have one opinion and view on a policy to the House and the Public. Cabinet responsibility, cabinet is collectively responsible for decisions their ministry makes, each minister is responsible for decisions cabinet makes (responsibility is important as maintaining the confidence of the house befalls on the entire cabinet and not on one minister, also, ministers must be responsible for their department because if not civil servants would have no accountability and could abuse that power) PM consensus as mentioned is when the PM decides what the outcome of the cabinet meeting or what cabinet decision is, federal balance is when cabinet should consist of different ministers representing all of the provinces in Canada, and gender balance is a new emerging convention but still time to tell if it has become one
What are Cabinet Confidences? What are the controversies?
Cabinet confidences are supposed to mean that when cabinet meets behind closed doors or has any records of cabinet decisions or MC’s these are confidential and not open to public disclosure and typically expect in unusual cases not open for discussion in parliament. The purpose for having this cabinet confidence is to ensure that ministers are free from any external scrutiny when doing their jobs. Cabinet has the power to decide if it approves an MC or not, so if it doesn’t it shouldn’t be open to the public to debate whether it should have been approved. Nevertheless, when an MC is approved and the policy is underway, it’s made public and now open for debate.
Cabinet confidences also ensure that ministers are fully comfortable and free to discuss their opinions and views in closed spaces where the risk of disclosing it is absent. If it was disclosed, other parties could use disagreements among ministers for public gain and it would violate the convention of cabinet solidarity
Controversies include PM waiver, where if really pressured by Parliament the PM could decide to release information to show transparency and clear things up. The second controversy is cabinet confidence and parliamentary immunity, parliamentarians are immune to freely discuss and express their opinions without being subject to any laws that they would be in terms of disclosing confidential information, to technically parliament can demand cabinet to release information but they typically don’t do so, it is a sort of prisoner’s dilemma where if one opposing government constantly demands information then when they’re in power the previous ruling party will do the same when they become the opposition. Ministers are also able to use free speech under their parliamentary immunity to disclose cabinet confidences without it being unlawful but they typically refrain from doing so.
What is the PMO and PCO?
PMO - partisan, drivers, navigation, criticism
It’s a partisan body in the sense that it has an electoral focus, mainly looking at the political significance of things and trying to win the most amount of seats
The prime minister’s office is a partisan body that grew out of WWII with the aim of providing partisan advice to the Prime Minister, manage public perception, push for policies advocated by the PM and coordinate ministerial communicate.
There’s often the perception that the public service will set the policy agenda and control the PM, so the PMO ensures that the public service following the large policy directions set out by the PM and not pursuing its own initiatives, in this way they are referred to as navigators.
Some other functions of the PMO is to have external awareness, they meet with interest groups and lobbyist because while the PS advises the PM there will always be some degree of bias and it’s on the PMO to consider other perspectives
When keeping Ministers in line, they can assign portfolios and have tough conversations to continue moving the policy agenda forward
Some criticism includes the Harper government was distrustful of the public service and was very much concerned with the parties public perception
PCO - non-partisan, coordination, advisors, clerk/deputy minister for the PM and secretary of cabinet
The Privy Council Office, is a non-partisan agency in the government that is tasked with coordinating policy and communication across all government departments
Outside of coordination they are responsible for how the government manages public image
They are called the Prime Minister’s office because they advise the PM on special duties such as the security and intelligence advisor
Just as each minister has a deputy minister to assist it, the clerk of the PCO is the deputy minister to the PM, providing him or her with non-partisan advice
The clerk is also responsible for coordinating deputy heads across the government to ensure that they’re all on the same page and that there are no surprises for Ministers
As the secretary of cabinet - who is also the clerk - their job is to ensure the continuity of government throughout different ministries, for example, if Trudeau was transitioning the clerk would make sure that confidential cabinet confidences remain confidential for the incoming government - they also assist in things like the caretaker convention, which is essentially not signing anything for the Prime Minister that might bind a future government to anything that it signs
Department of Finance - Minister of Finance -
The department of finance is the main department that signs off and approves how much funding other departments and policies receive. The Minister of Finance is often referred to as the second most powerful person in Canada as they ultimately dictate spending, economic recovery/redistribution
Probably the most powerful department in the country because it’s the department that decides how much we’re going to spend, how much we’re going to tax, and the measures that are put in place to stabilize and grow the economy overall
TBS - and TBS Secretariat, check and balance with DF,
TBS is different from DF in the sense that while the DF decides how fuch funding a department or policy receives, it is still required to submit to TBS when the time comes to spend that money. There must analysis and proof as to why the money is being spent and TBS ultimately approves the spending which is different from the DF. Anything that involves expenditure money or making of regulations involves the board, and the secretariat will get involved.
So, part of the reason that gov seems to move so slowly at times, is because for some of these major initiatives, you need to wait your turn to get into the board. There is a bandwidth problem, just as there is for PMO So as much as you want to get things moving, oftentimes the reality is that you’re dealing with institutions and people that have limited time. So, you want to make the most of that treasury board slot that you have, but the reality is that they are few and far between all things considered, so bear that in mind. It can only do so much while still trying to do proper due diligence and proper review
Treasury board submissions as different from MC’s
TBS subs usually follow from MC’s, this is because once cabinet has essentially approved a policy, the TBS sub will now ask to spend that money and will outline things like human resources needed to carry out the policy. TBS is a busy department with many submissions to review, so when the time comes to review, a department must make sure that it has put forward a careful analysis on spending and resources. A TBS sub is required for project implementation and money spending.
Explain the relationship between a DM and A Minister in a Department
The deputy minister is assigned by the PM and is the de facto leader of the day to day operations in a department - they report and help the Minister of the department as the Minister is largely responsible of the big picture policy questions sort of like the President of the company.
It’s important to remember that the Minister is still a political entity and therefore their main role is to make sure that the overall direction of the department compliments or aligns with their party’s visions
The deputy minister is a public servant and is the bridge between the department and the minister, essentially they vet and approve communication between the department and the minister
Explain ministerial responsibility using the triad framework
Mainly looks like civil servants —- assistant DM, —— DM —– Minister (Accountable to house of commons) - however not accountable for actions of civil servants that they haven’t instructed so they’re politically accountable to HoC but not personally accountable meaning they don’t have to resign unless instructed to the wrongful act
Responsibility; under legal statutes and constitutional conventions, the Minister is responsible for the entirety of their departments and the decisions they make - and from a party point of view responsible for the whole of cabinet as cabinet responsibility entails that ministers are responsible for all decisions cabinet makes
Accountability; flows as a corollary from responsibility, this accountability is mainly to the PM who appoints them in the first place and the HOC where they are held for questions. Ultimately this means that Ministers must take the blame when things go wrong
Answerability: ties to accountability but you can have to answer things without being accountable for it, such as crown corporations which are under the responsibility of a minister but they aren’t accountable for it because it’s recognized as being autonomous and therefore the Minister just has to be answerable for what they’re doing
How does ministerial accountability look like?
This usually doesn’t happen in the way most people expect such as the PM reassigning a Minister (when the PM is trying put a foot down to respond to criticism or the Minister is underperforming), or a PM resigns a Minister (only when a wrongful act is directly associated with a Minister), or a vote of no confidence as Ministers cannot be impeached individually since cabinet solidarity entails that if you have a problem with one Minister you have a problem with cabinet as a whole
So, accountability rather looks like a Minister no longer pursuing a given policy or abandoning completely a policy or just replacing a policy by copying another party’s proposal
We don’t see as much as accountability as we’d like because in a highly politicized context where everyone’s goal is to win elections and members are partisan, what happens is that Ministers find ways to deflect blame, for example, they fire people in their staff and blame it on them, they blame the public service and claim they didn’t know fully what was happening, they change the topic or avoid answering questions during QP, and because of all these reasons accountability sometimes does not look how most people want.
Explain the responsibilities of the Attorney General who is also the Minister of Justice
The MoJ and AG are the same person but entail two different roles:
The MoJ is a partisan position in the sense that as the head of the department of justice - the MoJ is responsible for providing legal advice to cabinet and going over legislation proposals and things of that nature - thus this would mean for example the the DoJ leads the drafting of legislation
As the AG, the same person is responsible for administering the government and making sure what department’s are doing are in line with law. The AG also has the power to intervene or not intervene with federal court proceedings. They essentially administer the crown’s laws.
The issue here is that there is an invisible line between the MoJ who is a partisan role that helps cabinet and the AG who is not partisan and helps the public service
The debate whether to separate the two:
Those who argue that separation is beneficial point to the fact that creating independent roles and two different people will either have partisan or nonpartisan roles
Those who argue that the roles should stay the same say that accountability is needed on the part of the government, separating the roles allows the government to intervene or not intervene in cases without being accountable to the HoC, having it designed like this makes it so at least the Minister will remain accountable
Explain the difference between departments, agencies and crown corporations
Departments are created or recognized by parliamentary statutes and can either have one or several ministers, they usually carry out several different tasks. They also provide some sort of service to the general public
Agencies are typically smaller than departments and have a mandate to carry out very specific tasks - however central agencies such as PCO and TBS, focus on coordinating policy of the entire GC rather than delivering some sort of service
Crown corporations are funded and founded by the government to usually provide some service for the government but the government is not responsible for and therefore not accountable for them. They operate at an arms length away from ministers and thus are not subject to partisan priorities, nevertheless, they are subject to parliamentary statute meaning what they do can be changed by changing their statute to narrowly define their mandate
Explain the dynamic between the PM and the Ministers then the Clerk and the DM
The Prime Minister has a team of ministers, and those ministers are responsible for certain departments. DM’s are meant to assist and carry out the day-to-day tasks of Ministers, but the Clerk of the PCO essentially ensures that all DM across government communicate and are carrying out the priorities of the PM. The Clerk is thus the most senior public servant in the government and is the deputy minister of the PM.
Therefore the clerk is the head DM of the government. Other DM’s hold their Minister to account in some ways if the Minister deviates from the path of the PM. And, the DMs are selected by the PM.
The Clerk which is the DM for the PM, is different from the deputy prime minister who is deemed second in command, depending on the PM, the role of the DPM could entail significant day to day work, or some PM’s minimize their role such as Harper
