Week 3: Public Service, Federalism and the Parliament Flashcards
Q. What is the bargain between the Minister and the Public Service? Is the bargain broken? Speak from both perspectives
The bargain is that the public service will loyally implement the directions and policies of the Minister, but in return, the Minister has to take responsibility if anything goes wrong. It could seem like the bargain is broken because the Minister sometimes feels that with a large government they aren’t there day-to-day and certain decisions are made that they don’t agree with, so why should they take responsibility? This leads to some Ministers deflecting the blame on the public service. On the other hand, the public service is more cautious of its loyal implementation, should it now question some of the directions it receives because what if it goes wrong and they get blamed?
Q. Explain the role of the civil service with keeping in mind these two phrases: “speaking truth to power” and “fearless advice; loyal implementation”
The speaking truth to power phrase doesn’t really apply as much anymore because it insists that the public service has a monopoly on truth and it’s simply not the fact as Ministers consider a whole array of information provided from several sources, also as the public service, if we reflect on this phrase we’ll see that it doesn’t get us far, it’s not a good way of talking as if politicians are somehow always wrong and we’re always right; so the more honest phrase is fearless advice and loyal implementation, the reason being, because our policy recommendations and advice could be off, but we will loyally implement whatever the Minister decides and do our best to provide the Minister with the best information we have to make the most suitable decision
Q. Explain the role of partisanship in the public service - idealized, realist and academic way
First the more idealized version of the public service being partisan is that they’re not partisan at all and they just focus on implementing policy; second and the more realistic version is that they’re not partisan but they have political acumen, they have judgements and insights/knowledge about politics, enabling them to have discussions with the government of the day and avoiding recommending anything that might be a hard sell in terms of political costs; the third and the academic way is that the public service is politically savvy, meaning not only are they aware, but public servants are astute in that they can use politicians to advance the policies they like, given they’re the permanent body and are theoretically supposed to have more knowledge than a new Minister for example.
Q. Explain the evolution of Parliament’s role (from what they say, to cabinet government to primary purpose now)
Parliament first developed to advise the Crown, its name emanates from the word “parler” in french, ultimately it came to be widely recognized that the advice of parliament came to bound the monarchy, so parliament at some point had a lot of authority, the golden age as they call it, is when parliament used to debate issues and make informed decisions based on those discussions, however, the principle of responsible government, which is that the exercising executive must maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, came to mean that the ruling party and Cabinet more specifically had the most power, in a majority government, parliament is merely ratifying legislation that the executive has already decided, yes in a minority, parliament has more power, but the ruling party now just needs to convince one of its oppositions, with the role of parliament now diminished, its primary function is just to hold the ruling party accountable, to challenge what they have to say and to provide different options/alternatives. This could cabinet accountable because they can either withdraw their bill, change it as to make it more palatable for other parties or even copy another party fully.
Q. What are these terms, prorogation, session, sitting, dissolution and adjourned
Prorogation is when the Prime Minister calls on the GG to end a session of Parliament and essentially erases all the pending items to start a new blank plate, a session of parliament lasts until prorogation is called, a session typically lasts about a year so each Parliament term/ government will have 4 sessions, each time the parliament meets its a sitting and when it leaves its adjourned, the adjournment could last a day or 3 weeks, when the PM wants to call elections Parliament is dissolved and the GC calls the elections.
Q. What is the role of the official opposition and shadow cabinet
Because the opposing parties main role is to hold the current government accountable, the leader of the official opposition is granted special privileges, such as its position in the HoC where it speaks the most, its residence, and even the right to be notified by the PM before making certain decisions, the shadow cabinet which is assigned by the leader of the opposition is tasked with holding each individual minister accountable.
Q. Frontbenchers versus backbenchers
Frontbenchers are those MPs who belong to the Ministry or to the Shadow Cabinet, all those who don’t belong to either side are backbenchers, why does this matter? Well because people generally argue that in Canada backbenchers don’t have a lot of power and they’re essentially sheep following the decisions of their party given their role is precarious, given the PM can reassign them, given the importance of maintaining a unified political party, but in other countries backbenchers may have more of a say.
Q. Explain the four main operations of the HoC, bills, resolutions, scrutiny of public expenditures and provision of information
First bills are new laws or policies that the government needs to get passed in the HoC, the bill goes through different stages, starting at the first reading, the bill is first introduced and the main ideas are presented, in the second reading, the bill is debated but only the general principles and purpose to avoid getting involved in too much detail, a parliamentary committee then studies the bill and report its findings, after its study it usually results in proposed amendments, at the third reading the bill is debated for one last time, and there is a vote, if the bill receives a majority vote it’s passed, it then receives royal assent and then goes back to proclamation to become law. Resolutions in the HoC are opportunities to debate and vote to express Parliament’s view on a given issue, it’s not a law or a new policy, so what’s the purpose? Well a ruling government may want to gauge where Parliament is at on a given issue, or the opposing party might want to see if others agree that the government has not dealt with a problem accordingly. Scrutiny of public expenditures happens before and after departmental spending, before is when departments provide estimates on their spending and after is to oversee if the department has spent money the way it said it has, the point is that the the public service should not be able to spend public money without elected officials holding them to account. The last function of access to information, is that Parliament enables MPs to obtain the information they seek with regards to written/formal requests for information that Parliament might have or to ask it in QP.
Q. Explain the difference between unitary and federalism
In a unitary system all authority rests with the national government, they may decide to delegate some of that authority but ultimately they decide how much authority they wish to delegate and they can take back their authority as they wish. In a federal government, there is a clear division of powers, each level of government, the federal and provincial are responsible for certain areas set out in the constitution, those issues that are more national in nature such as national defence or global affairs, banking, whereas areas that are more regional in nature such as healthcare and education are under the provinces, the 1982 CA establishes an amending formula that is only possible with the consent of the provinces, making it in many ways an equal relationship between different levels of government.
Q. What are the four stages of Canadian federalism - quasi federalism, classical federalism, emergency federalism and cooperative federalism and collaborative and open federalism
In the quasi federal stage from 1860s to 1890s, the founding fathers of Canada envisioned that the country would still have a strong national government, and that the jurisdictions offered to provinces such as health were in areas with little importance. From the 1890s to 1910s with the leadership of Wilfred Laurier, an PM from Quebec who naturally had an inclination for more of a federal structure, began to establish a classic federal country, and the courts decisions also reflected a more equal relationship between the federal and provincial governments (e.g., the provincial governments took over property and civil rights). From the 1910s to 1960s, Canada resembled an emergency federal country, meaning because of the 2 WW’s, most of the decisions derived from the national government and many of the provinces had no means of raising revenue and needed much help from the federal government. Cooperative federalism from the 1960s to 1990s, with the proliferation of government services offered across the country, the federal government saw a pressing need to coordinate action with provincial governments, so premiers and ministers often meet to cooperate. The last phase which is where were at currently is open federalism, the conditions for spending were lessened for the provinces and they had more leeway, the federal government doesn’t impose anything but rather works with provinces to come to shared expectations and rollouts of certain programs, this phase has also seen different PM’s either work closely with provinces or only work when needed to such as Harper.
Q, Explain how federalism differs in the U.S. and Canada, (the House of Representatives and the federal problems of Canada)
In the U.S., the federal government has increased its power, in Canada, the provinces have increased their power; in the U.S., while the house of representatives is divided by # of seats depending on state’s population, the Senate has a seat per state, and the House of Representatives and the Senate need to work together to pass laws and make decisions; whereas in Canada, the principle of responsible government makes it so the HoC and more specifically the ruling cabinet holds much of the power, and in the HoC, 2 of the largest provinces in Canada have 60% of the seats, and the Senate maintains a peripheral role so the other 8 or so provinces don’t have an equal say in the national government so they champion their provinces to advocate on their behalf and push for their initiatives making Canada highly regional, also, recent issues such as the Quebec question, Western Canada alienation and Indigenous self-governance has pushed the issue of federalism in Canada even further.
Q. Asymmetrical federalism: a current controversy
This is when the federal government may offer more leeway to certain provinces while maintaining control over others, for example, they may offer Quebec more power over their provincial affairs, these realities are in our constitution where different provinces are treated differently in the amending procedure, federal provincial agreements involve the 9 provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec, Quebec often pushes for more initiatives on its own and is even recognized as a nation within Canada.
