Doug Ford’s battle to win at any cost is dangerous for Canada
By David Moscrop | September 18, 2018
It’s been a bad few years for making decisions in Canada. Or, at least, it’s been a bad few years for
how we make decisions. First, the federal Liberals abandoned voting reform efforts promised during the 2015, citing a lack of consensus (which they never tried to achieve). Around the same time, rumblings that their marquee energy project, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline, was in trouble started to get loud. Then, in August, the Federal Court of Appeal
struck down the project’s approval, ruling that the government must address flaws in the review process.
And now, there’s Doug Ford and the Great Section 33 Caper. A one-term city councilor in Toronto turned unlikely premier, Ford is unreasonably fixated on local politics. His old stamping ground’s local politics, that is. He targeted the city this fall, declaring his intentions to cut its council by nearly half just months before the Oct. 22 municipal vote. His party was mum on this plan during the provincial election. But once in government, Ford decided to go full-bore on it.
In the span of weeks, the Progressive Conservatives introduced a bill to cut Toronto’s City Council from 47 to 25 councilors. It was immediately blocked by a judge. Time passed. The city clerk warned she couldn’t guarantee a fair and accessible election. Ford signaled his intent to employ Section 33, a controversial and seldom used constitutional provision known as
“the notwithstanding clause,” to insulate the bill from a court ruling. Extraordinarily, the government then ordered the legislature to sit overnight beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Monday to get the thing passed. On Tuesday, Mainstreet Research released
a poll showing that a majority of Torontonians oppose Ford’s changes and his use of notwithstanding clause.
A cynical person might say politicians are committed to democracy — until they win an election. Or, to be more charitable, until, once in power, it becomes inconvenient for them to manage opposition. Ford talks about governing “for the people.” But in this case, he hasn’t asked any of them what they think about his bill. If he had, he’d have quickly learned they’re against it. For the people, you say? Which people would those be?
Process shortcomings might seem like inconvenient and regrettable bumps in the road, failures to live up to the lofty standards set out in dusty tomes reflecting the sorts of values and virtues and ideals that Cincinnatus or Bagehot might be imagined to have stood up for with stentorian barks. But dismissing good process as a nice and quaint idea that fails to live up to the realities of power politics, shrugging and getting back to battle, is dangerous.
Processes designed to engage citizens are essential. How do you know what people want or don’t want? You ask them. You listen. You respond. Steamrolling folks might get the job done in the short term. But it’s a long-term loser.
Bad processes lead to less trust and more cynicism or alienation as people look at politics, fail to see themselves as part of self-government, and check out, taking with them a sense that leaders are lousy, dodgy crooks running a rigged game. Lower levels of trust risk eroding the foundation of a democracy as citizens start to ask “What’s the point?” and look around for alternatives. Voter turnout declines. Fewer and fewer have more and more power, which threatens a cycle of exclusion and resentment.
Or worse. When a party violates procedural norms, they encourage others to do the same. If your opponent decides that winning at any cost is inbounds, then you’d be a fool not to follow their lead. Tit-for-tat. But a violation here or a pushing of the boundary there adds up. Over time, routine norm violations or cynical rule changes make politics nasty, threaten gridlock and divide the populace into friends and foes. In
“How Democracies Die,” political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt trace the history of that unwinding in the United States. It’s led exactly where you think.
Politicians must commit to open, transparent, consistent, engaging and responsive decision-making processes, and they must respect democratic norms while doing so, even if that means they don’t get what they want. The playwright Robert Bolt understood this decades ago. In his play about the life of Sir Thomas More, “
A Man for All Seasons,” Bolt writes on the importance of respecting shared boundaries as one of the play’s characters calls for the arrest of a “dangerous” man who has broken no law. More replies: “This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast … and if you cut them down … d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.” Premier Ford, and every politician, would be wise to take those lines to heart.
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