Timothy Garton Ash

From Thursday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Saturday, Jul. 11, 2009 04:44AM EDT

Unless I’ve missed something, Britain has not just emerged from a war, revolution or declaration of independence. Such are the exceptional circumstances that are usually needed to produce a constitutional moment.

And yet – incongruously precipitated by revelations about British MPs claiming expenses for items such as a little wooden house for ducks on a duck pond – there is a widespread acknowledgment that Britain’s political system is in a profound crisis. Earlier this week, I heard Dominic Grieve, the opposition spokesman on home affairs, say this crisis could put in question “the foundations of the legitimacy of the state.”

There is no agreement about the solution. Many in the political class still appear to believe that patchwork repairs will be sufficient. They are wrong. Britain does not need a revolution, but it does need a great reform. There is something fundamentally wrong with a state that is so grossly overcentralized and has such an overmighty executive, restrained only by judges implementing the country’s Human Rights Act, unelected lords and journalists.

In theory, Britain has a sovereign Parliament. In practice, as Mr. Grieve told a meeting at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London, the recent history of Parliament is that of its increasing subordination to the executive. Labour MP Tony Wright agreed: Here is a Parliament that, in practice, refuses to be sovereign since “the main objective of members of the legislature is to join the executive.” The electoral system, he added, is really about choosing a government, not representatives of the people.

Britain’s task, therefore, is to create and sustain a constitutional moment, without the historical circumstances that usually give rise to one. This requires exceptional initiatives from above and from below, from Parliament and from the people. At the moment, there is too little and too much from both sides. There are innumerable proposals, speeches and initiatives, but it is wholly unclear how any of this will come together to produce change.

What has emerged from above is pretty minimal. The House of Commons will clean up its act on expenses. This fall, a select committee, chaired by Mr. Wright, should propose some significant improvements to the way the House conducts its business. There is also, once again, a serious discussion about electoral reform. Alan Johnson, a strong contender to be Labour’s next leader, restated his proposal this week for an election-day referendum on the “alternative vote plus” system – the one recommended a decade ago by a commission headed by Roy Jenkins, the former Labour minister and European Commission president, but then shelved by the Blair government.

Meantime, the game called politics continues being played on the country’s television screens. But how many Britons feel these are their representatives? The intermediate levels of democratic participation are either weak or non-existent, unlike the flourishing local and regional democracy of America and much of continental Europe. Yes, once every four or five years, the British voter can help to “kick the bastards out.” Then a new bunch will head to Westminster, and go on playing the same game the same way.

Outside the walls of Parliament and its attendant TV studios, there’s a plethora of new initiatives fizzling off in all directions. Tonight, for instance, there’s a rally in Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall, organized by the Vote for Change coalition with music by Billy Bragg to stir enthusiasm for electoral reform. The Unlock Democracy campaign has a draft bill to empower a citizens’ convention to decide on reforms. There’s 38degrees.org.uk, which aims to create a British online community for change.

A mighty popular mobilization is essential. Without pressure from below, British politicians will sink back into their bad old ways. But there are some hard questions to be answered. How far can popular anger at the political class be translated into sustained participation in a movement for constitutional change? Won’t such civic energy as there is be dissipated among all these diverse initiatives? In what sense can any of them claim to speak for “the people”? (A convention of randomly selected willing citizens, as pioneered in British Columbia, would go some way to meet that objection.) And, at the end of the day, how can all this be translated into legislation in Parliament and into the specific motion for a referendum?

At some point, sooner rather than later, what’s needed is a body that’s a two-way bridge between Parliament and the people. Mr. Wright, the Labour MP, has suggested calling it a “democracy commission.” It should have some people on it who really know what they’re talking about when it comes to Britain’s half-written constitution and complex political system. It should have representatives of the political parties. And it should include a student, a blogger, a couple of civil society activists – and why not some members of the general public, chosen by lot?

This cannot be a delegation from Westminster that travels around the country, graciously listening to the humble petitions of Her Majesty’s subjects, and goes on to produce compromise proposals from which the government of the day then chooses the bits it wants to push through a subservient legislature. Nor can it just be an independent citizens’ initiative from below, without the political authority to place demands before Parliament.

Neither Parliament alone nor the people alone can do the business. Only a novel kind of creative interaction between Parliament and the people can give Britain the constitutional moment it needs.

Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University.

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Tue. Jul. 7 2009 10:22 PM ET

A Conservative MP says federal funding for Toronto’s Gay Pride parade may be responsible for junior cabinet minister Diane Ablonczy losing a key part of her portfolio.

Brad Trost, the MP for Saskatoon-Humboldt, said Ablonczy’s decision to use $400,000 for the popular parade that celebrates homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered culture was not supported by most of the Tory caucus.

Trost told the anti-abortion website LifeSiteNews.com that the decision surprised the Conservative cabinet and the Prime Minister’s Office.

He said that responsibility for the Marquee Tourism Events Program, a $100 million initiative, has been given to another cabinet minister. The two-year program helps fund major tourism events such as the Calgary Stampede, which received nearly $2 million or Ottawa’s Bluesfest, which took about $1.5 million from the program.

Industry Minister Tony Clement has taken over the program, his office confirmed.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett demanded that Prime Minister Stephen Harper explain the reasoning behind the demotion.

“If this indeed has happened . . . the prime minister needs to tell Canadians, did he indeed punish a minister for doing her job?” she told CTV News Channel Tuesday.

Bennett added that if Trost’s allegation is true, the decision is “atrocious” as the Pride parade clearly meets the criteria for the funding program.

Bennett slammed Trost for his “boasting . . . one of his colleagues has had a file removed from her because she had the audacity to support a celebration of human rights.”

She said Ablonczy was one of the most talented ministers in the Tory caucus. Ablonczy, the MP for Calgary-Nose Hill, was first elected to the House of Commons in 1993.

But social conservatives have hailed the move.

“I think it clears the air a little bit . . . the federal government doesn’t support the pride event,” Jeff Gunnerson of the Campaign Life Coalition told CTV News.

City Councillor Kyle Rae told CTV News Channel he was “worried that the federal government is failing to be sensitive to the diversity here in Toronto.”

“For someone to be shocked by Pride being funded by the federal government, they are in another time.”

Not all Conservatives agree with the decision. One emailed CTV News and called the move narrow-minded, saying it might hurt the party’s chances in the next election in places like Toronto.

The city’s Gay Pride Parade is one of the biggest in the world and of its top tourism events. This year’s parade attracted more than one million people. It has been an annual event since 1981.

The controversy represents yet another black eye in the relationship between Toronto and the federal Conservatives.

Transport Minister John Baird and the City of Toronto have been at each other’s throats for months. Baird apologized to Mayor David Miller in June for telling the city to “f— off,” which was overheard by a reporter.

Baird then denied the city’s application for stimulus cash to fund improvements to the TTC, saying the request did not meet federal requirements.

With a report by CTV’s Graham Richardson in Ottawa

The case of the independent canditates –

Labels: a few questions, need for change, social problems

Who does our government work for?

“Mr. Page appears to have attracted cross-partisan ire by interpreting his role as reporting to the public, rather than to parliamentarians. “I’m quite concerned the Parliamentary Budget Officer sees himself as an independent practitioner who can report whenever he wants,” the Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett complained. “If the Parliamentary Budget Officer sees himself as truly independent, then he would believe that he could release [a report] whenever he wants to, as opposed to the wishes of the parliamentarian or the parliamentary committee that had commissioned the study.”

Read the following article.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/misplaced-confidentiality/article1203689/

Misplaced confidentiality

From Thursday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 03, 2009 03:21AM EDT

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have been fairly criticized for making the culture of government more secretive, after pledging to make it more transparent. But the recent conduct of a joint committee of senators and members of the House of Commons, on the future of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, has made plain that a disregard for accountability transcends party lines.

Since his position was created by the Conservatives shortly after they came to office (an admirable early attempt to live up to their campaign promises), Mr. Page has brought much-needed scrutiny to the government’s financial projections, including the size of the federal deficit and the cost of the war effort in Afghanistan. As a reward, he has been undermined at every turn, including a denial of the funds he needs to do his job properly.

The opposition might have been expected to leap to Mr. Page’s defence, and a few of its members have; the Liberal MP Bob Rae recently praised him for “making a tremendous contribution to the development of strong public policy,” and said he “should be encouraged rather than attacked.” But, when the Library of Parliament committee was charged with making recommendations about Mr. Page’s position, opposition MPs sided with the government in criticizing him for overstepping his bounds. While calling for his office’s annual funding to be increased, as Mr. Page had requested, the committee unanimously recommended that he cease publicly reporting most of his findings, until “the confidentiality is lifted” by the parliamentarian or the committee that asked for the information.

Mr. Page appears to have attracted cross-partisan ire by interpreting his role as reporting to the public, rather than to parliamentarians. “I’m quite concerned the Parliamentary Budget Officer sees himself as an independent practitioner who can report whenever he wants,” the Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett complained. “If the Parliamentary Budget Officer sees himself as truly independent, then he would believe that he could release [a report] whenever he wants to, as opposed to the wishes of the parliamentarian or the parliamentary committee that had commissioned the study.”

In effect, Ms. Bennett was echoing comments by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty that Canada already has an auditor-general, and does not need a second one. But Mr. Page’s reporting is required because of the practices of Canada’s finance ministers, including Mr. Flaherty. There should be no need for a watchdog to assess the credibility of government forecasts (an area not typically addressed by the auditor-general, who combs over expenditures). But because successive governments have proved so unreliable in their projections – the Liberals low-balling annual surpluses, the Conservatives claiming they would avoid deficit – Mr. Page has come to perform a valuable public service by clarifying where matters really stand.

Parliamentarians should be more worried about why that service is needed than about jealously guarding their turf.