Making Minority Government Work

By Tim Woods, published in the September 24, 2007 issue of The Hill Times

Minority governments are coming into style in Canada. Voters in Nova Scotia have elected successive minority governments. As did Canadians, first electing Paul Martin and now Stephen Harper. The ADQ has become the Official Opposition in Quebec, shattering the two party system. The Green Party is knocking on the door to win seats at both the federal and provincial level. What isn’t so fashionable is talking about how to make minority governments work.

It seems that voters are sending a message to their politicians – one that is falling on deaf ears. Think of the adage, ‘if you don’t succeed, try, try again’. For leaders of minority governments that translates into more polling, shuffling cabinet ministers and rinsing the political agenda with a new Speech From the Throne. For voters, it means, spare us more elections and try to make the minority government work.

Unfortunately, our political leadership have little to say on minority rule. To implement their political programs and rally their activists – party leaders know the promised land is filled with rows and rows of government backbenchers.

While the challenge of making minority government work is far from a hot button issue, waging costly elections for partisan gain is hardly a vote grabber. Even a little attention on the issue and the implications for governance would be healthy.

Here are two suggestions. In the aftermath of a minority government, the Speech From the Throne should be delayed until an all party legislative committee has undertaken a public hearing process to identify key challenges that should be the focus for the new government’s next two year agenda. The committee would hold its meetings in public, call witnesses and issue a single report. (Minority reports would not be accepted.)

By and large, Canada’s politicians debate over a very narrow range of political directions. It is, indeed, the peaceable kingdom. Climate change and health care have been top issues for the past few years. We’re essentially agreed that action on climate change and progress on health care belong on the government’s to do list. We’re debating means, not ends. With so much political agreement already in place, it’s reasonable, from the standpoint of voters, that measurable progress on the top two or three issues should be made in a two year period.

Which brings up the second idea. In a minority government, we need to revisit votes of confidence. Aside from a budget vote – the defeat of legislation or a Speech From the Throne is not going to derail the workings of government or life off Parliament Hill. In terms of a minority government, the current plurality of confidence votes is more a confidence game than a useful measure of whether a new election is needed. We need to reset the bar for confidence votes in a minority government situation.

We’ve seen some momentum and popular acceptance favouring fixed dates. British Columbia and Ontario have made the move successfully. Instead of fixing the date of the election, in a minority situation, the date could be fixed for a vote of confidence – for example, on each anniversary of the previous election date.

Politicians may be loath to entertain the utility of minority governments, but the next time one shows up at your doorstep, be the first one on your block to ask, “So what would you do to make minority government work?”

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