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Strengthening the Commons JOHN STEWART The House of Commons is the keystone of our system of government. It is the one body which includes both ministers of the Crown and the elected representatives of the people. Here take place the main activities in which responsible government is embodied and realized. Consequently , the procedures by which the House conducts its business are of great practical importance . The rules of the House are one of the main factors influencing politics and governance in Canada. Disputes among our politicians on procedural questions - questions about ministerial accountability , the guillotine in the supply process, the importance of th~ second-reading debate, etc. very often, perhaps always, spring from disagreements of a more fundamental kind, disagreements about the very nature of our constitution . Because of this I want to begin these comments on procedural reform by explaining the constitutional presuppositions which underlie them. Under our constitution the cabinet is not a committee of the House of Commons; rather, legally the ministers are servants of the Crown, and under the constitution the task of governing Canada under the existing laws rests on the Crown and its ministers, not on the House of Commons. However, although the title to the vehicle is vested in Her Majesty, the vehicle cannot be operated without fuel and renovations provided at short intervals by the House of Commons. Consequently the ministers are politically responsible, not to the Crown, but to the House. The Queen's favour no longer is required, and hasn't been required since the middle of the nineteenth century. The basic meaning of responsibl~ government is that a government that lacks the support of the House cannot continue in office. This, and this alone, Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 14, No. 2 (Ete 1979 Summer) is the essential meaning of responsible government. Because our system involves two distinct but not incompatible relationships, one legal and the other political, it can be described from two diametrically opposite viewpoints. At one extreme is the "court party" position, and at the other the ''country party'' position - to borrow terms from eighteenth-century Britain. The former emphasizes the constant need for governance there must be no stalemate which prevents the government from acting - and consequently the importance of the government. It stresses that ministers must accept their "responsibilities," that is, they must do their duty to the Crown, and thus to the people. It recognizes that only Parliament can make changes in statute law, impose taxes, and appropriate money, and that to carry on the government needs both new statute law and money. Accordingly, the "court party" position is (a) that the government needs a reliable majority in the House of Commons, and (b) that the House should have rules which assure that the majority, not the minority, prevails. The "country party" view is quite different. It may assert - following John Locke - that the House of Commons, as the house which represents the sovereign people, is or ought to be the paramount body in the constitution; but far more frequently the country party contention is that the government has its own role, strictly an executive role, and that government influence over the legislature and its committees is highly suspect. When ministers succeed in running the House they are disturbing the balance of the constitution. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the country party spokesmen went so far as to hold that ministerial participation in House business deformed the constitution. For that reason they sought to have ministers excluded from the membership of the House. Later, year after year they attacked placemen and pensions, the means ordinarily employed by ministers before 1832 "to corrupt" the House. Occasionally nowadays party loyalty and discipline are seen as detrimental to genuine responsible government, but far oftener what country party politicians denounce are the procedural devices, such as supply guillotines, closure, and time allotment, the devices and 35 arrangements which make it possible for the ministers to have the House of Commons do the government's business. Again, in the eighteenth century the leading court figure was derided as a prime minister; now he is called presidential. Often it was asserted that court favourites were far too powerful...

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