Will your candidate vote for you?

You vote for your candidate, but will they vote for you? Party Discipline and Free-Votes

When I was young, I was told voting and participation in a free democratic country is both a privilege and a duty and to be grateful because democracy doesn’t exist everywhere.  Voting, like going to church, was a responsibility in which good citizens willingly participated and it made a difference to exercise that right and be involved in our government.  I believed because I was taught both at home and in school that our political representatives were to represent their constituents' (me!) best interests and they worked for us.

I believed that for a long time.

Here we are, nearly 45 years later, and like many idealistic perspectives from my youth, while their origins may have come from a good place, they no longer fit in my current worldview. Why you ask?  I and a group of friends have had an eight-year battle with the Saskatchewan government that punished us via the court system for bringing attention to tax evasion, environmental concerns, conflict of interest issues and more (you can read more about our story here). We asked for help federally as well and were turned away and then ignored.  This is in such direct conflict with what I was taught: that government was where you turn for help and it has citizens’ best interests at heart. I learned that all of it was a lie.

This paper will discuss how MPs or MLAs are responsible to their political brands, and in fact, is how responsible government is defined.  Political parties use methods to keep their members onside, and while members might be able to bring up a concern of their constituents, if it doesn’t correspond to the government agenda (known as the yearly Throne Speech) that concern will not make it into any meaningful discussion.  Furthermore, voting methods of political parties rarely allow for a member to vote according to his or her conscience or yours.

The Parliament of Canada (n.d.) defines responsible government as follows: “In Canada, the government must have the support of a majority of members of Parliament (MPs) to stay in power. This is called responsible government, and it is a cornerstone of Canada’s democratic parliamentary system.”  (Parliament of Canada, n.d., para. 1)  While one might say that, indirectly, government is responsible to citizens as well because in our democratic country, citizens vote for their candidate and the best man or woman wins.  While they may be a winner, it’s up for debate whether he is responsible to his constituents in any meaningful way. Responsible government has nothing to do with accountability to citizens. What is true is that elected members, both federally and provincially, are more responsible to their party than they are to you, the voter.  

Political parties use party discipline to ensure the support of its members.  In her article for the Library of Parliament, Lecomte (2018) discusses party discipline as being an essential part of Canadian politics, and its practice ensures that members of the same party vote together (Introduction, p. 1).  This practice of party discipline serves two purposes:  1) it ensures the government and opposition is clearly divided and 2) provides a degree of ideological certainty the voter can rely on.  Unfortunately, this practice limits what individual MPs can do, and creates greater and amplified differences between the parties (Lecomte, p. 1). 

We see this clearly in the way the politics shows itself today in media with more extreme divisions and differences between parties.  These divisions have unfortunately caused a political climate of hate, not only between different parties and their members, but also hatred of individual MPs or MLAs by the public only because they represent a particular party.  This hatred translates to offensive bumper stickers not to mention the hatred between certain groups of people and even between neighbors, friends and family.  This my friends is the responsible government in which we are to have confidence. 

Party discipline is practiced by government to keep members voting together and onside in ways that are not a surprise, but are bold nonetheless. Lecomte (2018) explains one way parties exercise discipline to keep members controlled is through a simple process of incentives and punishment.  Incentives for keeping party members loyal include appointments as parliamentary secretaries, cabinet ministers, or prestigious committee members; punishments may include placing less-compliant members in inferior committee groups, denying travel, or refusing to allow them to run in the next election for the party (p.2).  Parties use tactics to apply pressure to maintain solidarity such as opinion of others, and public perception (p. 2).  In addition, Flavelle and Kaye (1986) also note other punishments include ostracization from party members, denial of funds for elections, and lack of support staff and office space (p. 6)

Finally, to further influence members to vote with their party in the legislature and maintain party discipline is with the employment of the party whip (Flavelle and Kaye, 1986, p. 7). The whip’s purpose is to promote cohesion of the party and make sure all vote together.  The party whip is not unlike an enforcer in that if a  member doesn’t follow what the whip expects, threats come first and then discipline is handed out as mentioned above.

Free voting is supposed to allow for members to be able to vote how they feel they should either to their constituents or their conscience. Lecomte (2018) explains that while party members must remain faithful, in order to relax this expectation of party discipline and solidarity, free votes are allowed for: “A free vote takes place when a party frees its members from the usual expectation that they will vote according to party lines” (p. 3).  Even the decision to have a free vote is a political one and used in highly political circumstances.  Unfortunately, while a free vote allows members to vote outside party solidarity, since 1964, there have been only 14 free votes on such highly political topics, for example, capital punishment and abortion (Lecomte, p. 3).  That’s only 14 votes in the last 60 years. Thus there really is no place for members to vote for you unless they risk funding, popularity, staff and more.  Members say they must maintain their solidarity with their party, in the name of “responsible” government.  This creates a big circle of unaccountability where the only thing that matters is winning in order to get those incentives and avoid those punishments.  

As an interesting aside, and contrast to the provincial governments of Canada (and the Yukon), there are no territorial political parties in Nunavut and The Northwest Territories. They are governments comprised of independent candidates called consensus governments (Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, 2014); as such, party discipline does not apply.  All votes are free votes. The history of party discipline is long and was practiced in the UK where our system originated.  Our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald made mention of independent candidates and called them “loose fish”.  Because there were more independent candidates at the time of Confederation, party discipline was not as strong (Godbout & Hoyland, 2017), and gradually, efforts were made to capture the loose fish and put them in the net. Now have only a few nets full of spineless fish.   It’s time to stop adding these fish to the nets.

In conclusion, games played by political parties and their politicians to keep people divided is not in the public’s best interest. Party discipline regarding rewards and punishment of members keep democracy inauthentic.  The term “responsible government” is misleading and needs to be redefined.  People are tired of the politics of hate and it keeps people distracted.   A true democratic process needs to be brought back to governance.  Accountability to the citizens of this country needs to be more than lip service and manipulation from an archaic system that seeks to improve the lives of its own instead of the people they govern.  So many people turn away and refuse to be involved because they think it makes no difference and it is a lot to overcome.  But if no one tries, no, no it won’t make a difference.  It’s time for us all to step up and make a country we can be proud of and more importantly we can have trust in.

References

Flavelle, L. & Kaye, P. (1986, Summer). Party discipline and legislative voting. Canadian Parliamentary Review.  Retrieved March 5, 2024 from http://www.revparl.ca/9/2/09n2_86e_Flavelle.pdf

Godbout J-F, Høyland B. Unity in Diversity? The Development of Political Parties in the

Parliament of Canada, 1867–2011. British Journal of Political Science. 2017;47(3):545-

569. doi:10.1017/S0007123415000368

Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. (2014). What is a consensus

government? Retrieved from https://www.ntassembly.ca/visitors/what-consensus

Lucie Lecomte. (2018). Party discipline and free votes (Publication No. 2018-26-E).

Library of Pariament.  Retrieved March 5, 2024 from

https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.878160/publication.html

Parliament of Canada (n.d.) Responsible government. Retrieved February 20,2024 from

https://learn.parl.ca/understanding-comprendre/en/how-parliament-

works/responsible-government/