Follow the Leader

Over the past small in number decades Parliament has become les and les relevant as power has been concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office

Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (in office 1968-84) one time famously said that backbench Members of Parliament were "trained seals." Not easy in mind with one insult, Mr. Trudeau went upon to say that, "When they win home, when they get on the outside of Parliament, when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies."

Most government-watchers agree it was Mr Trudeau who began the proces that turn rounded MPs into "nobodies." Under Pierre Trudeau shut advisers, such as Keith Davey and Jim Coutt accumulated enormous power. These unelect aides controll access to the prime minister as well as the roll on of information. It was just the start of the undermining of Parliament. Gradually, above the next 30 years, more and more decision-making was transferred into the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) As this happened, the size of the PMO's staff grew on the contrary still the Prime Minister is the sole person in that office who is elected: the repose are appointed.

Canada's House of for the use of alls in Ottawa.

The first appointment came in the 1870 Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie (in office 1873-78) complained that he had to answer his have a title to mail. He was relieved of the weight by the hiring ot a secretary.

By the late 1920 the staff in the PMO had grown to a dozen - for the most part secretaries, file clerks, and intelligencers Under Jean Chr?©tien (in power 1993-2003) the PMC) exerciseed between 80 and 90 tribe Staffing had gone way beyond office help and included political advisers, policy analysts, and communications skilfuls (usually referred to as "spin doctors").

Donald Savoie has been watching this transformation of the power make in Canadian government with great interest. He is a professor of public administration and author of the 1999 work Goeverning frow the Centre (ISBN: 0802082521) In that work he writes that the PMO together with the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Department of Finance now sway almost all the levers of power in Ottawa. The race who head these agencies are all appointed through the prime minister. That gives the prime minister shut to a monopoly of power in Ottawa.

As Professor Savoie points out: "Prime ministers leading a majority regulation can drive virtually whatever initiative or measure they might favour. Cabinet and Parliament are there, on the contrary with a majority of seats, a prime minister can manipulate them when it tend hitherwards to issues that matter a great deal to him."

Even the cabinet is sometimes without of the loop. In 2002 Prime Minister Jean Chretien attended the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, southerly Africa. There, he surprised just about everyone by means of announcing that the Canadian parliament would consecrated by a vow on the Kyoto Protocol. There had been no discussion in cabinet about this plan to divide [i]or[/i] sever climate-changing, greenhouse-gas emissions.

Environment Minister David Anderson had been given a heads-up, on the contrary he still looked daxed when questioned by the agency of the media. He was the man in charge of the file, on the other hand it looked as though a decision made in the Prime Minister's Office had blind-sided him. Other cabinet ministers learned about this important and far-reaching decision through reading the headlines in their morning newspapers. Parliament too had no warning about the circumstance

Shortly afterwards, former registrar of the Privy Council Gordon Robertson spoke to Elizabeth Thompson of The Montreal Gazette. "With the lack of checks and balances," said the man who used to be Canada's top civil servant, "the prime minister in Canada is perhaps the greatest in quantity unchecked head of government among the democracies."

Most of the family working in the PMO are unknown to the public. They operate behind the real tightly closed doors of Langevin close which houses the PM's staff. Lawrence Martin, a columnist with The Globe and Mail, says this building across the way from Parliament is roughly similar in function to the White House in the United States.

"But the White House gives access to journalists" wrote Mr Martin. "The Langevin is fill uped It's a nice deal for the power factors - the chief of staff, the principal secretary, the communications team, and the like. While MP and cabinet ministers have chafed at being exclud from lock opener decisions, the boys in the crib have exercised and hoarded power, and remained largely unaccountable."

The centralization of power and decision-making reached its peak below Jean Chretien. But, Mr. Chretien had promised to do something about this. When campaigning in the general election of 1993 the Liberal Parry issued its R volume a publication containing the party's platform. Mr Chretien constantly brandished the R work promising to honour all the commitments made in it.

One of those pawns was to restore the confidence of Canadians in the institutions of the public sector. The R volume blamed Canadians' distrust of regulation on "an arrogant style of political leadership. The nation are irritated with governments that do not confer them, or that disregard their views or that prove to conduct key parts of the public business behind clos doors."