The headline in the Ottawa Citizen proclaimed "Tory ridings won more tourism grants." In ridings currently held by Canada's governing Conservative party, 3/4 of requests for tourism grants were approved. In other ridings, just half of requests were.
Now, Conservative ridings tend to be rural and suburban ridings, while non-Conservative ridings are more likely to be urban ridings. In Conserative ridings, there are relatively few tourist events, while in non-Conservative ridings there are more events competing for funding – inevitably not all of them will be successful. So it could be that the allocation of tourism grants has nothing to do with porkbarrel politics at all.
But the interesting question is: how does the suggestion that porkbarrel politics are taking place change the Conservative's chances of re-election?
The findings suggest that the process of awarding tourism grants has been subject to political influence, which reflects poorly upon the integrity of the Conservative party. Voters who oppose corruption in government – presumably the majority of voters – should vote against a party that diverts economic stimulus money to ridings held by its members.
On the other hand, if you know that this is the way the world works, doesn't it make sense for to vote for the party that's most likely to win, so that you too can get a ride on the gravy train? And if you think the Conservatives are most likely to win the next election, and if they win they will reward their voters, then it's rational to vote Conservative.
So, in the end, do allegations of porkbarrelling hurt parties or help them?
Brief digression on the parliamentary system for US readers: Canada is divided into "ridings." Each riding elects a "Member of Parliament." The leader of the party with the most members of parliament is asked to form a government (at which point he/she becomes Prime Minister). If the party has a majority of the seats in parliament, then it can straightforwardly form a government. If a party has more seats than anyone else, but still not a majority of seats, it can either form as a "minority government", and govern until it loses certain types of votes, or joint together with another part and form a coalition. Currently Canada has a minority government while the UK is governed by a coalition.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Ahem,
Currently the UK has a coalition government, made up of our Conservatives and Liberal Democratic parties, it is not a minority government.
Depends on the electoral effect it has on the marginal seats. I would have thought perceptions of pork barrelling would have negative effect on the overall vote and potentially positive effect in the seats that might benefit. Of course you want to have the positive effect in the marginal seats (and hope the overall negative effect doesn’t lose any of your ‘safe’ seats).
Left Outside, yes, you’re right, in the UK, the Conservatives have a minority and have joined with the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government. I’ve corrected the post.
DavidN, talking about this with friends down the pub last night, the response was “isn’t that true in the Maritimes?”
In Canada, ridings are very uneven both in terms of their size and their population – at the most extreme, a riding in (Maritime) Prince Edward Island has a fraction of the number of people that urban ridings in rapidly growing areas of the country do.
The implication of this is that, if you figure buying votes requires a certain level of per capita expenditure, some ridings are cheaper to buy than others, therefore can expect to receive more pork barrel type expenditures, and thus would be more likely to vote for a party that is perceived as both pork barrelling and potentially victorious.
(By the way, there is some empirical research to back up the assertion that ridings that are cheap to buy get more of these expenditures).
“(By the way, there is some empirical research to back up the assertion that ridings that are cheap to buy get more of these expenditures).”
Does that mean the demand for ridings is elastic? I expect it must.
‘Does that mean the demand for ridings is elastic? I expect it must.’ It would also be interesting to know if supply is inelastic and whether pork barrelling works. ‘In Canada, ridings are very uneven both in terms of their size and their population – at the most extreme, a riding in (Maritime) Prince Edward Island has a fraction of the number of people that urban ridings in rapidly growing areas of the country do.’ That structure wouldn’t be my first preference (if I was writing up a constitution).
DavidN – it’s actually not that easy to enshrine distributions of seats into a constitution.
The provinces agreed, voluntarily, to join together to form Canada. In 1867, no one thought of saying something like “number of seats in parliament is X and we will adjust the ridings every 15 years so that each riding is of size N/X.” Also, as a practical matter, some parts of the country are so sparsely populated that a rural or northern MP’s life would be impossible if he or she had to represent the same number of people as urban MPs do.
There have been lots of adjustments in the distribution of ridings over the years as the number of people per riding over the years as the population of Canada has grown, more provinces have joined Confederation, and the distribution of the population has shifted from East to West.
Now it would be possible to have the same number of people per riding across the country by taking population of Prince Edward Island divided by four as the ideal, and making all ridings that size, but the result would be an absolutely massive and unworkable parliament. Or some provinces could be asked to accept a unilateral reduction in their level of representation – again, not likely to happen. So the current system reflects a compromise that means some people have much less say in the outcome of elections than others.
This is interesting: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/fedrep/federal_e/red/representation_e.htm.
More background but fewer specifics can be found on Wikipedia.
I’m a little confused about the role of pork barrel politics. Each riding in Canada elects its Member of Parliament to represent that riding in Ottawa. Shouldn’t that MP lobby the gov’t to help his or her riding? Isn’t this how the system is supposed to work?
Kosta,
Again, sorry if this is stuff you already know or not answering your question.
In the US, a Senator or Congressman or woman doesn’t necessarily vote with his or her party. So a Ted Stevens, say, can say “I won’t vote for this bill unless a bridge is built in Alaska.”
In Canada, MPs generally vote with their party – an MP who doesn’t can be kicked out of the caucus. So MPs don’t have nearly as much individual leverage as US representatives do.
Some MPs are members of the governing party and some aren’t. The ones who are members of the governing party might, one thinks, have an advantage in directing goodies to their own ridings (the Prime Minister needs, to some extent, the cooperation and support of his MPs).
For example, there is a large Canada Revenue Agency centre in Shawinigan Quebec – which processes the income tax returns of people in Ottawa. Coincidentally, our former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, represented Shawinigan for many many years.
So even if all MPs are equally enthusiastic lobbyists, some will be more effective than others.
If people believe this is the way the world works, then they have an incentive to vote for an MP from the governing party.
In terms of “isn’t this how the system is suppose to work?” – is that a positive “supposed to” or a normative “supposed to”?
The fact that Conservative ridings only get 29% of the total amount of the program suggests there are other factors working here. For instance, if you request a lower amount, there is likely a better chance of approval, (the 76% number), but you are not taking so much of the total cash. Requests for large amounts by their very nature cannot all be funded because there simply is not enough cash to go round.
Frances, thank you for reply. So we agree that in representative democracies, each riding’s representative has the opportunity to lobby on behalf of their riding. I believe it should work like this because each riding may have unusual circumstances requiring the attention of the Federal gov’t. For instance, it likely that the PEI. MP’s played a large role in getting the Confederation Bridge built in the 1990’s, as its construction could not happen without Federal help, but its impact was local. I believe the norm should be that MP’s lobby the gov’t on behalf of their riding.
Of course if you follow that idea through to its natural conclusion, only ridings held by the party in power would get any kind of Federal money, and I’m sure this would not fly with the electorate.
I believe there is also a second norm, which is Canadians expect the governing party to rule fairly, equitably and without undue waste.So while the individual MP’s should be lobbying for constituents, one would hope that the government would distribute its largess with competence and without corruption.
To bring it back to your original post, I think people do have an incentive to vote for an MP from the governing party. I also think members of the governing party, and particularly members of the cabinet, have often lavished considerable pork on their ridings to help get themselves reelected.
On the other hand, each time the governing party allows a perk to directed to a specific riding, it runs the risk of that action being viewed as unfair, wasteful or corrupt. If the governing party is viewed as corrupt, that would seriously reduce the chances of that party retaining power after the next elections.
jad – yup, there’s far more tourist events in (NDP) Ottawa Centre (blues festival, jazz festival, chamber music festival, Winterlude, Santa Claus parade, pride parade, Rideau Canal days etc etc) than in the rural Conservative ridings south of the city.
Kosta, “I think people do have an incentive to vote for an MP from the governing party…. On the other hand, each time the governing party allows a perk to directed to a specific riding, it runs the risk of that action being viewed as unfair, wasteful or corrupt.”
So there’s two effects working in competing directions (more corruption = more benefits to voting for the governing party; more corruption = fewer votes from those who want good governance). Given that, right now do these allegations improve or worsen the Conservative government’s chances of re-election? Which effect dominates?
My guess is that those in ridings where votes are expensive to buy (Calgary, because there are so many votes per riding) will tend to favour good governance, while those in ridings where votes are cheap to buy (PEI) will tend to view pork barrelling in a more favourable light. But I don’t know what the overall impact would be for the Conservatives right now.
Although we can’t feasibly resize all of our ridings to coincide with the average population per riding of PEI, we can accept that PEI and the three territories will be over-represented and resize the ridings in the rest of the country so that ridings have the same population without violating other constitutional provisions. In this case, it would seem to be using New Brunswick’s minimum of 10 seats with an average of 73,000 residents each. Resizing parliament using this number would result in ~463 seats for Canada minus PEI and the territories, while these last would get 7 seats between them, for a total of 470 seats. We could cram these MPs into the House by getting rid of the desks, like the British House (which has 650 members).
Also, having a fair bit larger House would mean that it would be less likely for MPs of the governing party to get into cabinet, removing one of the carrot/sticks parties use to keep their members in line. This might lead to some devolution of power to committees and backbench MPs. As it is, these guys are mostly meat puppets dancing to the tune of 25 year olds working in the Prime Minister’s Office. I don’t care if adding 160 MPs (only 130 if you count recent proposals to increase the size of the House) adds $40 million in additional cost…
Another upside of smaller districts/more members, is that it allows one to consider options like single transferable vote (STV) by creating groups of ridings with perhaps 350,000 residents with 5 members each. This system would allow for greater proportionality while also retaining some level of regional representativeness (which one would lose with a fully proportional system).
Living in the (sadly) conservative heartland, I think you’ve missed another element about porkbarrel funds. Around here, it’s generally accepted that we get the big “screw you” from all parties because the voting results are a foregone conclusion. Swing ridings that could go either way are expected to be the ones to get politically motivated funding.
So it seems that the optimal voting strategy is to change it up from time to time.
In general, the party in power will hold more swing ridings than the party out of power, so politically motivated spending will appear to go to “their” ridings.
Just to clarify any misunderstandings in my original post, when I referred to ‘marginal seat’ I mean a ‘swing seat’ or ‘swing riding’ (wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_seat). So Neil that’s exactly what I was referring to in my first post.
Frances, I will defer to your superior knowledge of local conditions and won’t get into an argument about the practicality of redistribution in Canada but would point out in Australia we redistribute (change electoral boundaries of seats) periodically so that each electoral constituency do have approx. the same number of enrolled voters albeit with a population with around 23 million. You can imagine the size of some of those electorates (the biggest Durack at 1.59 mil km squared is bigger than Mongolia).
Forgot to add this link on how redistribution works in Australia: http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/Overview.htm (having read your link Frances, I can see there has been attempts to ‘in principal’ keep electoral seats equal in population albeit with compromise).
Neil, I am pretty sure that there’s been research that supports your intuition. Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon on my door with the punchline: “the company policy is to reward disloyalty.”
Then there’s the question of how / when voters react to the incentive to be disloyal – I think formal voting theory analyzes these problems with models where some voters vote according to their values while others don’t, but whether a voter is a values voter or a voter who can be bought isn’t explained. Perhaps someone who knows the literature better than I can comment.
Andrew F – interesting. In the system you’re thinking of in your second comment, how are candidates chosen? At the riding level or centrally? This has a big impact on many things, e.g., the % of women in the legislature etc.
DavidN – thanks for the links. Personally I’d like to see more redistribution of seats in Canada, too, especially at the local level – in my city rural wards have far more influence than urban wards.
Feel a rant coming on…
Well, Frances, you have hit on one of my bugbears: the ever-declining equality of representation in the House of Commons.
The seat distribution is based on the following rules:
1) Divide the population of Canada by 279, the number of seats in the Commons in 1985 less one seat each for Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
2) Divide the population of each province by the result of [1] to get its preliminary seat count.
3) Apply the Senatorial Clause: a province can have no fewer MP’s than it has senators. Thus PEI always has four seats, even though at present it would only get one seat under the pure application of [1].
4) Apply the Grandfather Clause: A province can have no fewer seats than it had in 1976 during the 33rd Parliament.
PEI has been losing relative population since 1915 and in the 1970’s Quebec, Newfoundland, Manitoba and Saskatchewan would have lost seats. The result is also that Ontario, BC and Alberta are underrepresented, particularly Ontario which is 20 seats short of pure rep-by-pop. There was a bill to rectify this but the media says it has been dropped by the federal parties in the House. I think it’s a shame.
Either we have representational democracy or we don’t, and I think that over-representing smaller provinces at the expense of Ontario, BC and Alberta is undemocratic.
Further, in response to Kosta about MP’s voting against the party, in Canada we have parliamentary government. That means a government falls immediately if it loses a vote of confidence. Money Bills (Taxes and Spending are automatically deemed to be confidence votes. Therefore party disloyalty can bring down the government and cause an election. This doesn’t happen in the US and therefore Members of Congress have much more latitude to vote the way they want. It also leads to less disciplined and focused government. By way of contrast, in Canada parliamentarians constantly live with the “gun” of a confidence vote pointed at their heads. That’s why party discipline is so tight, it’s to make sure the government lives long enough to get something done.
Another thing is that of all the Westminster-style parliaments, Canada’s is the one that has had the most minority parliaments and elections after confidence votes. In contrast to most other places, our Parliament regularly hangs itself once a generation or so.
‘Another thing is that of all the Westminster-style parliaments, Canada’s is the one that has had the most minority parliaments and elections after confidence votes. In contrast to most other places, our Parliament regularly hangs itself once a generation or so.’ Interesting. Contrast this to Australia where we recently had a ‘hung’ parliament, first one since 1940.
Frances, the candidates can be selected by party list (appointed), nomination contest (to decide a ranking within each party), or could run as independents. Unlike with proportional systems where one can only vote for a party, in STV you can vote for individual candidates. Since parties run multiple candidates in each district, you can vote for the second or third candidate from a given party. This also tends to help bring in new blood and unseat dinosaurs who are inexplicably protected by the party.
When I read the story I actually wondered if WCI would blog about it…
I grew up in QC and have lived in AB for almost 10 years now. I suspect that I may not be entirely objective. Anyway, anecdotally I’d say people react to porkbarrel politics (well, any kind of corruption) by jockeying for the best position at the trough. Which is probably rational/optimizing behaviour if they are “price takers” relative to the political system – i.e. there is a very low probability that anyone individual will change the system and suddenly make everyone behave ethically.
DavidN – I think the higher rate of hung parliaments in Canada is due to regionalism – if the Bloc Quebecois gets most of the seats in (relatively over-represented) Quebec, then another party must get a very substantial majority in the rest of the country to have an overall majority. It’s not just a Quebec issue, however, populist prairie parties, e.g. the NDP, have led to minority governments.
Patrick, yes, price taking is a useful way of thinking about this.
Andrew F – I have mixed feelings about the list system under proportional voting. Yes, there are dinosaurs etc. But there are also biases in terms of who tends to get chosen as a candidate when these decisions are made at the riding level – candidates might be more likely to be male, good looking, etc. Don’t really enough enough about it.
Determinant – one of my earliest political memories, growing up in BC in the pre-internet era, was turning the t.v. on at 8:00 and hearing who won the election. Before any vote from B.C. had ever been counted.
A quick note on seat distribution. People tend to forget that we live in Canada in a federation, which implies some compromise between the principle of rep by pop and regional representation. In the US system, this is achieved by combining a House with rep by pop and a Senate with regional representation, both being more or less equally powerful. Canada’s lame attempt at a Senate (a result of wanting to stick to the Westminster model with a Prime Minister from the House of Commons) has left the regions largely unrepresented and so over time various constitutional arrangements have been made (like the rule that gets PEI four seats) to compensate for that. Frankly, until such time as we have a Senate that is elected or appointed by the regions, and has powers which balance those of the House (which would probably require moving away from the Westminster model) the current system is the best you’re going to get. I’d note as well that the Federal government doesn’t have the authority to change this on its own.
That said, I think it should be the rule as someone argued that the rest of the seats be as balanced as possible. I don’t know that I’d flood the house by going to New Brunswick’s level as Andrew F suggested (given New Brunswick’s demographics you’d be facing the same issue again very quickly), but equalizing everyone else say at Quebec’s level should be doable and allow them to keep their desks.
Quebec isn’t egregiously overrepresented actually. It used to be the standard by which the size of other ridings were calculated but not any longer. This was an obscure compromise from the BNA Act actually. There was a certain number of English-speaking ridings in Quebec clustered around Montreal and the Eastern Townships. Making Quebec the standard for the whole country meant that these ridings, and by extension the Quebec Anglo vote wouldn’t be redistributed out of existence.
The mass migration of the English-speaking community out of Quebec in the 1970’s for various reasons made this obsolete.
Frances:
I was a poll clerk last Federal election. The voting hours were moved a decade ago to stop this from happening. Plus I got to accompany the Poll Supervisor to turn in our ballot boxes at the main riding office. There were reporters with computers there and I was told that those were how the results were transferred from the desk where the DRO and I did the counting to the national news broadcasts.
Jim: “People tend to forget that we live in Canada in a federation, which implies some compromise between the principle of rep by pop and regional representation.”
Why? Free your mind, forget everything that you’ve ever heard on the subject, and try to justify regional representation on first principles? I can see a prevent-oppression-of-minorities argument, but why, in that case, just regional quotas? Why not gender quotas or ethnic quotas, as are used in many other systems?
Determinant: “The voting hours were moved a decade ago to stop this from happening.” Yes, and it’s a massive improvement over the old system.
Free my mind?,,,,Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do…
Meanwhile, back on earth, we’re governed by constitutions, and that’s the nature of ours.
Jim: “Frankly, until such time as we have a Senate that is elected or appointed by the regions, and has powers which balance those of the House (which would probably require moving away from the Westminster model) the current system is the best you’re going to get.”
Jim, I have a couple of points.
First, while ONE of the roles of the Senate is to provide regional representation, that isn’t its sole (or even its primary) purpose. Another role is to serve as chamber of “sober second though”, which allows it to (a) protect the so-called “political minority” from abuse by the political majority (who presumably controls the house) and (b) to provide technical expertise in reviewing legislation. This is why our Senators are appointed for life, since it is the security of tenure which enables them to resist public political pressure (at least in theory, in practice that’s debatable) and to develop legislative expertise that you might not find in a house that changes ever few years
While regionalism factors into (a) (since some regional interests will always be minority interests), it is clear from the debates that surrounded the formation of Canada that that role was viewed as being far broader than that (and reflected the general 19th century concern about the dangers of majority rule). As Frances points out, taht role applies equally to other majority/minority distinctions including religious minorities (probably of some relevance to the original fathers of confederation, given the protestant/catholic split in the country), as well as ethnic or gender minorities (though, oddly, men would probably be the gender minority in this country). While, too a large degree, the role of guardians of the political minority has been taken over by the courts since the advent of the Charter, you still see the Senate play that role from time to time (the one that comes to mind was the decision to kill a private members bill in the 1990s dealing with the proceeds of writing by convicted criminals (criminals always being a particularly despised minority) – the Senate rightly took the view that this might constitute an infringement of freedom of expression and quashed the bill.
With respect to (b), while there are a number of freeloaders in the Senate, there is also a large number of very dilligent senators who take their legislative role very seriously and often pick up on things that the commons either missed, or didn’t bother to look at the first time round (the example that comes to mind was Bill C-10 a few years ago, which contained a provision dealing with film tax credits along with a number of problematic technical tax provisions. The NDP voted for the bill in the house then, when they realized it contained a provision their supporters didn’t like, admitted that they hadn’t read the bill. The Senate ended up telling Finance that they wouldn’t pass the bill unless the problematic provisions were fixed, which it has since done). Moreover, Senate comittees, and the reports they produce, are often much more meaningful than the nonsense that comes out of the House.
Second, it’s easy to forget that the Powers of the Senate are, with one exception, co-equal to those of the house (the exception being that the Senate can’t initiate money bills, though it can defeat them). The problem with the Senate isn’t its formal powers, but its perceived illigitimacy, which makes it politically difficult for the Senate to be seen as blocking the will of the House (at least on matters that the public cares about). It’s one thing to block technical tax amendments or private members bills, it’s another altogether to thwart a government’s primary legislative agenda (though, in a minority environment, query whether that’s still the case, at least where the opposition is competitive, which in fairness they haven’t been recently). Still, I can think of a number of examples where the Senate has blocked, or threatened to block, the government’s agenda on issues of national importance where there was a clear divide in the Canadian populace (think Free Trade prior to the 1988 election, Abortion, GST; in the first case, the Senate relented after the Tories won an election, in the second, they killed the bill, in the third, Mulroney stacked the senate to overcome their opposition). So even an appointed Senate can be effective at holding the government to account.
Moreover, electing a Senate isn’t only one way of giving its members legitimacy. For example, the legitimacy of Supreme Court decisions is derived not from the election of its members (or from having a parliamentary committee sign of on their appointment), but from their perceived technical competence and (at least in some corners) impartiality. Perhaps if Prime Ministers focussed more on appointing the best and brightest instead of political bag(wo)men (a practice of which both parties are guilty of), the Senate would be perceived as being more legitimate.
Frances, why regional representation (rather than gender or ethnic quotas)? Well, unless those gender or ethnic groups are regionally based (highly unlikely, in the case of the former), they aren’t likely to separate. That’s a flippant answer, but probably the true one.
Bob- First off, I don’t think the Senate actually does a bad job at times as chamber of sober second thought, and I’d agree that the Canadian version wasn’t particularly designed as a voice for the regions, though its seating certainly bears more than traces of that. What I’m saying is that in other federations there is usually a more effective second house doing that job, which frees the lower house to be purely rep by pop. If Canada wants a purely rep by pop House, empower a regionally chosen Senate. Otherwise make do with the compromise and shut up about it already. In any case, its a small handful of seats that are out of line – equalize the rest and ignore us.
Bob, Jim, thanks for the thoughtful comments.
Jim, right now 37/104 Senators are women, far less than women’s representation in the Canadian population (though a good bit more than the House of Commons).
Do you think that requiring 50% (or whatever would be representative) of Senators to be female would increase or decrease the perceived legitimacy of the Senate?
If the latter, why isn’t the same true of regional quotas?
If the former, I’ll buy you a drink at the next CEA meetings!
Part of the problem is that Canadian provinces are so unbalanced in terms of population that getting an agreeable representation measure is really hard. Nobody wants to let PEI hold the nation hostage, not when they are the size of one Ontario municipality.
Another is that Canada wasn’t complete in 1867 and nobody knew how large the West would grow, again upsetting the regional balance.
While I’d be happy to see a requirement for 50% of Senators to be female, as long as they adequately represented the regions (and I don’t mean that in a rep by pop way), I’m afraid nothing is going to change their perceived legitimacy as long as they are chosen the way they are.
As to the drink, nice try at a test of the “small ridings can be bought more easily” hypothesis. As you can see, I’m holding out for bigger bait.
Jim, 😉
I think Olson’s Logic of Collective Action applies here. Less corruption is a public good for all citizens. However, while everybody benefits, the gains are diffuse so everybody free-rides on everybody else. In contrast, the benefits of pork are targeted and large (for the few beneficiaries). Pro-pork interests would be better equipped to mobilize.
Reallocating seats or switching to proportional representation is unlikely to change this problem. Moreover other problems, such as the over-emphasis on the interests of swing districts, have an equivalent in a PR system. Instead of being concentrated geographically, swing “constituencies” exist in ideological space. Because PR produces a multiparty system, moreover, the disproportionately powerful swing interests are not necessarily median voters. For instance, in Germany the SDP has to worry about Green-SDP and Left Party-SDP voters as well as SDP-CDU voters.
Frances, you could mandate that a certain percentage of party candidates be women, certainly. It’s hard to ensure that they be elected in STV, since STV usually allows voters to pick candidates. I’m not the expert on equity, but I’d think equal representation at the candidacy level ought to be sufficient, no?
Long run, given the way society is going, I’d expect Parliament to be 60% female in forty or fifty years.
‘[W]hile ONE of the roles of the Senate is to provide regional representation, that isn’t its sole (or even its primary) purpose. Another role is to serve as chamber of “sober second though”, which allows it to (a) protect the so-called “political minority” from abuse by the political majority (who presumably controls the house) and (b) to provide technical expertise in reviewing legislation. This is why our Senators are appointed for life, since it is the security of tenure which enables them to resist public political pressure (at least in theory, in practice that’s debatable) and to develop legislative expertise that you might not find in a house that changes ever few years’ – Bob Smith.
I’ve always been skeptical of the justification for the existence of an upper house let alone an unelected one even on the basis that it ‘serve as chamber of “sober second though[t]”’ to protect (a) minorities and/or (b) provide technical expertise. Firstly, I’m not saying those aren’t the reasons used to justify the continual existence of an upper house, however I don’t think those reasons are persuasive.
I think an upper house which is unelected or members that are elected disproportionate to number of the constituents that they represent is less ‘democratic’ than a representative body. More formally, suppose we define democracy by one voter per person. Let A and B which represent groups of people who have the same preferences to others in the same group but different to the people in the other group. Suppose there are more people in A then B i.e. A > B. Suppose you have a political structure where B’s vote is equal or worth more than A’s vote. By definition this system is less democratic to one where A’s vote is worth more than B’s vote.
So why should we care whether a system is democratic or not?
A non-elected body that provides veto oversight and/or ‘improves’ the laws passed by a representative body presupposes that you have a group of people who have a superior understanding of how things should be in the world than a majority. I don’t have enough faith people to believe those kind of persons (1) exist or suppose they do exist (2) anyone knows who they are (hence why we have regular elections, if we screw up the first time round we can change later on).
I don’t think the role of the legislature in a democracy should be to ‘protect‘ minorities but to reflect the preferences of the majority of it’s constituency. The preferences of ‘minorities’ are reflected in a democracy through political discourse, eg the US civil rights movement changed the preferences of the majority to reflect the preferences of a minority, not because the majority were of the same ethnic/cultural background, but due to the political activities of a minority. On the issue of ‘technical expertise’, I guess that’s what public servants are for.
With respect to security of tenure in the legislature, I don’t think that’s a positive attribute. I can understand the justification for it’s use in the judiciary (it’s not (theoretically) the political arm of government; it’s there to interpret laws, not make them), but for a democratic legislative body it’s an anachronism for the same reasons why the upper house is undemocratic. My personal view on security of tenure is that it’s a product of bygone days of monarchistic rule and should’ve been eliminated years ago.
I understand this discourse is all theoretical. There is no chance the Senate will be abolished (in Australia anyway until possibly when we decide to become a republic). Jim said ‘People tend to forget that we live in Canada in a federation, which implies some compromise between the principle of rep by pop and regional representation.’ If there is a reason for a Senate, it is this one. Previously I made the comment that ‘that structure wouldn’t be my first preference’, I haven’t changed my mind on that, but of course it has to be recognised that the existing political geography means the federation may be untenable in any other form (even if other ‘first best’ political structures exists).
Since this is relevant for the current discourse, for anyone who is interested there are a couple of excellent books by prominent economists on this subject matter:
‘The Size of Nations’ by Alberto Alesina. Provides model why federations exist.
‘Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy’ by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Provides model of autocracies transitioning into democracies.
Hosertohoosiser, DavidN, fascinating comments. I feel like I’m getting out of my depth on this topic. DavidN – am I right in thinking that (other than the usual mutual suspicion of Melbourne and Sydney residents) there isn’t a strong sense of regionalism in Australia? I.e. that people primarily identify themselves as Australians rather than Queenslanders?
Andrew F – right now I think that most people believe that, when a woman and a man are in direct contention for a seat, the man is more likely to be elected. Which is a reason not to choose a female candidate. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
On 60% female – at the risk of taking an off-the-cuff remark way too seriously…. The trend in female representation in the House of Commons has been pretty flat for about 20 years or so, and the rise in female labour force participation overall has tailed off – to the extent that it’s still rising, all of the action is happening in the older age groups, as women who entered the labour market in the 70s and 80s – and chose a lifetime of labour force participation – replace an older generation more committed to home and hearth.
Frances – Yes, you are largely correct. Most people in Australia identify themselves as Australians rather than by the State they reside in (Melbournians and Sydney siders tend to think they are both better than each other and everyone else because these are two most cosmopolitan cities in Australia). The one possible exception to this rule is West Australia, where as far as I know there have been two secessionist movements, 1933 and 1974 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secessionism_in_Western_Australia), but I think most people living on the east coast would’ve have been surprised with that fact (I know I was when I first found that out). This is reflected in federal politics where elected members of the two major parties largely vote along party lines even in the supposed “State’s” House, the Senate. There are no elected members of parties based on a regionalism platform.
This is just speculation on my part but I think the lack of ‘regionalism’ in Australia largely has to do with demographics, 23% of the population were born overseas and another 26% of people born in Australia had at least one parent born overseas (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/F1C38FAE9E5F2B82CA2573D200110333?opendocument). It probably also helps all the State’s share the same British heritage (all the State’s were originally colonised by the British as opposed to annexed from another sovereign state).
Frances, I’m extrapolating from more recent university enrollment figures, including at the graduate and doctoral level. Now that women are forming a majority share of new entrants to groups who traditionally form the elite of society (lawyers, doctors, academics, journalists, etc.) and the pool from which most politicians are drawn, I can only see it as a probable outcome that these changes will eventually bubble up to the top. In forty years, when those just leaving university now are reaching the age of 65, I’d expect a much higher proportion, and probable majority, of women in politics. If not, I’d see that are evidence there is something inherently wrong with the institution.
I take your point that the level of labour force participation by women has leveled off, but the quality of that participation continues to improve apace.
I’m not concerned that women are taking an increasing large role in these areas. My concern is that boys are underperforming, and we’re starting to see the beginning of what will become a growing social problem of male unemployment and underemployment because they are unskilled or their skills are of limited use. And that’s going to become a burden on the shoulders of women, who already largely have to shoulder more than their fair share.
Inversion of the The Handmaid’s Tale?
Andrew F – “I’d expect a much higher proportion, and probable majority, of women in politics. If not, I’d see that are evidence there is something inherently wrong with the institution.” Yup.
On your more general point – yes, I worry about my kids’ prospects.
But it’s complicated.
When I look at the local high school’s honour roll, I see a surprising number of boys among the 90%+ average group.
I see girls who have jaded views about the labour market. My generation saw our mothers at home, frustrated, without scope for to develop many of their talents. My mother would have been a brilliant economist – but she never had a chance to go to university. Now there’s a new generation who’ve watched their mothers working, stressed out, tired, cranky, and want balance in their lives.
I look back at the history of female labour force participation, and see what happens to a job’s pay and prospects when it becomes feminized – what happened to clerical work, teaching, etc. I’m just waiting for stuff to get nasty – really nasty – in the university sector.