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COPYRIGHT 2006 Canada & the World
Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (in office 1968-84) once famously said that backbench Members of Parliament were "trained seals." Not content with one insult, Mr. Trudeau went on to say that, "When they get home, when they get out 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 process that turned MPs into "nobodies." Under Pierre Trudeau close advisers, such as Keith Davey and Jim Coutts, accumulated enormous power. These unelected aides controlled access to the prime minister as well as the flow of information. It was just the start of the undermining of Parliament. Gradually, over the next 30 years, more and more decisionmaking was transferred into the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). As this happened, the size of the PMO's staff grew, but still the Prime Minister is the only person in that office who is elected: the rest are appointed.
The first appointment came in the 1870s. Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie (in office 1873-78) complained that he had to answer his own mail. He was relieved of the burden by the hiring of a secretary.
By the late 1920s, the staff in the PMO had grown to a dozen--mostly secretaries, file clerks, and messengers. Under Jean Chretien (in power 1993-2003), the PMO employed between 80 and 90 people. Staffing had gone way beyond office help and included political advisers, policy analysts, and communications experts (usually referred to as "spin doctors").
Donald Savoie has been watching this transformation of the power structure in Canadian government with great interest. He is a professor of public administration and author of the 1999 book Governing from the Centre (ISBN: 0802082521). In that book, he writes that the PMO, together with the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Department of Finance now control almost all the levers of power in Ottawa. The people who head these agencies are all appointed by the prime minister. That gives the prime minister close to a monopoly of power in Ottawa.
As Professor Savoie points out: "Prime ministers leading a majority government can drive virtually whatever initiative or measure they might favour. Cabinet and Parliament are there, but with a majority of seats, a prime minister can manipulate them when it comes to issues that matter a great deal to him."
Even the cabinet is sometimes out of the loop. In 2002, Prime Minister Jean Chretien attended the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. There, he surprised just about everyone by announcing that the Canadian parliament would vote on the Kyoto Protocol. There had been no discussion in cabinet about this plan to cut climate-changing, greenhouse-gas emissions.
Environment Minister David Anderson had been given a heads-up, but he still looked dazed when questioned by the media. He was...
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