Erin, We Hardly Knew Ye

 

Erin O’Toole is out as Conservative leader. Watching the CBC speaking about the event, one would think the Conservatives were in disarray, in danger of splitting, losing their direction and losing the voters. 

I don’t buy that spin. It is just media partisanship. I think this vote was how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. Kudos to Michael Chen, who designed this system and got it passed into law. Kudos to the Conservatives, who have now proven themselves Canada’s most responsive and democratic party.

The general public do not elect the Prime Minister. We vote for our local member. The Prime Minister is then whoever has the support of most of these members. Democracy demands that the Prime Minister serves at the pleasure of his members; not vice versa.

This system has been perverted in Canada by the legal requirement, introduced by the Liberals, that the party leader sign the nomination papers for local candidates. This gave the leader power to choose his own electorate, reversing the equation, and to punish or cashier anyone who did not do as he willed. The result has been an elected dictatorship. Debates and votes in parliament have become irrelevant to the nation’s business. Question period has become no more than rhetoric, a battle for the best sound bites.

Chen’s reform bill restored that balance. The Conservative Party embraced it, and deserves credit. O’Toole got voted out in part at least because he was being authoritarian with his own caucus.

Chen’s reform/restoration gives the Canadian or British system a significant advantage over the American system. A failing or disastrous or corrupt leader can be removed within days, if not hours, without tying up t6he nation’s business, without bitter recriminations, without requiring any particular reason or finding of fault. As Theresa May was; as Neville Chamberlain was. O’Toole was able to leave with dignity. The US, currently saddled with a declining Joe Biden in the midst of crisis, should envy us.

Nor is the Conservative Party divided by this. To the contrary, the vote was quick and decisive, so that it should be easy to come together now under a new leader. Had they been obliged to continue under O’Toole, divisions might have festered.