EVENT: 'Change is in the Air' - Vancouver -

[Oscar]

'CHANGE IS IN THE AIR': VANCOUVER EVENT

[ http://www.samaracanada.com/our-book/20 ... lltoanchor ]

After two decades of virtual silence on the subject, Canadians are once again thinking and talking about how to improve the institutions that we rely upon to represent and govern ourselves. Foremost among those calling for change is Conservative MP Michael Chong, whose proposed Reform Act has suggested intriguing new possibilities for the country's political system, but also laid bare both new and old fissures within it.

Join Tragedy of the Commons author and Samara founder Alison Loat in conversation with Chong, the Honourable A. Anne McLellan and political scientist Stewart Prest at a talk on

DETAILS:

April 22 at the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues, 6476 NW Marine Drive,

from 4 to 6 p.m.

Full details here:

[ http://www.samaracanada.com/our-book/20 ... lltoanchor ]

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Ottawa's Command and Control Antics

[ http://thetyee.ca/Books/2014/04/19/Otta ... ign=190414 ]

Former MPs speak out against 'opaque' and 'juvenile' party handling in a new book.

By Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan, April 19, 2014 TheTyee.ca

Tragedy in the Commons: Former Members of Parliament Speak Out About Canada's Failing Democracy

By Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan Random House Canada (2014)

[Editor's note: Canada's political parties practice more discipline than the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Reprinted with permission from Random House Canada, the following excerpt from a new book, Tragedy in the Commons, highlights the loyalty battles and frustrated inertia caused by party strictures. Click here for an interview with the book's authors, also published today on The Tyee: [ http://thetyee.ca/Books/2014/04/19/Loat-MacMillan-QA/ ]

Parliamentary voting records reveal that most MPs side with their parties on nearly every vote; but, in recalling their time in Ottawa, the MPs we interviewed wanted to make it clear that they had often felt heavily constrained. And most made a point of telling us about times when they didn't agree with their party, or had sought a concession such as permission to miss a vote in order to help manage their discomfort with the party line.

In fact, almost all the recollections they volunteered were concerned with what it was like to be a member of a political party. And they weren't good. Time and time again, MPs told us how decisions made by party leadership seemed opaque, arbitrary and even juvenile, and how party demands inhibited their ability to serve their constituents.

The MPs' complaints raise an issue: Why join a political party? The difficulty, at least if one wants to be a successful parliamentarian, is that virtually every Canadian MP arrives under the banner of a political party. In the last 30 years, only two freshmen MPs have been elected as independents -- Quebec City's André Arthur in the riding of Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier in 2006, and in 1984, Tony Roman in Toronto's York North.

Even if there is little choice but to sign on with a party in order to get elected or to be effective in Parliament, belonging to a political party requires sacrifices from the MP. Part of that sacrifice is identity. Once an MP decides to run under a party banner, his or her identity becomes closely tied to the organization's brand and leader.

'Nowhere' with tighter discipline

The inherent dichotomy in the role of an MP in a parliamentary democracy is clear -- autonomy in the home riding; loyalty on Parliament Hill. "There may be some exceptions in those African dictatorships that are part of the Commonwealth and so on," said Leslie Seidle, research director of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, in an interview with the Globe and Mail. "But in the advanced parliamentary democracies, there is nowhere that has heavier, tighter party discipline than the Canadian House of Commons."

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