Jennifer Ditchburn, Policy Options, April 5, 2019
With the expulsion of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the
Liberal caucus, I began to think back on the other so-called “maverick”
MPs I’ve come across over the past two decades. Who were the folks
who dared to challenge the party line, or speak out of turn, or were just a
little oddball? The list is pretty darn small, mostly male, and the
individuals don’t last long in either their caucus or federal politics.
I’m thinking of Conservative MPs Brent Rathgeber, who tired of PMO
micromanagement, and Garth Turner, turfed for saying too much in his
blog. There was Bill Casey (Conservative, now Liberal), Carolyn Parrish
(Liberal) and John Cummins (Conservative). There was earnest and
outspoken Liberal MP Keith Martin; NDP MP Bruce Hyer who bristled
at vote whipping on the long-gun registry; and yes, even Maxime
Bernier. In the more polite vein, there is Michael Chong, one of the sole
voices in the Conservative Party calling for intelligent carbon pricing
and parliamentary reform. And thank goodness for Green Party Leader
Elizabeth May, who consistently bucks the trend of uber-partisanship in
favour of rational arguments and civility.
Within the Liberal Party ranks in the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a
very identifiable group of anti-abortion, social conservatives who found
their home in caucus – people like Tom Wappel.
But overall, MPs are a fairly obedient bunch, and the events of the last
few weeks should give you an indication why. It turns out Parliament
Hill is a bit like Grade 8: Sticking your head out from the crowd is social
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suicide. And God help you if you don’t know how things work around
here, as former Liberal cabinet minister Sheila Copps has driven home
with her criticism of Wilson-Raybould and Philpott. You’ll be called out
for your political inexperience and naïveté.
When Keith Martin left politics in 2010, he said with a certain note of
weariness it was because he wanted to find innovative ways to tackle the
world’s problems.
“It is very difficult to do this in the current environment of Parliament,
which is so hyper-partisan that it has become quite destructive,” Martin
said. “So, I’m not interested in doing that. I’m interested in advancing
those kinds of solutions; innovations that we can do for our country.”
So, the nutso thing about all of this is that the public seems to want
independent-minded MPs – MPs who will go to bat for constituents and
speak their minds, who aren’t so obsessed with their electoral fortunes as
to sell-out their ideals. A diversity of viewpoints. It’s why Reform
Leader Preston Manning used to criticize MPs for being “Ottawashed”
from spending too much time in thrall to the nation’s capital. (It’s ironic
to find Conservative MPs today come to the passionate defence of
Wilson-Raybould and Philpott, when as part of the Harper government
they never spoke publicly without a PMO staffer’s say-so, down to the
SO-31 statements before Question Period that are by design supposed to
be individual.)
Alex Marland, an expert in Canadian political branding and permanent
campaigning, has interviewed 125 current and former MPs for a book he
is writing about party discipline. One current, unnamed NDP MP told
him that, “The biggest single disappointment upon becoming an MP was
finding that caucus meetings were structured to begin with the head table
sort of providing us with our marching orders.”
For women and racialized MPs, the pressures to conform to a place
where you are in the minority are particularly high – which might also
explain why so few women over the years can be described as
“mavericks.” In her book Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies out
of Place, Nirmal Puwar explored how old political environments
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originally constructed to accommodate white men can make others feel
perpetually out of place, and forced to work doubly hard to fit in. (In
1936, an MP alerted the Sergeant-at-Arms there was a foreign spy in the
gallery – it was actually just Halifax Herald reporter Evelyn Tufts, the
lone woman.)
So why exactly does this conforming, toe-the-line culture hold on so
tightly in Ottawa? Of course, there is heaps to say about the lack of
power that MPs possess vis-à-vis their party leaders, who still hold the
power to approve or disapprove nominations, and in the case of the
Liberals to make the ultimate decision on being in or out of caucus. If
there were a rebalancing of power, as Chong has advocated for, MPs
might be emboldened to be more free-thinking and individualistic.
But there’s another key reason that everyone keeps to their knitting, and
that is the media. It is the media that declares people “maverick” or
“renegade,” and obsessively notes when somebody strays from the party
line. It’s no surprise – by definition, the “news” looks for things that are
“new” and unusual and odd. But one could legitimately ask whether
journalists were also attaching a negative connotation to the sharing of a
different policy or political perspective, or speaking without talking
points. Certainly, the searchlight for MPs who would speak off-script
was permanently turned on during the Harper years.
Eric Merkley, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia,
has studied party dissent. In a 2016 paper for the Canadian Political
Science Association, he noted that internal dissent on its own won’t
necessarily impact a party’s fortunes. The impact comes when
journalists frame dissent as reflecting poorly on a leader’s competence
and performance.
“Although columnists from across the political spectrum have bemoaned
the lack of power for ordinary parliamentarians, they and their outlets
likely play an important role in the maintenance of the status quo by
framing disputes within a party as a reflection on the competence of the
party leader rather than perfectly acceptable policy disagreement,” wrote
Merkley.
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Of course, Wilson-Raybould recorded her conversation with the Clerk of
the Privy Council all on her own, and Philpott made a choice to accord
Maclean’s an interview. These were the perceived straws of disloyalty
that broke the camel’s back with the Liberal caucus.
But fundamentally these were also different types of MPs, with different
visions of how to be a politician. As journalists, we might ask ourselves
whether we celebrate this type of diversity of thought or, by virtue of
framing it as a political aberration, are we driving politicians into
conformity along with the party whips?
On another note – if you’re looking for individualistic parliamentarians
unconstrained by party discipline, have a look at the new Senate. In a
study released this week for the Institute for Research on Public Policy
(which publishes Policy Options), Paul G. Thomas notes that the culture
in the Upper Chamber, “is becoming less partisan, more restrained and
more respectful of differences of opinion. The approach to issues and the
methods of operation are becoming more consensual, deliberative,
collaborative and constructive.”
Imagine that.
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