Separation of Powers and Responsible Government

 

Political scientists who teach incoming students, the ones who write introductory texts, don’t read our documentary history. They don’t read the Canadian Constitution.

As I argued in yesterday’s blog, it’s commonly said that there’s no “separation of political powers” in the Canadian Constitution. Wrong! Americans enjoy one version of the seventeenth-century British prescription for the separation of legislative and executive responsibilities. Canadians enjoy another and ours is as effective as theirs in securing us from authoritarian government.

Here’s a great bloomer of a mistake on the separation of powers from Peter Russell, author of the influential Constitutional Odyssey, Can Canadians Be a Sovereign People? The Fathers of Confederation, says Russell, “saw no need to spell out the vital democratic principle that government be directed by ministers who have the confidence of the elected branch of the legislature … [After 1867], the principle of responsible government would continue to depend on unwritten constitutional convention. The only hint of responsible government in the final constitutional text is the reference in the preamble to the BNA Act to a “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.”

Russell’s wrong. He’s just wrong.

Read the parts of the Constitution Act, 1867 describing the Executive Power and Legislative Power. Concentrate on the sections describing taxing and spending bills, that is, sections 53 and 54.

The effect of sections 53 and 54 is that neither the cabinet (the executive) nor the House of Commons (the legislative power) can tax and spend independently. The Cabinet governs, relying on section 54, but it cannot act without the people’s approval through their elected representatives. The Commons, relying on section 53, scrutinizes bills; it may reject cabinet’s proposals, but it cannot take the initiative. Voilà. Responsible government! The “separation of powers” and responsible government!