A new chair in parliamentary democracy at Carleton University.

• Author: Cross, William

In 2009, Carleton University launched the Honorable Dick and Ruth Bell Chair for the Study of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy. The Chair, which resides in the Department of Political Science in Carleton's Faculty of Public Affairs, is created through a generous gift from Dr. Ruth Bell in honour of her late husband, Richard A. Bell, a prominent attorney and parliamentarian. Elected to the House of Commons four times between 1957 and 1968, Dick Bell also served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the Diefenbaker government. Ruth Bell is a Carleton alumnus and longtime educator and activist. She was one of the initial members of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and was a founder of both the Canadian Commission for Learning Opportunities for Women and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. This article outlines the mandate of the Chair and some areas in which it plans to encourage research.

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The mandate of the Chair is to support teaching, research and public education into Canada s dynamic and ever-changing system of parliamentary democracy. This is a most appropriate time for the launch of a Chair as events in recent months have reminded all Canadians of the importance of our political institutions and our parliamentary traditions. Just a few short months ago, Canadians across the land were discussing, often wondering and generally perplexed about, how governments are formed and defeated in our Westminster system. Had not a majority of Canadians voted for the Conservatives in the fall 2008 election many wondered? Canadians had elected Stephen Harper as our Prime Minister. What right does Parliament have to change this and propose an alternative government others asked. What does the Governor General have to do with any of this? And, finally, what on earth is prorogation?

These questions often followed by incorrect answers and easy assumptions were repeated not only in conversations among so called regular Canadians but also by journalists, pundits, elected officials and by some of my learned colleagues in the academy. The ubiquitous 'google search' of the term parliamentary democracy returns scores of references to it in news stories last December but few with any comprehensive discussion or understanding of what the term means. This is a rather dangerous state of affairs for it suggests that Canadians do not share a common understanding of the conventions governing their political life. The events of last December highlight the importance of our institutions and conventions in the operation of our parliamentary democracy.

It is against this background, that a recent article reported that the study of Canadian government and politics is in decline in universities across the land. (1) University students we are told are not interested in studying Canadian politics but rather see themselves as citizens of a global world and are interested primarily in issues of transnational governance and globalization. Universities in turn are reducing their course offerings in Canadian politics and increasing the offerings in international and comparative studies. A recent look through the undergraduate course offerings at one of the country's largest political science department's confirms this trend with apparently four times as many courses offered in global and international politics than in Canadian government and politics.

I suspect that we can all agree that it is a good thing for Canadians to be outward looking and interested in questions that concern the global community but surely it is equally important that we understand our domestic politics and institutions of governance.

I believe that students often follow the cues they receive from their professors and their universities. If a department focuses its resources in area studies concentrating on other parts of the world and on questions of global politics and hires young and energetic faculty disproportionately in these areas it subtly, and not so subtly, sends the message to its students that these are the important contemporary questions of governance and democracy.

There is much to be done in the study of Canadian politics. One of the continuing challenges we face is ensuring that our democratic institutions reflect the changing composition of Canadian society both in terms of who we are and the democratic values we hold. While our political institutions have largely resisted formal change civil society has changed dramatically. Canada is one of the world's largest takers of new immigrants. These new Canadians come from different backgrounds with different experiences than those they join in their new homeland. In the 2006 census there were more than 200 different ethnic origins reported, with 34 of them claimed by more than 100,000 Canadians. In 2007 Canada admitted a quarter of a million immigrants largely from non European countries. The degree of change from earlier patterns is evident in the list of...