The Making of the Parliamentary System

• Author: Rob Walsh
• Pages: 7-23

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The Making of the Parliamentary System

he House of Commons, unlike the Senate, is an elected parliamentary body. his greatly afects how the House of Commons does its business, of course. For example, the House is much more responsive to the changing political views of Canadians. Members and their political parties must eventually go back to their voters for re-election, perhaps sooner than they would like. Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth-century lexicographer, is reputed to have said that there’s nothing like a hanging to concentrate a man’s thinking. he same might be said of elections for Members of Parliament. Elections mean accountability and can put a member seeking re-election out of a job. his can happen regardless of the parliamentary performance of a member when the member’s party falls afoul of the prevailing political mood.
he political party that won the election and as a result formed the Government¹ must deliver on its campaign promises if it is to keep its public support. While public opinion and the next election may be the driving forces behind much parliamentary behaviour, this behaviour needs an institutional structure to enable the political issues of the day to come to resolution (at least for a while) through an orderly process. he political parties confront each other

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or, more to the point, the parties in opposition confront the party in power that forms the Government of the day.

For this to happen in an orderly manner, there must be more than an informal consensus on parliamentary proceedings. here must be operating rules that govern with the standing of law and cannot be overturned by a passing majority in the House. We have such rules. We inherited them from England when the Confederation of Canada was established in 1867. hese rules have become part of Canada’s constitutional framework and must be respected.

When people are killed or injured in a car accident, we don’t blame the car; we blame the driver of the car at fault, but we still recognize the value of having a car. We need to recognize the value of having a House of Commons. A better understanding of the constitutional place of the House of Commons and why it conducts its business as it does should help Canadians to see past the political players of the day to understand the place in which they play and why this place is important.

he House of Commons as we have it today is the product of a series of political events that began in England many centuries ago, as far back as 1215 with the signing of Magna Carta by King John in a ield at Runnymede near Reading, England. Since then, the parliamentary system in England evolved and many centuries later, in 1867, Canada inherited the British parliamentary system of government with enactment in England of the British North America Act of 1867, commonly referred to as the BNA Act until adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982 which enacted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and when the BNA Act became known as the Constitution Act, 1867.

Designed by Politics

Before the British parliamentary system of government there was the monarch, who had all the power. Eventually others became dissatisied with this. Demands for change emerged and a long, hard struggle ensued which led to what the parliamentary system had become by

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the time it came to Canada. his system of government as we know it today was not designed by a group of founding fathers in accordance with current notions of good government (for example, see the founding of the American system of congressional government). Its design developed over time in response to very real political needs.

Our parliamentary system of government in Canada was not redesigned by the Fathers of Confederation. hese men negotiated the terms of the new Confederation of the four founding provinces, such as the division of legislative authority between the central Parliament in Ottawa and the Legislative Assemblies in each province, but they didn’t sit down and design a new system of government for Canada. he British model of parliamentary government was used. his had been in place in the Province of Canada (composed of Ontario and Quebec) since this province had been formed in 1840 and had also been in use in the other two Confederation partners, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, since their founding as British colonies in the eighteenth century. It carried on, with minor modiications, upon Confederation in 1867.

Magna Carta , 1215

he signing of Magna Carta in 1215 was not a friendly event. It was the result of a political conlict driven by the imposition of heavy taxes by King John upon the barons and magnates of the day, who were the persons who paid the taxes. Most of these barons and magnates were members of the King’s Council, a group of nobles who advised the king on matters of government.

Magna Carta was the start of the end of absolute rule by the monarch in England, though there were to be successors to King John, as we shall see, who claimed under the “divine right of kings” to do whatever they pleased. he king (or queen) of England would remain for some time a major power in British politics and government until, perhaps, the end of the reign of Queen Victoria in 1903 but the trend line toward representative or democratic government and away from monarchical government had begun in 1215.

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Magna Carta established that the monarch no longer had the right to unconditional loyalty from their subjects, at that time represented by the barons and magnates. While a voting franchise would not reach beyond powerful nobles (the King’s Council) until several centuries later, this was an important start on the path toward what we know today as a democratic parliamentary system of government with a constitutional monarchy, as distinct from a democratic republican system of government with an elected head of state (such as the president in the American congressional system).

Magna Carta established two operating principles of government: government by the king was subject to the law and the king could not make laws or impose taxes without the consent of “the community of the realm” or “the common counsel of the nation.”
he King’s Council was the forerunner of what became, before the arrival of the House of Commons, three distinct constitutional institutions: the House of Lords, the Privy Council, and the Courts of Justice. his council was the governing body aside from the king. he term Parliament was used with reference to more comprehensive assemblies that were summoned occasionally by the monarch to discuss taxation and other larger issues afecting the realm.

Soon after the signing of Magna Carta, with its imposition of terms upon the Crown, members of the Council and/or the Parliament saw the possibilities for leverage (as we would say today) against the monarch. For example, in 1237, King Henry III, the successor to King John, was allowed to levy a tax but only in return for expressly conirming Magna Carta. In 1248, when Henry III again sought some funding, he was handed a list of grievances. he struggle between the Crown and its subjects had only just begun.

Commoners and Grievances

At the time of Magna Carta and for some years following, the only political players against the Crown were the nobles, the so-called barons and magnates. Regular people had no voice. he irst Parliament to include “commoners” occurred in 1265 when representatives

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from the counties and towns throughout England were invited to take part. hese representatives were not elected at large by the local population but rather selected by local property owners. From this point on, however, no tax was levied, or was supposed to be levied, that was not approved by a Parliament that included representatives from the counties and towns of England. Of course, royal demands for money provided opportunities for the nobles and the representatives from the towns and counties to pressure the monarch to resolve outstanding grievances.
his practice of presenting grievances had been limited to complaints coming from the barons and magnates or from leaders of the Church of England, the oicial church of the kingdom. In 1275, King Edward I allowed petitions from others as well...