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Westminster in the Arctic: The Adaptation of British Parliamentarism in the Northwest Territories*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Graham White
Graham White
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Government in the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada is structured on the cabinet-parliamentary model and follows most of the principles of British-style “responsible government.” The territorial assembly, however, differs in two fundamental ways from the traditional parliamentary model: it has no political parties, and a majority of its members are natives, whose political culture is far removed from the tenets underlying British parliamentarism. This article examines the interplay of structure and culture in the NWT Legislative Assembly, through an evaluation of the so-called “consensus government” system. Although cabinet is clearly pre-eminent, private members have unusual influence in the NWT. More generally, distinctive Northern adaptations to the British model—unique parliamentary structures and procedures—are central to the workings of the legislature. In its internal operations, the NWT Assembly is found to have successfully adapted important elements of British parliamentarism to Northern circumstances, though its legitimacy within the native population remains problematic.

Résumé

Le gouvernement des Territoires du Nord-Ouest se base sur le modèle parlementaire du conseil des ministres et est conforme à la plupart des principes du gouvernement responsable de style britannique. Cependant, il existe deux différences fondamentales entre l'assemblée territoriale et le modèle parlementaire traditionnel: absence de parti politique dans les territoires et majorité de députés autochtones dont les principes de culture politique sont très différents de ceux qui composent le parlementarisme britannique. Par le biais d'une étude du système dit « gouvernement par consensus », cet article analyse l'interaction entre la structure gouvernementale et la culture présentes à l'Assemblée Législative des Territoires du Nord-Ouest. Même si le conseil des ministres est prédominant, les députés sans portefeuille ont une influence exceptionnelle à l'Assemblée. En effet, les procédures et structures parlementaires qui sont uniques au modèle britannique et essentielles au bon fonctionnement de l'Assemblée, ont été modifiées avec succès afin de s'adapter aux circonstances du nord. Toutefois, la question cruciate de la légitimité du parlementarisme britannique auprès de la population autochtone demeure un problème.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 499 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1991

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References

1 In 1987 one candidate ran under the NDP label but lost.

2 Dene and Métis objectives and approaches often differ, but within the Assembly distinctions between Dene and Métis MLAs are generally unimportant.

3 In the 1987 election, the average winning candidate had $4,190 in expenses, $408 of which was personally contributed; for unsuccessful candidates, the figures were $3,705 and $812 (the latter figure falls to $481 if the one candidate who spent nearly $10,000 of personal funds is eliminated). Particularly in the larger ridings, the figure for total expenses often included several hundred dollars in air fares forgiven by the airlines. Data calculated from “Candidate's Return Respecting Election Expenses and Contributions” forms on file in the office of the Clerk of the Assembly. A number of unsuccessful candidates failed to file returns; most likely spent little or no money.

4 As of 1990, all MLAs received $55,549 and were eligible to claim up to $ 15,840 for time spent on constituency work; this represented a higher rate of pay than members of most provincial legislatures receive, although living costs in the NWT tend to be substantially higher than elsewhere in Canada.

5 Quoted in Smith, David, “Party Government, Representation and National Integration in Canada,” in Aucoin, Peter, ed., Party Government and Regional Representation in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1985), 5.Google Scholar

6 See Birch, A. H., Representative and Responsible Government (London: Allen and Unwin, 1964).Google Scholar

7 Graham C. Eglington, “Matters of Confidence in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories,” Appendix A of the Third Report of the Special Committee on Rules, Procedures and Privileges, October 1986. Although significant changes have occurred since this report was written, most notably in the powers of the Government Leader and in the solidarity exhibited by cabinet, they would not seem sufficient to meet Eglington's criteria for true responsible government.

8 The term “ordinary member” is routinely used in the Assembly to signify MLAs who are not ministers.

9 Substantial disagreement exists among MLAs as to whether this means that the Government Leader has authority to remove a minister from office, or merely to recommend to the Assembly that a minister be removed.

10 Technically, the permission of the federal cabinet is required for a territorial election, but the reality is that the Assembly decides on holding elections.

11 In the NWT the term “white” generally means non-native, the term used throughout the article.

12 My thanks to one of the Journal's referees for drawing this point to my attention.

13 Brody, Hugh puts it this way: “the individualism of the culture is a barrier against any form of organized domination; the egalitarianism a barrier against competitive individualism” (The Living Arctic: Hunters of the Canadian North [London: Faber and Faber, 1987], 123)Google Scholar. According to Boldt, Menno and Long, J. Anthony, “with the exception of his obligation to impersonal custom, the individual was unrestrained in his autonomy and freedom” (“Tribal Philosophies and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” in Boldt, Menno and Long, J. Anthony, eds., The Quest for Justice: Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Rights [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985], 169).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Three-quarters of native MLAs (as opposed to exactly half of their non-native colleagues) agreed with the statement that “in situations where the rights or needs of an individual conflict with the rights or needs of the group to which the individual belongs, the group should almost always be favoured over the individual.”

15 The wording of the item was: “On major issues which strongly affect one of the territories' principal cultural groups (Inuit, Dene-Métis, White), a majority of the MLAs of that group should have to agree to the decision, whether or not an overall majority of the House agree.”

16 Lijphart, Arend, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 O'Keefe, Kevin, “Northwest Territories: Accommodating the Future,” in Levy, Gary and White, Graham, eds., Provincial and Territorial Legislatures in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 209.Google Scholar

18 Dacks, Gurston, “Politics on the Last Frontier: Consociationalism in the Northwest Territories,” this Journal 19 (1986), 349.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 350–51.

20 O'Keefe, “Accommodating the Future,” 240, n. 8.

21 Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Hansard, October 24, 1988, 351.

22 Sorensen, Lynda, “Influencing Government Spending: The N.W.T. Backbencher,” in Aird, Rebecca, ed., Running the North: The Getting and Spending of Public Finances by Canada's Territorial Governments (Ottawa: Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, 1989), 111.Google Scholar

23 Morin, Don, MLA, Hansard, 10 30, 1989, 719–720Google Scholar; see also the comments of MLAs in a similar vein cited by O'Keefe, “Accommodating the Future,” 21.

24 It is possible that, had the question asked whether the member would personally be willing to risk creating a chaotic situation, the results might have been quite different. In other words, an MLA might be willing to bring down the government but perceive his colleagues to be unwilling. Moreover, governments in Canada and elsewhere have lost power because they lost votes of confidence through miscalculation or misunderstanding.

25 The item read, “if he or she has a reasonable case, and puts enough effort into it, it is not all that hard for an ordinary member to get the government to change a policy”; the entire cabinet agreed with this statement.

26 O'Keefe, “Accommodating the Future,” 212.

27 Sorensen, “Influencing Government Spending,” 115.

28 In the fall of 1990 an important private member's bill became law: the Environmental Rights Act. Although the bill pushed the government further and faster than it would have preferred, in the end the process by which the bill passed was more an affirmation of consensus government than a challenge to it. The sponsoring MLA and the government worked closely together on the bill, and during the committee-of-the-whole stage, the member enthusiastically accepted a number of government-prepared amendments designed to clarify and strengthen the bill (Hansard, November 5, 1990, 412–20).

29 Dacks, Gurston, “Political Representation in the Northwest Territories,” in Johnson, J. Paul and Pasis, Harvey, eds., Representation and Electoral Systems: Canadian Perspectives (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 139.Google Scholar

30 See Michael, Patrick, “Yukon: Parliamentary Tradition in a Small Legislature,” in Levy, and White, , eds., Provincial and Territorial Legislatures, 189–206.Google Scholar

31 Political parties were introduced to Yukon politics in the 1978 election, and immediately came to dominate the political scene; by contrast, the 1979 election in the NWT was the first to return a majority of native MLAs.

32 Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Special Committee on Unity, Report, 1980, 1.

33 Dacks, Gurston, ed., Devolution and Constitutional Development in the Canadian North (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1990).Google Scholar