Parliamentary Government in Canada: Institutional Stability and Constitutional Reform in the Legislative and Executive Branches

Abstract

Historical ancestry and geographical proximity underpin the dominant role of two major reference points for institution-building and constitutional reform in Canada: The British Westminster model is the obvious benchmark for the Canadian version of parliamentary (responsible) government. Secured during an early phase of “mega-constitutional politics” (Peter Russell) in the 1840s, it has remained a key element of the Canadian political system ever since its inception in 1867, and hence throughout the protracted transition from colonial dependency to national sovereignty that came to an end with the repatriation of the British North America Act in 1981/82. The prominence of majoritarian principles in the organization of the legislative and executive branches of Canadian government during much of the postwar era was demonstrated by Arend Lijphart (1984). However, 1981/82 also was an important episode in a new phase of “mega-constitutional politics” that had begun in the 1960s and strengthened (federalism) or established (entrenched constitutional provisions and rights, judicial review) a number of institutional features that run against the logic of the Westminster model while being shared with the United States. With the partial exception of the Canadian Senate, the procedures and structures of the legislative and executive branches of government played a clearly subordinate, if visible role in the constitutional reform debates and initiatives of the last few decades, and even organizational changes below that level were quite rare and modest.