Highest bidder will get top Liberal job

PM's pre-resignation messes up Canada's electoral system

Alexandra Samuel
August 28, 2002

Jean Chretien's pre-emptive pre-resignation may have done the Liberal party a big favour, but it's tremendously disruptive to the economics of the Canadian electoral system.

The economics of our system rest on one simple premise: The prime minister's unique power to "recommend" the date of the next election to our governor-general. By keeping the election date up in the air, the parliamentary system limits the role of money in our election system. That's because a system of snap elections limits the ability of opposition parties -- and sometimes, even governing parties -- to anticipate the next election. That limitation plays a huge role in discouraging the financial excesses that can plague election campaigns.

After all, there are only so many dollars you can spend in the course of a six-week campaign. Maybe you hear rumours that the governing party has booked a couple of campaign buses, or installed another 30 phone lines in its head office -- in which case an opposition party can reasonably guess that an election call is not far behind. But even that kind of detective work wins only a few extra weeks of campaign planning.

Basically, the system operates on the element of surprise. Candidates can no more plan their campaigns around the next election date than People Magazine can predict Tom Cruise's next girlfriend.

By announcing his resignation 18 months ahead of time, Chretien has changed all that.

He's launched his own party on an epic leadership quest that gives a strong leg up to the richest contender -- whether or not he's the best man for the job. And he's effectively challenged all the other national parties to ramp-up similarly long-winded campaigns of their own -- just to compete for the spotlight.

To see the potential ramifications of this change, compare our system to the U.S. system of fixed election dates and presidential primaries. The primary campaign for presidential nominations starts more than two years before the presidential election; indeed, candidates are already jockeying for the presidential nomination in 2004.

The fact that candidates can anticipate the election schedule means that congressional candidates can likewise begin the campaign years ahead of e-day. The U.S. system operates in a system of perpetual campaigning.

The result is that money plays a larger role in American politics than it does in any other industrialized democracy. That's not only dangerous for democracy; it's dangerous to the daily execution of government duties.

Just think about the relationship between campaign finance and the recent wave of economy-shaking corporate scandals. The under-regulation that permitted these corporate misdeeds can be directly tied to this system of money-driven campaigning.

Enron was one of the biggest contributors to the Bush campaign. The accounting industry -- which lobbied effectively for laxer regulation -- counts its members and its trade association among America's largest campaign donors. When money becomes the driving force in politics, these kinds of scandals are never far behind.

f Jean Chretien could think a little less about his legacy for the Liberal party, and a little more about his legacy for Canadian politics, maybe we could avoid that kind of scenario. For now, my money is on the highest bidder.