Executive Power

In one of my previous blog post, It's in the Governor General's hands now..., I wrote that the GG has to act in the best interests of Canadians.

Whoops! Scratch that, I'm totally wrong.

The GG is not (supposed to be) a political office, just an exectutive one, and a highly symbolic one at that. She's supposed to act on the advice of the Prime Minister, except in only very very very VERY rare circumstances.

However, now that Harper will ask the GG to prorogue Parliament (as early as this afternoon), he has basically brought politics to the office, where none should exist. He is asking her to make a political decision -- either prorogue Parliament, which favours the Conservative agenda, or let the vote of confidence proceed, which favours the Coalition.

Under the guise of democracy, he's basically giving the British Crown a legitimate hand in governing our nation again.

This is a lose-lose situation for the GG. She cannot help but take sides in this mess.

She has a third option: to prorogue Parliament but restrict the powers of government to the most mundane daily operations. By doing this, she still follows the advice the of the first minister, who still hasn't officially lost the confidence of the House, but refuses Harper's governence until he actually earns that confidence. She also manages to keep the powers of her own office -- an unelected position -- at minimum.

While this would probably be a wiser move on the GG's part to retain some semblance of sanity within our constitutional monarchy governance system, it will also be the absolute WORST decision for the country because it handcuffs the government from taking any action on the economic crisis until the House resumes.

So, while politics are not supposed to be a part of her decision, nor are the interests of the nation (beyond those that apply to constitutional law) supposed to be part of her decision... how can they not be? She's only human.

I don't envy her decision at all. But I will be watching...

---

Nice little Q&A over at the G&M about the GG and constitutional procedure.

Here's an interesting and intriguing tidbit:

David Mordecai from Toronto Canada writes: Given the editorial in The Globe and Mail yesterday, I was wondering if the Governor-General can suggest to the Prime Minister that he step down in favour of a different leader of the Conservative Party?

Bob Beal: Hi David: You asked a question that I have not seen raised in the miles of copy on this story, and it is a good question.

The answer is most definitely yes. The Governor-General has a right, and a duty, to advise her prime ministers. I don't know how often it happens today in Canada, but something the public is not aware of is that prime ministers usually meet often with governor-generals, or in Britain, prime ministers with the Queen. This, of course, used to happen much more frequently. Queen Victoria was regarded as a bit meddlesome, and she played favorites between prime ministers.

But as the great British constitutionalist Walter Bagehot wrote: "The sovereign has ... three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."