Introduction

What roles do Canadian legislatures play in public policy today? The question seems straightforward enough: Canadian legislatures legitimize and authorize executives’ plans for public policies and hold executives to account for how they are implemented. And yet, in our “post-parliamentary era” (see Thomas, 2010), the answer doesn't quite resonate. It's clouded by a perception that the concentration of power in Canadian executives (see Savoie, 1999; 2010), the role of non-institutional actors such as media and pressure groups in governance (see Howlett, 2013; Howlett & Ramesh, 2003), and the growth in government itself have “sidelined” legislatures from, or even “eviscerated” their role within, the modern public policy process (Russell & Cowley, 2016, p. 134). The result, many believe, is that Canadian legislatures have become an “irrelevant sideshow” not only in Canadian public policy but in the political system in general (Franks, 1987, p. 204).

I’d like to suggest this perception is faulty. Canadian legislatures play very real and important roles in public policy, although there is “considerable evidence that citizens and legislators both have unrealistic expectations of [legislatures’] current abilities and often overlook the functions [they do] play well” (Malloy, 2002, p. 7). For example, at the broadest level, elections for Canada's 14 legislatures over the past decade accorded 41 governments the democratic legitimacy to enact public policies set out in their electoral platforms. In 14 of those elections, Canadian legislatures produced alternatives to sitting governments, sometimes in spectacular fashion (think Rachel Notley's NDP win in 2015, or Justin Trudeau’s Liberal win, also in 2015). There was never any question as to their democratic legitimacy to govern and implement policy and never any bloodshed (a significant accomplishment on the current world stage.) At a more refined level, Canadian executives have sought the democratic legitimacy and confidence of legislatures for specific policy proposals in 152 speeches from the throne over the past decade; Canadian legislatures have reviewed and approved 140 annual expenditure plans for the administration of public policies, worth over $600 billion in 2015 alone;