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Electoral Corruption and Controverted Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Norman Ward
Norman Ward*
Affiliation:
The University of Saskatchewan
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Extract

Corrupt electoral practices and controverted elections are topics which might normally be expected to go hand in hand, for the latter usually result only from the former. To some extent, the number of controverted elections is a useful criterion by which to measure the prevalence of electoral corruption; but it may be a highly misleading one, as the corruption must be discovered and proved before any election result can be affected. The criterion is therefore trustworthy only in so far as the relevant legislative devices are effective. To the degree that laws providing for the investigation of electoral malpractices are operative, bribery and personation are discouraged; weakness in these laws, on the other hand, will inevitably stimulate unscrupulous candidates and election agents to utilize any opportunities which may be turned to their advantage.

No one who has even a nodding acquaintance with the tolerant attitude taken towards political behaviour generally in the years immediately after 1867 will be surprised to hear that for some time after Confederation the whole problem of corrupt practices and controverted elections was handled in a haphazard fashion. The four provinces which came together in 1867 agreed in general terms on a definition of corrupt practice: it included the giving and receiving of bribes, whether of money, employment, or anything else; the real or threatened use of violence; treating; personation; and in some cases payment for the hauling of voters to the polls. They also had similar views as to how action for corrupt practice should be begun (by a simple petition signed by either an elector or candidate), and had adopted somewhat similar ways of trying the actual election cases, though their procedures varied in detail. Thus the Assembly of the province of Canada had a general committee of elections, appointed by the speaker subject to the sanction of the House, which was charged with preparing two panels of chairmen and members from which election committees consisting of a chairman and four members were finally chosen. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick sent controverted elections directly to a select committee. Manitoba and British Columbia, when they entered the federation, used the ordinary judicial system and tried election disputes like other cases. In the provinces where committees of the assembly were used, the procedure was similar to that of a court: the committee members were sworn to uphold justice; witnesses were examined under oath; and the parties concerned were represented by counsel. It is to be feared, however, that judicial impartiality was noticeably absent in the rendering of verdicts.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1949 , pp. 74 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1949

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References

1 Apart from corrupt practices, an election could be controverted (a) in the case of a double return. For several years after Confederation, returning officers did not have a deciding vote in case of a tie, so that no candidate could be returned as elected in that eventuality. This happened in Marquette in 1870. ( Bourinot, A., Parliamentary Procedure and Practice, Toronto, 1892, p. 185).Google Scholar (b) If undue influence could be proved. E.g. see the Canadian Monthly, Sept., 1875, for a report of a petition charging that priests had influenced an election by branding one party as “infamous and dangerous,” and threatening supporters with the “punishments of another life.” See also Skelton, O. D., Life and Letters of Sir Wiifrid Laurier (2 vols., Toronto, 1921), vol. I, pp. 136 ff.Google Scholar

2 Dawson, R. MacG., The Principle of Official Independence (London, 1921), p. 53 Google Scholar; Bourinot, , Parliamentary Procedure (1884 ed.), pp. 117 ff.Google Scholar In the case of Manitoba, there was at first considerable dispute over the matter in the federal House.

3 Bourinot, , Parliamentary Procedure, p. 118.Google Scholar

4 Journals, 1867–1968, pp. 26, 37, 42.Google Scholar See Parliamentary Debates, Apr. 30, 1873 (scrapbook Hansard) for an example of a New Brunswick member complaining that a petition had not been properly disposed of according to New Brunswick law. He withdrew his objection when it became clear that, regardless of New Briinswick law, the House was satisfied.

5 See, e.g., General Index to Journals, Assembly of Canada (Prov.), 1850–1966.Google Scholar By 1872, New Brunswick and Ontario had adopted trial by judges.

6 Bourinot, , Parliamentary Procedure, p. 118 Google Scholar; Debates, 1872, pp. 798-807.

7 Parliamentary Debates, Mar. 18, 1873 (scrapbook Hansard).

8 Figures computed from index to Journals, for appropriate years. In a majority of the cases, the petitioner was the losing candidate.

The few decisions in which members were confirmed in their seats, it is interesting to note, benefitted Liberals and Conservatives almost equally. Partisanship seems to have played its main role in the discharging and disappearance of petitions.

9 Statutes, 36 Vic., c. 28, s. 6.

10 Debates, 1872, p. 802 Google Scholar; Bourinot, , Parliamentary Procedure, pp. 85–7, 119.Google Scholar

11 Valin v. Langlois, 5 App. Cas., 1879, 115.

12 Statutes, 37 Vic, c. 10.

13 A saw-off is an arrangement between two opposing parties whereby they agree to withdraw petitions against each other, thus saving trouble and expense. In addition, saw-offs involved on occasion the mutual yielding of seats, riding for riding, an arrangement which vacated seats but forestalled investigation into corrupt practices on either side.

14 Figures computed from Journals for appropriate years. A convenient reference to many of the court cases concerned is found in Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (Ontario, ed.), vol. IV Google Scholar, under “Elections.” Cases tried in Ontario courts are given in detail in Hodgins, T., Election Cases (Toronto, 1883).Google Scholar As to the general prevalence of electoral corruption, see the files of The Week, The Canadian, Grip, etc.

15 McPherson, W. D., The Law of Elections in Canada (Toronto, 1905), p. 76.Google Scholar

16 Hodgins, , Election Cases, p. 567.Google Scholar

17 Quoted in The Week, Dec. 11, 1884 (Mr. Justice Armour).

18 Hodgins, , Election Cases, p. 567.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., pp. 547, 560.

20 Ibid., p. 778.

21 Debates, 1879, p. 166.Google Scholar

22 Senate Debates, 1900, p. 1083.Google Scholar See also Debates, 1879, p. 849.Google Scholar

23 McPnerson, , Law of Elections, p. 864.Google Scholar

24 Debates, 1915, p. 2023.Google Scholar The latest instructions from the chief electoral officer to election officials admit that “the definition of an agent is difficult to state at the same time briefly and comprehensively.”

25 M. W. Pruyer (?) to Sir John Macdonald, Oct. 13, 1883. ( Macdonald Papers, vol. 65, p. 147).Google Scholar In this particular instance Sir John was out of pocket some $1,500 because of the petition.

“Are the Lennox people going to let you pay all these things?” a supporter wrote.” From every point of view they are bound to defray all costs” (ibid., p. 221).

26 Debates, 1903, p. 891 Google Scholar; The Week, Dec. 28, 1894. These single instances of corruption were apparently often provided by collusion.

27 The entire trial is given as Appendix no. 2 to the 1888 Journals. It is interesting also as a picture of how local organizations went to work at election time.

28 Debates, 1888, p. 18.Google Scholar

29 Grip, May 2, 1874.

30 I have been unable to find any subsequent example of the House making inquiry into electoral practices on a judge's report. In the 1887 case referred to above, a committee of the House merely recommended the filling of the vacant seat. In 1899, a committee took 500 pages of extraordinary evidence from nearly 100 witnesses in connexion with an election in West Huron, and came to no conclusion whatever. See Journals, 1899, App. no. 2.

31 Statutes, 39 Vic, c. 10, s. 3. A commission could also issue following a judge's report.

32 Debates, 1879, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

33 The Week, Dec. 20, 1883. “No doubt” the same paper observed two years later, “we are governed largely by influences more or less corrupt.” Ibid., Feb. 26, 1885.

34 Debates, 1891, pp. 5357 ff., 5603 ff.Google Scholar One member here estimated that election trials cost as much as $3,500 to the winning side, while the losers were assessed for heavy costs in addition.

35 Ibid., 1879, pp. 156, 233-5.

36 By 1906, a new practice seems to have arisen whereby a counsel declared he had no evidence, and the case was consequently dismissed by the court. In addition, by this time a six months' limit on petitions, originally intended to prevent the neglecting of petitions for indefinite periods, had been established. See ibid., 1906, pp. 235 ff.

37 Ibid., 1914, p. 910. Also ibid., 1915, p. 2000.

38 There were less than a dozen unseatings in the Parliament of 1878-82, slightly more during 1882-7, over twenty in 1887-91, and forty in 1891-6.

39 Dafoe, J. W., Clifford Sifton in relation to His Times (Toronto, 1931), p. 196.Google Scholar Sifton ran into trouble in West Assiniboia because the local Liberals who had been after the sitting Conservative for years and were sure they had him, declined to co-operate. Also Bilkey, P., Persons, Paper, and Things (Toronto, 1940), pp. 178–9.Google Scholar

40 P. A. C, Letters of Clifford Sifton, bound Mss. copy (owned by Mr. Fred Gibson). Sifton to W. Scott, Dec. 17, 1900. (A different type of a consideration for a saw-off is found in a letter of Dalton McCarthy to Sir John Macdonald on Sept. 12, 1888. “The Grits are willing to abandon the petition if their man is allowed to be elected by acclamation for the local,” P.A.C., Macdonald Papers, vol. 228).Google Scholar

41 Debates, 1900, p. 7390.Google Scholar

42 Petitions were described fairly frequently in debate as “blackmail”. See ibid., 1891, p. 5737; 1900, pp. 7375 ff. “Blackmailing” of members has been in the past (and still is) a game happily indulged in by many owners of vehicles, public halls, newspapers, and any other devices useful at election time. The standard practice is merely to raise rates to ridiculous heights. See Debates, 1900, p. 7387.Google Scholar In 1937, witnesses before the Special Committee on the Dominion Elections Act complained of these “hold-ups.” See Report, pp. 115 ff.

43 For a typical complaint about this, see Debates, 1887, p. 142.Google Scholar Sessional Paper no. 27, 1891, gives the details of election returns and gazetting dates for the 1891 election, showing that the gazetting of returns was sometimes delayed several days.

44 Debates, 1914, p. 918.Google Scholar This particular abuse was stopped in 1915. The practice had a statutory basis dating back to 1874, as the first Dominion Elections Act provided for a preliminary examination of petitioners.

45 Debates, 1903, p. 13616.Google Scholar

46 Quoted in Cappon, J., “The Responsibility of Political Parties” (Queen's Quarterly, vol. XII, 1904–1905, p. 311).Google Scholar This is an excellent descriptive article of çorrupt practices in Ontario. Sir Richard Cartwright's knowledge of election frauds was more than academic, for he confessed on one occasion that in his unrepentant days he had twice purchased votes himself. Quoted by SirBorden, Robert in Debates, 1903, pp. 899–900.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., 1900, p. 7379.

48 Ibid., 1915, p. 1924.

49 The Week, May 15, 1891.

50 Statutes, 54-5 Vic, c. 20; Debates, 1891, passim. The proposal to use more than one judge was discussed as early as 1878, after Ontario had experimented successfully with it. (See ibid., 1878, pp. 1454-5; 1879, pp. 164 ff., 849 ff.) The use of single judges, be it noted, not infrequently dragged the Bench into party warfare.

51 The Week, July 24, 1891.

52 See, for example, Debates, 1903, p. 13616 Google Scholar, for a statement of this solacing thought by a member. Also The Week, Sept. 22, 1887.

53 Debates, 1938, p. 2026 (Mr. Power). See also ibid., 1900, pp. 7375 ff., for a graphic eye-witness account by a member of wholesale treating, and its results.

54 The order itself is Sessional Paper, no. 151, 1900. See also Debates, 1900, pp. 6569 ff., 7082 ff., when the order was discussed.

55 Ibid., 1903, pp. 887 ff., 13581 ff.

56 Ibid., 1906, pp. 235 ff.

57 Ibid., 1914, pp. 900 ff.; 1915, passim.

58 Statutes, 5 Geo. V, c. 13.

59 Further changes of less significance were made in 1921. Statutes, 11-12 Geo. V, c. 7.

60 These figures are approximate. Exact figures are impossible to obtain readily because of the haphazard way in which House documents are indexed, and because reports of cases to the Commons do not always distinguish between original trials and appeals. The given figures eliminate appeal cases as far as possible. See Journals, 1890-1926 inclusive.

61 Debates, 1938, p. 2026.

62 Ibid., 1934, p. 4469; 1935, p. 1913; 1938, p. 2028.

63 McPherson, , Law of Elections, p. 502.Google Scholar A judge is here quoted as saying, in regard to promises of the pork barrel: “Though by no means free from doubt, I do not feel warranted in setting aside the election in consequence of the speeches made, either by respondent or his agents.” The main reason for this decision was the impossibility of proving that the promises had any corrupt influence; and the same would naturally be true of actual public works. In 1890, a motion to prevent this wholesale form of bribery was introduced in the House, and disposed of summarily.

64 Debates, 1920, pp. 1160 ff.Google Scholar Also 1938, p. 2030.

65 R. S. Can., 1886, c. 9, s. 73. See Debates, 1889, p. 427 Google Scholar; 1891, p. 5750. This power was used on occasion; among other things it was a useful bit of patronage.

66 E.g. ibid., 1914, p. 904; 1915, p. 2025. Also The Week, Dec. 28, 1894.

67 See Report of the Select Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections ( Journals, 1928, pp. 485–6, and Appendix no. 6).Google Scholar

68 Statutes, 19-20 Geo. V, c. 40, s. 5. In general these new powers granted to the chief electora! officer referred to manipulations of lists, etc. rather than to such corrupt practices as personation and bribery.

69 The last controverted election case was in Stanstead, P.Q., after the general election of 1940.

70 Debates, 1938, pp. 2028–32.Google Scholar Mr. C. G. Power entirely concurred in this general description (see p. 2026). See also Report of Special Committee on Elections and Franchise Acts, 1937, passim. Mr. Power also made specific references to electoral corruption in his speech as a candidate for party leadership before the Liberal convention of 1948.