Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:02:50.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Staying Power of the Legislative Status Quo: Collective Choice in Canada's Parliament after Morgentaler

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Thomas Flanagan
Thomas Flanagan
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Rational choice theory has drawn attention to the phenomenon of structure-induced equilibrium in situations of potential cycling. When there is no majority, first preference or Condorcet winner, the outcome is determined by agenda control and institutional rules of decision making. Within that context, the status quo has a special advantage because of the parliamentary amendment procedure, in which the status quo, as the default option to the bill in formal form, is not voted upon until the last stage. The unsuccessful attempts of the Canadian government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to respond legislatively to the Supreme Court's Morgentaler decision illustrate these general principles of rational choice. The government was unable to get legislation passed because, with cyclical configurations of opinion in both the House of Commons and the Senate, institutional rules, especially the order of voting required by the parliamentary amendment procedure, favoured the status quo.

Résumé

La théorie des choix rationnels a attiré l'attention sur le phénomène de l'équilibre induit par la structure dans des situations où l'agencement des préférences peut potentiellement mener à un cycle. Lorsqu'il n'y a pas de préférence majoritaire ou d'option gagnante selon les critères de Condorcet, le résultat est déterminé par le contrôle de l'agenda et par les règies de prise de décision institutionalisées. Dans ce contexte, le statu quo est favorisé puisque, dans la procédure parlementaire d'amendement, le statu quo demeure l'option gagnante par défaut jusqu'à l'adoption du projet de loi dans sa forme définitive, et aucun vote n'est tenu sur cette option avant la toute fin des procédures. Les tentatives infructueuses du gouvemement canadien du Premier ministre Brian Mulroney de faire adopter une loi qui aurait répondu à la décision de la Cour suprême dans la cause Morgentaler fournissent une illustration de ces principes généraux de l'approche des choix rationnels. La raison pour laquelle le gouvernement a été incapable de faire adopter une loi suite à ce jugement tient à la configuration cyclique des opinions, tant à la Chambre des Communes qu'au Sénat. Dans les deux cas, les règies institutionelles, en particulier l'ordonnancement des votes requis par la procédure parlementaire d'amendement, donnaient un avantage certain au maintien du statu quo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 31 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The impact of Morgentaler upon the practical status quo is harder to describe because funding arrangements and the availability of abortion clinics vary considerably from province to province. However, time series data suggest that the decision did, in practice, help to make abortion more common. Statistics Canada calculates an index called “rate of known voluntary interruptions of pregnancy per 1,000 women aged 13 to 44.” From a value of 7.3 in 1971, this index reached a pre-Morgentaler peak of 12.1 in 1982. In the three years prior to Morgentaler, it was 10.8, 10.7 and 10.7. It increased to 11.0 in 1988, to 11.6 in 1989 and to a new peak of 14.0 in 1990. In the same period, the reported number of abortions performed in the United States upon Canadian women fell from 2,757 in 1987 to 1,573 in 1990, so the increase in the rate of voluntary interruptions of pregnancy had to be due to abortions performed in Canada (Statistics Canada, Report on the Demographic Situation in Canada 1992: Current Demographic Analysis [Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1992], 56).Google Scholar

2 Now s. 288 of the Criminal Code.

3 Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott v. the Queen, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30, reprinted in Research Unit for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Calgary, Leading Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, 17.

4 Ibid., 13.

5 Because all votes are free votes in the United States Congress, there has been a proliferation of research on structure-induced equilibrium in that body. See Morrow, James D., Game Theory for Political Scientists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 138–45, 159–60Google Scholar, for overview and references.

6 I rely on Brodie, Janine, Gavigan, Shelley A. M. and Jenson, Jane, The Politics of Abortion (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Morton, F. L., Morgentaler v. Borowski: Abortion, the Charter, and the Courts (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992)Google Scholar; and Campbell, Robert M. and Pal, Leslie A., “Courts, Politics, and Morality: Canada's Abortion Saga,” in Campbell, Robert M. and Pal, Leslie A., eds., The Real Worlds of Canadian Politics: Cases in Process and Policy (2nd ed.; Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1991).Google Scholar

7 Morrow, Game Theory for Political Scientists, 108–11.

8 McLean, Iain, Public Choice: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 25–27.Google Scholar

9 Note that these preference orderings are purely stipulative. In the real world, there could be conservatives whose second preference is f rather than l, and so on.

10 Brams, Steven J., Rational Politics: Decisions, Games, and Strategy (Boston: Academic Press, 1985), 210.Google Scholar

11 Riker, William H., Liberalism against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1988), 69–73.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 181–95; and “Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions,” in Ordeshook, Peter C. and Shepsle, Kenneth A., eds., Political Equilibrium (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff, 1982), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peter C. Ordeshook, “Comment on Riker,” in ibid., 25–31; Morris P. Fiorina and Kenneth A. Shepsle, “Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, and the General Possibility of a Science of Politics,” in ibid., 49–64; and Jones, Bryan D., Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).Google Scholar

13 Brodie et al., Politics of Abortion, 67–68.

14 Fraser, Graham, “Tories Seek to Alter Debate Rules,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 21, 1988.Google Scholar

15 Riker, William H., The Art of Political Manipulation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), ix.Google Scholar

16 Fraser, Graham, “Opposition Kills Free Vote on Abortion,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 19, 1988Google Scholar; and House of Commons, Debates, May 24, 1988Google Scholar, 15697ff.

17 House of Commons, Journals, July 28, 1988, 3296–97Google Scholar; and House of Commons, Debates, July 26, 1988, 17964–66.Google Scholar

18 Details from House of Commons, Journals, July 28, 1988, 3296–302.Google Scholar

19 Brodie et al., Politics of Abortion, 87.

20 The few MPs who abstained on certain votes have been put into the category where they have the closest fit. Two Conservative MPs (Bob Pennock and Chuck Cook) voted somewhat inconsistently by supporting both pro-life and pro-choice amendments. However, both also voted for the government resolution in the end. Perhaps for them rationality meant trying to support any available compromise. Pennock is counted as a “Pro-Life Compromiser” in Figure 1 because he voted for the Mitges amendment; Cook is counted as a “Pro-Life-Leaning Moderate” because he voted for the James, but not for the Mitges, amendment.

21 Brams, Rational Politics, 28.

22 Fraser, Graham, “MPs Vote Down Abortion Resolution,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), July 29, 1988Google Scholar. See Byfield, Link, “A Pro-life Coup in Ottawa,” Alberta Report, August 8, 1988, 38Google Scholar, for a similar view.

23 Brodie et al., Politics of Abortion, 61.

24 Gallup Poll, September 29, 1988.

25 Sharpe, Sydney, The Gilded Ghetto: Women and Political Power in Canada (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994), 111–27.Google Scholar

26 Campbell and Pal, eds., Real Worlds, 213.

27 Ibid., 43.

28 Brodie et al., Politics of Abortion, 99 and 168, n. 81.

29 Morton, Morgentaler v. Borowski, 292; and Campbell and Pal, eds., Real Worlds, 41.

30 Jelinek voted for the Mitges amendment and abstained on the government's resolution; the other two voted against the resolution.

31 House of Commons, Debates, November 28, 1989, 6342.Google Scholar

32 McLean, Public Choice, 133–34.

33 House of Commons, Journals, November 28, 1989, 897Google Scholar, and May 29, 1990, 1770–71.

34 Frith, in Senate, Debates, June 7, 1990, 1866Google Scholar; Fairbairn, in ibid., January 29, 1991, 5209–13; and Kirby, in ibid., January 29, 1991, 5217–22. Neiman did not speak but seconded a pro-choice amendment introduced by Kirby, ibid., 5222.

35 Bélisle, in ibid., June 6, 1990, 1843; Bosa, in ibid., January 24, 1991, 5181–82; Ray Perrault, in ibid., January 30, 1991, 5259–60; and Haidasr, in ibid., June 26, 1990, 2149–53, and January 29, 1991, 5233–43. J.-P. Guay also expressed opposition on pro-life grounds (ibid., June 6, 1990, 1841–43), but was no longer in the Senate when the bill was voted upon. The other names will be found in the votes on the Haidasz amendments as recorded in the Senate, Journals, January 31, 1991, 2230–37.Google Scholar

36 Senate, Debates, June 13, 1990, 1932–33.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., June 5, 1990, 1828.

38 Ibid., January 29, 1991, 5224. See also the remarks of Solange Chaput-Rolland, in ibid., January 29, 1991, 5236–37.

39 York, Geoffrey, “Senators Kill Abortion Bill with Tied Vote,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), February 1, 1991.Google Scholar

40 Constitution Act, 1867, s. 49; and Beauchesne's Rules and Forms of the House of Commons of Canada (5th ed.; Toronto: Carswell, 1978), s. 226.

41 McConnell, W. H., Commentary on the British North America Act (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977), 79.Google Scholar

42 Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 34, 36, also reflected in the Rules of the Senate of Canada: “Questions arising in the Senate shall be decided by a majority of voices. The Speaker shall in all cases have a vote. When the voices are equal the decision shall be deemed to be in the negative” (s. 66[5]).

43 Kunz, F. A., The Modern Senate of Canada, 1925–1963: A Re-Appraisal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 168.Google Scholar

44 Senate, Debates, January 30, 1991, 5260.