Perilous Precedents: Parliamentary Approval of Troop Deployments

Many scholars have lamented the Harper government’s alleged “abuse” of Crown prerogatives on prorogation and dissolution, and its overall attitude toward Parliament (i.e., the House of Commons). I of course disagree with the argument that Prime Minister Harper has “abused” Crown prerogative, based on the Government of Canada’s true method of operation as well as the Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada, the little-known but still-used officialization of the conventional constitution from 1968.

Apart from Professor Philippe Lagassé, most scholars have also overlooked that the Harper government has been too deferential to parliament in at least one key area: defence policy. By allowing the House of Commons to approve troop deployments and the Canadian participation in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the Harper government has created a series bad precedents and contributed to the development of new “contrived conventions” that will ultimately threaten the most important component of our conventional constitution: responsible government.

In my last entry on “The True Nature of Crown Prerogative and Responsible Government”, I explained why the Crown prerogatives on prorogation and dissolution properly rest with the Crown under the system of repsonsible government. This entry will extend that explanation to the Crown prerogative on defence.

Ministerial Answerability vs. Accountability and the Crown Prerogative on Defence

Philippe Lagassé wrote a comprehensive study for the Institute for Research on Public Policy on the Crown prerogative on defence; it explains the differences between the Minister’s responsibility to the House of Commons and Chief of Defence Staff’s answerability before Parliament. The Canadian Armed Forces “serve the Crown rather than Parliament.”[6] In short, the CDS is “answerable” before parliamentary committees and thus “limited to informing and explaining, rather than disclosing policy preferences or revealing what military advice was given to the defence minister.”[7] In contrast, the Minister of Defence is both accountable to the House of Commons and answerable to parliamentary committees.[8] The Minister of Defence takes individual responsibility for the management of DND, and Cabinet as a whole (or the relevant Cabinet committee) takes collective ministerial responsibility for any policy or decision that requires defence expenditures, such as troop deployments.[9] The Minister of Defence and the CDS are also accountable to the Prime Minister.

The Chief of Defence Staff exercises powers delegated from the Crown, not from Parliament.[10] However, the current CDS has demonstrated in public a disturbing ignorance of his lines of authority to the Crown. Presenting a keynote address before the Conference of Defence Associations on 24 February 2012, General Natynczyk acknowledged some Senators and MPs and highlighted their presence as an indication of “the Government’s support of the Canadian Forces.”[11] In reality, the presence of individual Senators and MPs signifies either the support of those individuals, the support of their parties, or the support of Parliament – but never the support of the Government. I found Natynczyk’s statement particularly bizarre because his civilian superior, the Minister of the Crown for National Defence, the Hon. Peter MacKay, had addressed the conference earlier that morning. It was the Peter MacKay’s presence that signified the Government’s support of the Canadian Armed Forces. Cabinet makes all policy for the Canadian Armed Forces and takes responsibility for its policies and expenditures before Parliament.

These direct lines of accountability from the CDS [Chief of Defence Staff] belie any notion that the CDS has accountabilities to Parliament or that Parliament directly “controls” the military. Both the National Defence Act and the power of appointment enforce the norm that the Canadian military serves those who are accountable to Parliament, not Parliament itself. […] [T]he armed forces serve the Crown rather than Parliament. Supreme authority for the command of the armed forces and the defence of Canada flows from the Crown.[12]

Natynczyk also stated that “Parliament” has made the CDS “responsible for the welfare of military families.” The Crown-in-Parliament deals with the Canadian Armed Forces only in the National Defence Act; Cabinet determines all policy for both DND and CF, through whitepapers and documents like the Canada-First Defence Strategy. Part I of the Act established the Department of National Defence (DND), the individual responsibility of the Minister of the Crown for National Defence for both DND and the CF, as well as the positions of the Deputy Minister and the Judge Advocate General. Part II established the Canadian Forces, including the position of the CDS. The Act makes no mention of “military families” and certainly does not charge the CDS for the well-being of military families. Therefore, Parliament never granted the CDS such authority.

The Harper Government Has Been Too Deferential To Parliament!

Canadian pundits often perpetuate this perception of Stephen Harper as the brilliant strategist. If anything, Harper and his political staff are good tacticians, but not necessarily good strategists: they normally apply short-term political pressure to the opposition parties (particularly the Liberals under Dion and Ignatieff) effectively, but sometimes at the expense of the Government’s long-term interest. On 22 November 2010, the Conservatives so succeeded in embarrassing the Liberals and shirking their ministerial responsibility that they managed to persuade the media to put the onus on Ignatieff, who initially considered a parliamentary vote on extending Canada’s participation in ISAF unnecessary (which it is) in order to avoid the embarassment of exposing the divisions within the Liberal ranks.[1] The Government controls the legislative agenda and would organize such votes, not the Official Opposition! Some PhDs in defence and security studies praised the Harper government’s approach. Professor Bob Bergen called parliament’s approval of Canada’s participation in ISAF “a democratic triumph”.[2] He criticized parliament’s “marginal role” in the deployment of troops abroad. In reality, the only role that Parliament should adopt with respect to the deployment of troops abroad is passing supply in the form of the budget and main estimates. David Bercuson criticized the Harper government for reverting the proper procedure whereby Cabinet determines defence policy:

Simply put, the excellent precedent that Prime Minister Stephen Harper established in 2006, and reiterated in 2008, is now being undone by he himself. But the Prime Minister isn’t alone in turning the clock back on troop deployment. The Liberal Opposition is going along right with him.[3]

In effect, the Harper government has “laundered” the Crown prerogative on defence and troop deployments through the House of Commons (not even the Crown-in-Parliament as a whole) in order to deflect public scrutiny and attention after from its own collective ministerial responsibility.[4] Responsible government means that Ministers of the Crown, led by the Prime Minister, take responsibility for acts of the Crown prerogative (policies and expenditure) and are responsible to the House of Commons.[5] These Crown prerogatives must necessarily include defence and the Armed Forces because waging war costs money – supply that the House of Commons must approve in the budget and main estimates. By outsourcing its Crown prerogative on defence, the Harper government has in fact undermined responsible government and given itself a form of plausible deniability: now whenever the House of Commons, the public, or the media criticize the role of the CF in Afghanistan, the Harper government can shirk its collective ministerial responsibility and place it on the House of Commons. The Harper government might reply, “The people’s representatives in the House of Commons voted to approve the extension of Canada’s involvement in the Afghan campaign, and the government merely followed Parliament’s will.” The House of Commons has become an eager and enthusiastic participant in its own demise. Cabinet governs; parliament grants (or not) supply. The Harper government, however, has unwittingly contributed to the formation of a new public perception of Parliament as a governing body and thus may have inadvertently restricted the conventional scope of Crown prerogative.

Conclusion: “Contrived Conventions” Threaten Responsible Government

“Constitutional conventions are unwritten, politically enforceable norms. These norms evolve from practices and customs that complement and contextualize laws or the written constitution.”[13] In this case, a “contrived convention” refers to a normative, or paradoxically, a statutory, constraint on Crown prerogative, when only a constitutional amendment would legally and truly restrict or narrow its scope of that prerogative power. The “contrived convention” therefore conflates an artificial or virtual constraint with a true legal limitation. The standard conventions arise in order to reinforce and protect the larger constitutional principle of responsible government, and its main corollary, the confidence convention.[14] I explained in full in the previous post why these Crown prerogatives properly belong to the Crown under our system of responsible government. In contrast, these “contrived conventions” threaten and undermine responsible government by breaking the link between the Cabinet, policy, and expenditure (as in this case of the prerogative on defence), or by imposing written rules that contradict the well-establish conventional constitution. This inherent conflict causes confusion and destabilizes the constitutional system.

I explored this notion in my earlier posts on the Canadian approach to fixed elections and the Senate Reform Bill. All the federal and provincial fixed-elections laws contain a provision to the effect that “Nothing in this Act affects the Governor General’s [or Lieutenant-Governor’s] power to dissolve Parliament”, because only an amendment following section 41 (a) of the Constitution Act, 1982 (“office of the governor general and lieutenant governor”) could narrow the scope of Crown prerogatives on prorogation and dissolution in law. The federal and provincial legislation therefore adopt this curious paradox of imposing a conventional (i.e., normative) limitation on the Crown prerogative of dissolution in statute, when normally conventions (i.e., norms) arise over time through best practices, and when only a constitutional amendment could truly limit this power in law. Similarly, the Senate Reform Bill would also impose by legislation a conventional restriction on the Prime Minister’s prerogative to nominate Senators. By a well-established and proper convention, the Governor General acts upon and in accordance with the Prime Minister’s advice and formally appoints the Prime Minister’s nominees. The Senate Reform Bill would stipulate that the Prime Minister “must consider” the results of the provinces’ senatorial advisory elections. The phrase “must consider” codifies the idea that the prime minister will voluntarily restrain his crown prerogative of advising the governor general to appoint only the winners of the provincial senatorial elections; however, it does not codify any substantial constitutional limitation on crown prerogative. “Must consider” does not mean “must nominate.” Only an amendment, using the general formula, to Section 24 of the Constitution Act, 1867 could formally limit in law the Crown prerogative of senatorial appointment. Aucoin, Jarvis, and Turnbull also criticized the fixed-elections laws and any other law as inherently flawed because they rely “the good faith of the prime minister” rather than one true legal limitations on Crown prerogative.[15]

The Harper government has set the perilous precedent that the House of Commons now approves troop deployments (i.e., expenditure); however, because the Harper government and the House of Commons agreed in all the votes on extending Canada’s participation in NATO’s ISAF in Afghanistan, these precedents did not directly reveal their long-term consequences. In the future, two scenarios could occur, more likely in a minority parliament, that would threaten responsible government: first, the Cabinet wants to despatch troops or go to war, and the House of Commons votes otherwise and then introduces a motion of non-confidence; second, and more ominously, the House of Commons could vote to go to despatch troops or go to war against the policy of Cabinet. The second scenario could then involve the intervention of a CDS like General Natynczyk, who confuses Parliament and the Government, and the total breakdown of the lines of authority between the Chief of Defence Staff, Minister of Defence, and Prime Minister. Lagassé argues that “a severe defence failure could cost the cabinet the confidence of the House of Commons.”[16]

The tactic of making troop deployments subject to the approval of the House of Commons embarrassed the Liberals by exposing the fissures within that party, and thus helped the Conservatives in the short-term. In the long term, Parliament could very well invoke these perilous precedents in order to bring down minority governments and fundamentally alter the conventions of responsible government. Responsible government means that the Ministers of the Crown are collectively and individually responsible for acts of the Crown and responsible to the House of Commons. The Cabinet is responsible for all policy and expenditure, and the House grants supply. If the House refuses supply, then it has automatically withdrawn its confidence in Cabinet; the prime minister must either resign on behalf of his Cabinet or advise the Governor General to dissolve parliament and issue the writs of election. Troop deployments and military operations of any kind – whether disaster relief, peacekeeping, or combat missions – always and necessarily entail expenditure; therefore, the Cabinet must approve of such operations involving the Canadian Armed Forces and make all decisions relating to defence policy. Defence is undoubtedly a Crown prerogative and so it should remain.

Similar Posts:

• Fixed-Election Laws
• The Senate Reform Bill’s implications on Crown Prerogative and Responsible Government
• The True Nature of Crown Prerogative and Responsible Government