A spot in cabinet: The dangling carrot to which too much power is ceded.

This threat to Canadian democracy requires MPs passed over for a cabinet promotion to take heart.

This week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to significantly shake up his cabinet. Since cabinet Ministers are traditionally appointed from the pool of Members of Parliament of the governing party, some Liberal MPs will be in. 

But given that there are far more MPs than spots in cabinet, most will be out.

That means there will be many disappointed Members of Parliament (MPs). And that wave of dismay, in turn, poses a big threat to Canadian democracy.

That’s because Members of Parliament have tremendous power in their own right, different but equal to that of a member of the executive. Yet many willingly cede that power over the promise of an appointment to cabinet.

Here’s how that tradeoff happens, and how it creates big risks for Canada as a whole.

Today, MPs are conditioned to believe that a spot in the cabinet is the pinnacle of time spent in elected office. It’s easy to see how some arrive at that conclusion. The gig comes with power. Theoretically, a spot in the cabinet means enacting policy for a G7 country. And a cabinet appointment is lucrative, too. A cabinet appointment gives an MP a $92,000 salary bump and comes with a car and driver. It also comes with lifetime perks. Cabinet Ministers are appointed to the King’s Privy Council and are titled “the Honourable” for life. There’s also social cache in political circles that comes with the job.

But today, sadly, the prime qualifications for getting into cabinet often aren’t found on someone’s pre-political resume. More often than not, when appointing an MP to cabinet, the Prime Minister and his innermost circle will evaluate political issues, particularly, whether an MP:

1. Has the capacity and willingness to diffuse politically sensitive issues;

2. Has certain failings that have the potential to create issues perceived as politically sensitive by the Prime Minister and his inner circle;

3. Can bring good optics because they represent a riding that’s in a particular geographic location or possess certain personal demographics;

4. Is a threat or a benefit to the personal interests of the inner circle; and

5. Has proven themselves loyal and pliant enough to consistently cede their power back to the centre, even when protecting the public’s best interest warrants a different type of response.

And it’s that last point that poses a big threat to Canadian democracy. 

The executive branch of Canadian government power has developed a practice of siphoning away the powers granted to MPs and ministers, as these people have been groomed to accept pliancy as the virtue by which one is deemed worthy of entry into the cabinet. In simpler terms, this means the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office now has an oversized capacity to push policy through without MPs from their own political party vigorously scrutinizing or challenging it, because doing so would mean disqualifying oneself from a cabinet appointment.

The obvious example of this phenomenon publicly happening in the current government is Trudeau’s turfing of Jody Wilson-Raybould during the SNC-Lavalin scandal. When Trudeau fired Wilson-Raybould after she (privately) held firm on a (very correct) matter of principle, he sent a message to his entire caucus: contradict me, even privately, and I’ll replace you with someone who won’t, and if you’re out right of cabinet right now and do the same, you’ll never be in. 

But the problem is that when leaders - of any institution - close their actions off the scrutiny and their minds off from being changed, they expose themselves to the risk of being blind to potential colossal failure. And when it’s a government that colossally fails, its ordinary people who suffer as bad public policy impacts their lives.

Further underscoring the problem with MP’s increasing tendency to demonstrate pliancy in exchange for a cabinet position is the fact that Parliament is designed to be a substitute for settling our nation’s differences via war and violence. From that perspective, in a country as diverse as Canada, we should expect debate in the House of Commons to be respectful, but vigorous, provocative and messy. We should also expect for legislators' minds to be routinely changed as a result of that debate. In that, it is not appropriate for the executive branch of government to foster an incentive structure by which the very people tasked with holding them to account are motivated to abdicate that responsibility entirely.

Thankfully there’s good news for MPs who will be passed over or dropped from cabinet this week. There is a way to change this culture: MPs need to call the power they already have back to them by actually using it.

Every Member of Parliament should start by remembering that they hold an incredible amount of power from the minute they take their seat in the House of Commons. Parliament decides, through votes, whether it has confidence in the executive, whether to allow the executive to spend public funds and any legislative changes the executive wants to make to the country’s governance. They have the power to determine the conditions under which they’ll say yes, and more importantly to when they’ll say no.

And MPs are given tremendous resources to scrutinize actions of the executive and to decide how to vote. These include the far-reaching powers of Parliamentary Committees, unfettered access to the ocean of resources in the Library of Parliament, the power to compel information from the government, and a healthy budget to hire research staff, travel the country for information, and survey their communities. On top of that, there is an extensive rule book that allows MPs to stall, review, amend, fast-forward, or waylay the executive’s agenda. They can introduce legislation of their own, too. 

If that wasn’t enough, virtually anyone in the country - or frankly, the world - will take the call of a Canadian MP to answer their questions. And every MP automatically has a public profile and platform which can be easily augmented on social and subscription-based networks, from which to spur public discussion of issues and demand change.

In short, while being in the cabinet is an enormous honour worthy of aspiring to (I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to do so), it’s by no means the only way to influence government policy. That doesn’t necessarily equate to what’s increasingly become the traditional view of what an MP exercising their influence looks like; constantly publicly immolating oneself and one’s party, picking unnecessary fights, or generally being an ar$ehole. In many circumstances, an MP leaning into their power simply means avoiding the temptation to mindlessly trumpet shortsighted political positions, keeping an open mind, and showing a willingness and aptitude to use all available tools to get things done for the community - even if that means disqualifying oneself from a cabinet position under the selection criteria the current government seems to be using.

Now, I’m by no means perfect on all of these fronts. But leaning into the power granted to me by my community has undeniably allowed me to change policy while I’ve served in non-cabinet roles, even as a backbench MP. Many other MPs from all political parties act the same way. Their examples prove that even if someone claims that an MP is powerless because they aren’t in the cabinet, they’re perpetuating a lie that weakens Canadian democracy. 

The reality is that current structure of the Canadian Parliament means an MP is only powerless and voiceless if they choose to allow themselves to be. And as long as MPs continue to show, en masse, that they are willing to cede their power or engage in morally questionable behaviour for even the prospect of a promise of an appointment, the executive branch of government will keep consolidating power, avoiding Parliamentary scrutiny, and growing more sclerotic.

So this week, MPs who weren’t appointed to the cabinet or were dropped from it have a choice to make. To be bitter about their lot in life, or to perpetuate bad policy when the executive branch needs to be questioned, or to lean into using the powers they have been granted to serve their community. 

Canadian democracy would be much healthier if the voting public made it abundantly clear - to both MPs and to the executive - that that choice is a false one, to begin with.