Increasing the power of the majority is not always in the interests of democracy

Today's thoughts about the recent reappearance of a touchy issue to the forefront of the political landscape in Canada ...


Imagine a political system where a party leader had to be elected by party members to become the leader of that party. OK, sounds familiar.

Imagine a system where local representatives needed to either have enormous respect in their communities or belong to a party that was so popular in a riding that a seat was more or less guaranteed. Hmmm .. sounds familiar too.

Now imagine a system where the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in an election got to become the leader of the country. Maybe it depends just how many seats the largest party gets, but sure ... sounds fair enough.

Let's imagine that there was another part of the government that was typically full of people who served the national leader of any party which formed government for a long period of time, and that such distinguished service resulted in their appointment to a public body that carries out important research that is non-partisan (although not devoid of ideological preferences) because they have really good job security. This group of people can also force the government to rethink legislation if it's really bad legislation unless it's a money bill.

Waaaait a second, this couldn't be in Canada could it?Are you sure those guys are distinguished? Aren't they all corrupt party hacks that get to retire at ease in a cushy lifetime job?

Ummm... maybe sometimes, but perhaps you missed the part about these guys needing to provide exceedingly brilliant community service over long periods of time to get elected, and/or support the leader of a party who was so popular that they formed government, and that this leader had to be elected by the members of that party.

Got the topic yet?

Our brilliant leader in Ottawa, back in the country's top job with a mandate that is so strong that he must gain the support of at least one of the other significantly different parties to pass any piece of legislation, has the idea that an elected senate would improve democracy in Canada.

My take on the matter?

Well, it's pretty simple, but complex enough that a politician it endorsing would probably get eaten by the media. It doesn't fit into a 10 second media clip, so no politician is likely to take this road. It's too popular to hate people who work hard for their country for all their lives and get a job that pays somewhat more than a good electrician, I mean... it's to easy to hate corrupt politicians at the trough, since that's what we know they are. ... riiight, OK.

My argument against an elected senate in preference of it's current form. Here it goes. 1) they do good research, 2) they provide sober second thought and limit possible extremes of the majority, 3) They represent continuity for political trends over the span of the previous generation of governments.

1) The senate produces incredibly top notch research as far as a political institution is concerned. These guys have been in politics for much of their lives, understand the system, know how to pull strings to get access to previous research, and can put these tools together into knowledgeable social and economic research that ... can be a little contentious, since they don't have to worry about re-election. While I don't always like their findings or policy suggestions, senate reports are something that I can always count on to be a relatively unbiased source of research that result from a process that consults the relevant experts and are in tune with some significant portion of the public.

2) We need something to stop a majority who wants to do ridiculous stuff. This doesn't happen very often, but there's a reason that it's called the chamber of "sober second thought." The parliamentary majority is not always right, may rush through poorly thought out legislation, and are sometimes disastrously wrong.

There's a concept called the "tyranny of the majority." As far as I know, it was coined by John Stuart Mill. I'm a big fan of him. Some people consider him one of the original libertarians, but more detailed reading of his works shows that he had a good deal of common sense and genuine concern for humanity as well.

Basically, just because a whole lot of people think something's a good idea don't mean that it is. If 51% of people had the right to do anything, they might just vote to appropriate everything from the other 49%. That's not right, and that's not democracy. It's a sort of ridiculous extreme, but I think it illustrates the point.What if it was 90% and 10%? Is it democratic for such an overwhelming majority to do whatever they want? How about if it's just one person vs the entirety of society. Is the majority then allowed to deprive that individual of political expression or the ability to pursue their personal development as they see fit?

Democracy is not about 'majority rules,' it's about people having the capacity to make a meaningful contribution to political dialogue in their communities and nation. Hence, the need for anti-majoritarian institutions. The more diverse a country, the more you need them. Just imagine what unchecked majorities stood for in Nazi Germany. To which you may respond ... riiiight, but that was then and there. I'm tired of everyone calling back to Hitler as the Bogeyman to scare people into supporting such and such a change or opposing such and such a change.

OK, how about some other examples. The majority in the US long supported slavery (the majority taking advantage of a minority), and it took a bloody civil war, which could have gone either way, to put an end to it. So, was that democracy? Slavery as democracy? I don't think so. And you say ... yeah, yeah, that was then and this is now.

How about the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka? The lack of any anti-majoritarian clauses in their constitution gives the Tamils no democratic avenue to oppose the excesses of the majority. Is it a big surprise that that a civil war broke out just a few years after the Sinhalese-dominated government decided that all government jobs required testing exclusively in Sinhalese, clearly discriminating against the Tamils (who are a similar proportion of the population as the Quebecois in Canada)? To which you say, yeah... but that's somewhere else. It has nothing to do with Canada.

To which I respond, why the hell do you think that much of the older generations in Quebec resent being part of Canada. They entered the federation as an equal partner, then as more provinces joined, the English majority set up governments according to the dominant language and culture. Of course, these days the tables have turned somewhat, and there's no doubt that the durability of the French language and the economy in Quebec benefit (perhaps too much so) from the support of the rest of Canada. The list could go on and on, but I don’t think it’s necessary right now, and besides which, there are surely far more informed people than myself on the matter.

Wasn't this about senate reform? You may be wondering, what's the point of this discussion about anti-majoritarianism? Well, we already have an elected body that drafts bills and passes them. Only dodgy or contentious stuff gets turned down by the senate. Having an elected senate would increase the risk of a so-called "tyranny of the majority" becoming reality in Canada. For the sake of brevity (if you believe I know the meaning of the word), I'm not going to develop that idea right now. It's already been done quite well enough, but it's still interesting to ponder.

The following bit brings this idea forward somewhat differently.

3) The senate is an inherently conservative institution. I don't mean the political party, I mean that it's an institution that retains elements of previously (even recently) popular political tradition. It also tends to limit the ability of a government to walk in the door and engage in all sorts of radical change. Can it do that? Is that good for democracy? Well, I think so, but you may disagree.

Shouldn't any government be able to walk in the door and present all sorts of radical change if that's what the public wants? Well ... at the risk of sounding a tiny bit elitist … the public is fickle. We all can be at times. Popular opinion with respect to a particular topic can get swept up by recent events, without putting policy issues into a historical context, or without taking account of potential long term effects of a policy change. That's not elistism, that's fact. It's not said out of a lack of respect for public opinion, after all, we're all human.

Despite the fact that our country is officially a constitutional monarchy, which means that it is the role of the Supreme Court to stop the government from breaking the basic rules of the land, the majority already has control over the most powerful arm of the government, the House of Commons (although some might argue that it's the prime minister's office). That's where new laws and policies are drafted and approved, and where the money comes to and from.

What about the role of the senate in limiting rapid change? Well, let's say that the Liberals were in power for a very long time, but then got swept out of office by a Conservative majority, as happened in 1984. Consecutive Liberal governments stacked the senate with Liberal appointments, which limited the ability of Mulroney to make radical changes.

How's that democratic? Well ... I'll admit this is a bit fuzzy and would be easier to explain with the sort of probing that happens in conversation, but here goes. It's something like representation of residual support for parties and ideals that were popular in the recent past. People probably still have a good deal of support for those ideals, but we also seem to have an inherent drive for regular change in governance. A political body like the senate retains this historical support such that radical changes are somewhat limited. Of course, senators aren't so stupid as to oppose things that are incredibly popular. If 90% of the population supported a major issue that the senate opposed, it's days would be numbered. That's to say that the senate would never oppose moves that had enormous popular support, while retaining residual support from the preceding generation of governments. Meanwhile, they would represent some degree of continuity and stability in policy practices.

Hey, I said it'd be fuzzy.

Wouldn't this limit the ability of the government to act swiftly in periods of crisis? Now, I'm not an expert on constitutions, but I know a bit about them. I'm not aware of any functioning democracy that makes it impossible for the elected body to place near total control in the hands of its executive during a period of crises. The senate, in its present form, would never be able to get in the way of a government responding to a natural disaster, a health crisis, a military threat, or ... any kind of threat that I can think of.

In fact, the greatest threat to genuine democracy in many countries may well be the leader of the elected government. Not something to dwell on though. For all that certain minor changes made by the present government bear uncanny similarity to initial moves of a leader looking to consolidate power in sketchy ways (for example, party appointment of a civilian head of the RCMP, who should be selected internally among their own to avoid political police as in the infamous "communist" states ... or the aggressive attitude towards freedom of speech among party members and limited access to the press), I really don't think in the very tiniest way that we are on our way to any sort of Mussolini or anything. Just because the top dude is a control freak doesn't mean that he's a dictator. Canadians would never stand for it.

Unfortunately, these changes have been the direct result of the continued concentration of power in the prime minister's office (kind of funny for a former Reform Party member, who supposedly stands for decentralization). The senate has no scope of influence for sober second thoughts in these regards.
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As I already mentioned, the primary roles of the senate are to provide a "sober second thought" on legislation, and to provide incredibly valuable research that is informed by a lifetime of participation in public life in Canada.

Despite the inherently anti-democratic nature of a political body made up of lifetime members who collectively yield veto power and are appointed by prime ministers over the previous generation, I have just made the perverse, yet logical and just, argument that getting rid of this body will undermine, rather than improve democracy in Canada.

If you want to get rid of the Senate, replace it with something that fills the void rather than simply changing it into something that increases the ability of the majority to abuse democracy while rejecting the valuable lessons of experience from political tradition. An elected senate will only reinforce the risk of a tyrannical majority in the future. When there is even a small chance of a catastrophic end game, don't even think about playing it unless inaction will lead to a similarly pressing potential for disaster.

I'd suggest that if our glorious leader wants to improve democracy, he should take action to reduce the power of the prime minister’s office (which Chretien promised and never delivered on), and consider an electoral system which is more representative of the diversity of political views in our country.


As for an elected supreme court? Just replace “senate” with “supreme court” in nearly every place, copy and paste, rephrase a couple things, and call it my argument against an elected supreme court. Harper wants both. Multiply the relevance of Mill's insight on the "tyranny of the majority" by a hundred if it ever comes to pass.


For the record ... in case you think this is biased from political partisanship, I support the Green Party and am proud to have run for them in the most recent federal election, despite the challenges of doing so in my second language. The Green Party has absolutely nothing to gain from the present setup. My argument is that the present role of the senate is preferable to an elected one. I do, however, believe quite strongly that there must be a better way to improve on the current design of the senate. Since creating a different institution would require a renegotiation of our constitution, it seems that options that include keeping a senate in some form or another are most realistic. It's a matter of debate as to whether any reform of the senate might require navigation of the constitutional amendment process, although our glorious leader believes he can force it through his brilliant plan regardless.As for what's best? I dunno, but I have difficulty imagining how Harper's present plan would improve democracy, even though it would increase the power of the majority.