Canada

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Lawyers eager to enter the political arena

Profession dominates Parliament

By: Sunny Freeman

Posted: 11/9/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Kevin Frayer / The Canadian Press Archives Fifteen of our 22 prime ministers, including Brian Mulroney, have been lawyers. (CANADIAN PRESS)

Today's federal byelections will choose four new members of Parliament from a list of candidates that includes three farmers, four municipal politicians, a principal, a plumber, and an engineer -- but not a single lawyer, a profession that dominates Canadian politics.

Since Confederation, 1,009 lawyers have sat in the House of Commons, nearly twice as many as politicians from any other profession, according to data collected by the Parliament.

Fifteen of Canada's 22 prime ministers have practised law. Stephen Harper, an economist, is the country's first non-lawyer leader since 1980.

But jurists do not just dominate Canadian politics, there is a preponderance of lawyers in the governments of most democratic countries, according to an Economist analysis of data from 5,000 international politicians.

The analysis also found that law, followed by business, is the most common background for politicians worldwide.

University of Ottawa professor of law Adam Dodek says the findings are not surprising because lawyers have a strong foundation in the rule of law, a founding democratic principle.

"The essence of being a lawyer is to be a problem-solver, a communicator, and an advocate. And those three essential qualities are also what would serve you well as a politician," he says.

But Dodek warns concentrating power in the hands of lawyers, or any group, makes for a shaky democracy.

"I don't think it's good for any one profession to dominate politics the way that law has dominated Canadian politics since Confederation," he says.

Trevor Harrison, a political sociologist at the University of Lethbridge, says the theatrics of courtrooms foster partisanship in the House. "(Lawyers) know how to perform..."

In the current government, lawyers are outnumbered by business people, 72 to 51, and these two professions make up nearly half the seats in the House.

"There's a small, cliquey group of usually business people and lawyers who open doors for themselves," he says. "They open doors for each other, so the same group keeps walking through."

Elite groups isolate themselves from the public, which fosters a dangerous tendency toward group think, he says.

"You've got people from certain backgrounds who tend to look at the world from that vantage point and then they sit around and verify what each other already thinks they know."

Harrison says political representation is a reflection of the dominant sectors of society in any era. "But lawyers are the constant there, they've always been disproportionately represented."

Farmers have played a prominent role in politics, reaching their height during the Depression, but have steadily been replaced by business people since the 1960s. Historically, farmers are the second most represented group in Parliament, with 596 MPs.

But as the number of farmers has declined in society, so too has their representation in Parliament, from 54 during the Depression to 21 at present.

Meanwhile, the number of politicians with business backgrounds surpassed farmers in the 1960s, rising to the top spot in the 1984 Mulroney government.

Harrison says the diversity of candidates in today's vote is welcome because increasing the number of farmers, nurses, doctors, psychologists, teachers and engineers, would bring different perspectives to the House.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 9, 2009 A9

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