The importance of good governance

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2024 (657 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?

How about, if an environmental licence was never actually issued for a mining project, were any rules really broken?

What Manitobans are hearing in the Sio Silica saga is the sound of broken governance.

“No harm, no foul” should not be the standard by which to measure adherence to the most important governance principle in our system of parliamentary democracy, the caretaker convention. To flout it or doubt it, is to question the essence of Canada’s responsible government.

That essence is this: we elect governments that exist only when they can command the confidence of the legislature. Since the legislature has been dissolved for the purpose of an election, there is no democratic mechanism to confer confidence upon a government. Only routine government decisions can be made from the moment the election is called until a new government is sworn in, or the incumbent government is clearly re-elected with a majority in the legislature.

Revelations that an outgoing minister in a defeated government was actively trying to figure out a way to frog-march an environmental permit for a controversial mining project through the bureaucracy just before a new government was sworn in is incomprehensible by any practice of good governance.

If there was any doubt in the defeated PC government as to what was allowed, they had only to consult the guidelines published by the privy council office in the Government of Canada. Government actions are restricted to only those that are “routine, or non-controversial, or urgent and in the public interest, or reversible by a new government without undue cost or disruption, or agreed to by opposition parties (in those cases where consultation is appropriate).”

None of these would have been the case with the Sio Silica sands mining project. It would not be “routine” to fast-track an environmental permit decision for a project still under review, a project that was demonstrably “controversial,” was “urgent” only to the company and its financial backers, could not be “reversible” without “undue cost or disruption” to the Crown through financial reparations, and had not been “agreed to by opposition parties” in the Manitoba legislature, since it was an issue of debate during the campaign itself.

If the outgoing minister was still not sure, he could have cast his mind back to another transition, from premier Brian Pallister to premier Heather Stefanson. Regular consideration was given as to which decisions could be taken and which should be left to the prerogative of the incoming premier. Same principle.

There are two practical safeguards for the caretaker convention: the clerk of the executive council representing the public service and the premier representing the cabinet. Each can act as a veto on the other, effectively checkmating any tendencies of either ministers or bureaucrats to act inappropriately during this transition period.

During the caretaker period, the clerk and cabinet secretary is charged with respecting the convention and preparing transition briefings for the new government. As clerk, you are very much alive to this caretaker obligation which you must both assert and monitor across the government via all deputy ministers.

The clerk has strong sway over cabinet decision-making protocol. A decision of this consequence would always go to cabinet. It would be a collective decision of the government — given its importance economically, environmentally, and politically.

It would never be left to just one minister to decide on his or her own. So, even if a minister somehow convinced a colleague to breach the caretaker convention, the clerk and cabinet secretary would have ample justification to shut it down. Speaking truth to power is never easy as a senior official, but sometimes it must be done.

Premiers, meanwhile, are responsible for the conduct of their ministry. There is no escaping or evading. It goes with the job. A culture of absent leadership at the top will inevitably abet bad ministerial behaviour below.

Ministers forget they are part of a collective called cabinet and go rogue. Governance discipline breaks down. Political deal-making without due process takes root, complicating even routine internal governance.

Good governance is important even when no one is watching. But it is doubly so when under the spotlight.

Good governance is the glue that binds public trust in government. It is the last, best defence against corruption.

Parties and politicians ignore this at their peril.

David McLaughlin is president and CEO of the Institute on Governance and a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary.