Q:How can you can sue for breach of contract when someone doesn’t keep his word. What about when our politicians make all kinds of promises to get elected and then don’t keep any of them? Why can’t I sue for that?
A:On the face of it, a politician’s promise has all the hallmarks of a contract. There is a promise or offer to do something.
In exchange for the acceptance of the promise, the politician gets your vote and you are supposed to get what was promised. That’s where things often break down.
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
The law in Canada has consistently held that a politician cannot be sued on his or her promises to the electorate. However, this hasn’t stopped some people from trying.
In Ontario in 2003, Dalton Mc-Guinty allegedly made a written promise to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation during the election occurring in the fall of that year. He promised not to raise taxes and not to run deficits. The CTF had asked him to put it down on paper and he accepted their invitation.
McGuinty was elected, and subsequently introduced a new health tax in the first budget and raised taxes. The CTF was upset and made a court application to declare the new health premium illegal.
The CTF said this was a written contract for which McGuinty should be personally liable.
The Ontario court disagreed. It relied upon the principle that Parliament is sovereign and its powers cannot be limited.
This concept is at the heart of the principle that the promises made during an election campaign cannot be said to be binding contracts and are not enforceable.
The court ruled “few people would consider that all of the promises made and pledges given constitute legally binding agreements between the candidate and the elector or electors to whom these promises or pledges were made.”
No support was given for this proposition. The court assumed this but is it true?
Has democracy sunk to such a level that Canadians simply don’t expect politicians to keep any pledges they make?
The Ontario court also said “imposing a duty of care in circumstances such as exist in the present case would have a chilling effect and would interfere with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Once elected, members would be concerned about the representations they made during their election campaigns and would not consider themselves at liberty to act and vote in the public interest on each bill as it came before the legislature.”
Wouldn’t that chill be a good thing, if politicians had to look over their shoulders and be held accountable for the promises they made?
The concept of suing to enforce a politician’s promise has been tried elsewhere in Canada. All such lawsuits have been doomed to failure but the real question may be whether they should be.
Rick Danyliuk is a lawyer with McDougall Gauley LLP in Saskatoon.
