Western Producer staff
To whom does an MP owe allegiance – voters, party or self? It is a question raised by the gun-control debate.
It is a question without easy answers.
During the 1993 election campaign, Reform leader Preston Manning answered it as clearly as he could – to the voters.
When pressed during a visit to Lloydminster about how far he would extend the principle of accountability, Manning left little room for doubt.
If the issue, for example, was funding for abortion clinics and his Calgary constituents favored the idea, would MP Manning vote that way despite his own religious beliefs?
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Yes, he said. The alternative would be to resign.
The gun-control debate was a test of that principle.
Reformers opposed the legislation, backed by anecdotal evidence of support from the gun-owners’ lobby which flooded MPs with petitions, letters and telephone calls.
However, the two urban MPs who actually polled their constituents found most supported gun control and the legislation.
One, Calgary’s Stephen Harper, stuck with his constituents. The second, Ian McClelland from Edmonton, decided to defy voter opinion.
On the Liberal side, rural MPs faced the same concerted gun-owner campaign. A handful responded by voting against it (and were punished by the Liberals) while most simply sat out the vote.
New Democrat MPs also struggled. The majority, influenced by the Saskatchewan NDP and the anger of some constituents, decided to oppose the bill.
The decision divided caucus, outraged many in the party and eroded the party’s liberal credentials.
In politics, easy answers can be misleading, over-simplifying complex issues.
How, for example, does an MP gauge constituent opinion?
Do vocal opponents of the legislation really represent most rural residents? How do we know, short of opinion surveys that have consistently shown the majority of Canadians, rural and urban, favor gun control?
An equally vexing question is: how can the Liberals justify disciplining dissident MPs who believe they are obeying constituent wishes?
The party system is at the centre of the political debate and the functioning of Parliament. Most of those Liberal MPs were elected on the Liberal bandwagon, not as individuals.
Having been the vehicle to office for these MPs, the party then demands in return that they support the program. There would be little stability for a government if its MPs could pick and choose their moments of support.
In 1774, British MP Edmund Burke presented the voters of Bristol with his famous declaration of MP independence – that an MP owes constituents his judgment rather than a mere reflection of their opinions. Bristol voters passed judgment by defeating him.
Then, as now, politics was a balancing act between party, principle, constituent opinion and the imperatives of the next election.
