Responsible Government: An FAQ Primer
What does "responsible government" mean?
According to the principle of responsible government, the Legislative Assembly, on behalf of the electorate, holds the government to account; it asks questions regarding decisions and policy, votes to grant money for programs and services, scrutinizes proposed legislation and generally oversees the actions of government. The government must respond with justification for its actions, and it is only able to carry out its mandate when it has the support and confidence of the majority in the Assembly.
Who is the "government" in the Legislative Assembly?
Though “the government” is often used to refer to all elected representatives or all the members of the governing party in the legislature, it more accurately refers to the executive, i.e. the Cabinet that is composed of the Premier and ministers in charge of the policy and administration that governs the province. Non-executive members of the same party are private members, and members of parties not in power are opposition members. All these members together form the Legislative Assembly, PEI’s legislature.
What does it mean for the Assembly to have "confidence" in the government?
The Assembly typically functions in a state of implied confidence in the government. The opposition may voice its criticisms, but it’s the view of the majority of the legislature that determines whether the government may proceed. In the Westminster system of Parliament, which PEI and other Canadian jurisdictions follow, confidence is more of a convention than a written rule. As such, there are explicit and implicit ways in which confidence may be questioned. A motion may explicitly express non-confidence in the government, and the government may declare a motion to be a matter of confidence. Certain other motions, such as on the granting of supply or the approval of the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, are generally accepted to be implicit motions of confidence in that if they are defeated, confidence is considered lost. When confidence is lost, whether explicitly or implicitly, it is expected that the executive will resign to allow a new government to be formed or that an election will be called.
Explicit motions of non-confidence do not arise frequently, let alone pass. In the past few decades, perhaps the closest the government came to being defeated on such a motion was in the late 1960s. On April 25th, 1967, while debating the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, the following amendment was moved:
"We regret that your Honour's advisors have failed by reason of inertia, and lack of leadership in the face of serious provincial problems, and are not entitled to the confidence of this House, and have lost the confidence of the people of Prince Edward Island."
This was obviously a strong challenge to the executive’s right to govern. The amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 14 to 13. Two years later, on June 5th, 1969, confidence was implicitly at risk when voting on an Appropriations Bill (which grants money, or supply, for the government to use) yielded a deadlock of 15 Aye to 15 Nay. The Speaker had to cast the deciding vote, and did so with the Ayes, and thus the bill passed. Had the bill been defeated, the Assembly would have denied the government the money required to carry out its work, which is essentially an expression of non-confidence.
The closeness of these votes was due to the fact that, in the late 1960s, members of the governing party in the legislature only slightly outnumbered the opposition. When the governing party enjoys a greater majority, non-confidence is less of a threat for the government. Minority governments are more vulnerable to non-confidence motions because the multiple parties that form the opposition can vote together to see that they pass. However, majority governments have been the norm for most of PEI’s political history, with only two parties represented in the Legislative Assembly. Only in recent years has a third party been represented, and a minority government existed in 2019-2020; it was able to maintain the confidence of the Assembly until it became a majority government by gaining seats in by-elections.
If confidence motions are the strictest means of evaluation in a responsible government system, it seems they require a certain composition within the legislature to represent a realistic threat to the government’s mandate. This, however, assumes that all members vote according to party lines. There is no rule that private members of the governing party must always vote in support of the government within the legislature (nor that opposition members must always vote against it). However, party discipline usually ensures that they do. Within the legislature, members are usually expected to toe the party line established in caucus. Failure to do so can result in a member being censured or otherwise receiving party disapproval, either publicly or privately. In this manner, the executive is somewhat buffered against the method by which responsible government is enforced---the confidence convention---by the enforcement of party discipline.
How does the composition of the legislature affect responsible government?
How effectively the government can be held to account also depends on size of the executive within the legislature. An executive can dominate the legislature more easily when it forms a larger portion within it. PEI has the smallest legislature among the provinces, at 27 seats. Cabinet may consist of eight to twelve members; in recent years, it has fluctuated between ten and twelve, meaning the executive has accounted for more than a third of the legislature. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has examined the issue of executive size within democratic legislatures. It is necessary to have a sufficient number of ministers to lead the various departments of government, even in a small jurisdiction such as PEI. On the other hand, a balance between executive capacity and size is desirable, and the CPA has recommended that executive size be limited to a maximum of one third of the total membership of the legislature. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for the wider body of legislative members to exercise their oversight function on an exceedingly large sub-group among them.
The principle of responsible government is evidently not perfect in practice. The ability to uphold it is subject to the strategies of the players involved and the composition of the legislature at any given time. But even if a government is not at serious risk of falling to a confidence motion, it is an entrenched principle that it must always respond to the scrutiny of the legislature, and that confidence can always be tested. It’s a principle that reformers fought for in the first half of the 19th century, when government was imposed by the few with little recourse for the many. It is because of those reformers’ efforts that elected representatives today can hold government accountable on behalf of all Islanders.
Sources:
MacKinnon, Frank. The Government of Prince Edward Island. University of Toronto Press: 1951.
Journal of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island. 25 April, 1967.
Recommended Benchmarks for Pacific Island Democratic Legislatures. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. 2009