Resign! Or not...

I got rather frustrated yesterday by series of articles reporting on Liberal leader Bob Rae's demand that Stephen Harper resign over the F-35 issue. My frustration wasn't specifically aimed at Rae or the Liberal party, but more broadly at our political culture where the first instinct of all of our opposition parties, federal and provincial, whenever the government does anything they strongly disagree with, is to demand the resignation of the relevant minister and/or the Premier or Prime Minister. I overstate my case slightly here for emphasis, but it often seems that not a week goes by when some minister or another isn't being called on to resign. This isn't to say that sometimes ministers - or even governments - do not resign, but it's pretty darned rare. This has set my mind to wondering how often a resignation actually does occur, and what circumstances prompt it.

In case anyone really wonders about my own thought processes, my first personal memory of a demand for a ministerial resignation was as a 12-year old budding news junkie in 1989. The scandal in question involved federal finance minister Michael Wilson. Wilson, the opposition parties charged, had leaked the entire federal budget to the media a day before it was scheduled for release. Did Wilson resign? Heck no! He'd stay in that portfolio for two more years, and in Cabinet until he retired from politics.

Yesterday evening, I put out a call on Twitter for examples of successful calls for ministerial resignations. I could think of Sheila Copps, who resigned both from Cabinet as Deputy PM and her seat in 1996 when her party failed to abolish the GST. She ran in a by-election, won again, and was promptly re-appointed to her old position. Were there others? Alfonso Gagliano, the key minister implicated in the sponsorship scandal, was defended by Jean Chretien for a while, and then eventually appointed ambassador to Denmark.

A grad student in my department, Mark Sholdice, helpfully provided the following list of ministerial resignations from the past 15 years or so: Maxime Bernier, Helena Guergis, Lawrence MacAulay, Andy Scott, Judy Sgro, Art Eggleton. It's interesting to do a bit of dissection of these cases. In most of them, there were pending allegations of influence peddling or conflict of interest. Another involved a potential breach of national security. And what were the ultimate results of these resignations? Both Bernier and Scott eventually found their way back into Cabinet. Eggleton was appointed to the Senate. Sgro and MacAulay have since been re-elected a number of times. Poor Helena Guergis, denied a soft landing...

If we go back far enough, there have been major changes wrought by demands for ministerial or governmental resignations. In 1935-36, when Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale - as a newly formed opposition party - were able to seize control of Quebec's Public Accounts Committee, they were able to expose massive corruption by the Taschereau government, then tie up the legislature and force the resignation of the government. The Pacific Scandal of 1873 (coupled with the arrival of new MPs from PEI) forced the resignation of the government of John A. MacDonald. This isn't really my area of major research interest, but it strikes me that there could be a really interesting book written about ministerial resignations and political scandals in Canada. My working hypothesis is that there were usually pending criminal charges or obvious corruption and influence peddling before ministers actually gave in to opposition pressures to resign. Minor rule-breaking or past dalliances (see: Andre Boisclair's cocaine habit) probably don't cut it most of the time.

All of which leads back to my original frustration. My concern is that if ministerial resignations are in fact quite rare, and almost always linked to allegations of abuse of power or corruption, then is an excessive use of the political tool of demanding a ministerial resignation (with the accompanying media coverage) desensitizing voters? Will we hit a point where there are cases where a minister really should resign because of criminal activity or abuse of power, but the public is so inured to these calls for resignation over more minor issues that a major case can be swept easily under the rug by a Prime Minister who wants to keep that minister (bearing in mind that sometimes a PM might accept the resignation because they simply don't care to bother defending them)? Could we argue that this has already occurred?

When politics devolves into routine theatre and constant braying for attention, I fear that the public tunes out. And given the current state of voter engagement, that should be a huge concern for us all.

ETA: As a matter of curiosity, I'd welcome other examples of successful demands for ministerial resignations, and the nature of the scandal that prompted the demands.

Thanks to Andrew Ross, a link to the Parliament of Canada's official list of ministerial resignations. I might have to go searching for provincial equivalents.

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Liberal Leadership Race: The deep ambivalence of a non-partisan blogger

I recognize that political historians are perhaps not a key demographic for the Liberal party of Canada. We pay too much attention to what has happened in the past, and are less likely to forget speeches or comments made two to three years ago. However, I'm also a sometimes-Liberal voter who leans to the left. And so, I feel like I do have some stake in the federal Liberal leadership race. I'm not firmly wedded to the federal NDP - facial hair aside, Jack Layton doesn't really appeal that much to me. I'm looking for a leader who can put forth a vision of federal policies that I can get behind, preferably one without enough baggage to make her/him unelectable.

Here's my dilemma. None of the three leadership candidates come close to that for me. I still see Michael Ignatieff as the candidate who endorsed the Iraq war and was willing to contemplate torture. Domenic Leblanc has done nothing to develop a national profile - and as my MP for two years, he did little to grab my attention at the local level. Bob Rae is by far my preferred candidate on most policy grounds - he seems like the most thoughtful, pragmatic and left-leaning of the three. But he is political kryptonite in Ontario - it's been 15 years since the famed "Rae Days" and I still hear union members and teachers speak his name with venom - and they are his supposed constituency in this province. The man is unelectable as head of the party - particularly if the economy stays in a slump.

If I were a card-carrying Liberal, I'd be beating the bushes for a wild card candidate. Rae and Ignatieff might be the preferred candidates for Liberal party insiders, but I think the party will be in for a tremendous shock when either one faces the electorate. I wonder what Lloyd Axworthy, Glen Murray or Peter Mansbridge are up to these days...

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