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Parliamentary Influence and the Diffusion of Power*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

A. Paul Pross
A. Paul Pross
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Abstract

Several phenomena which have been separately observed in Canada are linked: namely the diffusion of power within the executive-administrative branch, the proliferation and expanded role of pressure groups, and the increased attention parliament has been receiving from interest organizations. Suggesting that this last may reflect fundamental changes in the policy system as a whole, it is argued that a tendency toward bureaucratic pluralism has led agencies to develop extra-governmental support at the interest group level; and that both interest groups and agencies have found it useful to exploit the legitimating and publicizing capacities of parliament. In so doing they have contributed to the enhancement of parliament's role in the policy process.

Résumé

La diffusion du pouvoir au sein de l'Exécutif et de l'Administration, la prolifération des proupes de pression et l'élargissement de leur rôle, I'attention de plus en plus soutenue que le Parlement re¸oit de la part des organismes intermédiaires, voilà autant de phénomènes distincts et pourtant liés les uns aux autres. Cet article soutient que le niveau d'activité des groupes intermédiaires reflète un changement significatif dans la dynamique politique canadienne, notamment au chapitre des appuis que recherchent les entités administratives. En réalité, l'Administration et les organismes intérmediaires trouvent maintenant profit à exploiter les fonctions de légitimation et de diffusion que possède le Parlement, tandisque celui-ci voit son rôle s'affirmerdans le processus de prise de décision.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 235 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1985

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References

1 Heasman, D. J., “Political Alignments in Canada,” Parliamentary Affairs 16 (1960), 419.Google Scholar Other more recent studies include Stewart, John B., The Canadian House of Commons: Procedure and Reform (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1977);CrossRefGoogle ScholarNeilson, W. A. W. and MacPherson, J. C. (eds.), The Legislative Process in Canada: The Need for Reform (Toronto: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1978);Google ScholarClarke, Harold D., Campbell, Colin, Quo, F. Q., and Godart, Arthur (eds.). Parliament, Policy and Representation (Toronto: Methuen, 1980);Google Scholar The Canadian Bar Association, Report of the Canadian Bar Association Committee on the Reform of Parliament (Parliament as Lawmaker) (Ottawa, 1982);Google Scholar and the Report of the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure (Ottawa: House of Commons, November 5, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Heasman, “Political Alignments in Canada,” 422.

3 In many respects federal and provincial legislatures and policy systems have experienced parallel development. However, not all provinces have shared in that experience to the same degree, and it is difficult in an article of this length to develop either useful comparison or general conclusions. Consequently, for the most part, the work concentrates on the federal case. Several useful discussions of developments at the provincial level will be found in Clarke et al. (eds.), Parliament, Policy and Representation.

4 Gillies, James and Pigott, Jean, “Participation in the Legislative Process,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Le Devoir, August 31, 1982.

6 Presthus, Robert, “Interest Groups and the Canadian Parliament: Activities, Interaction, Legitimacy; and Influence,” this JOURNAL 4 (1971), 444–60.Google Scholar See also Bruce MacNaughton and Allan Gregg, “Interest Group Influence in the Canadian Parliament,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, University of New Brunswick, June 1977.

7 Gillies and Pigott, “Participation in the Legislative Process,” 256.

8 Thorburn, Hugh G., “Pressure Groups in Canadian Politics: Recent Revisions of the Anti-Combines Legislation,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 30 (1964), 157–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Dawson, Helen Jones, “National Pressure Groups and the Federal Government,” in Press, A. Paul (ed.), Pressure Group Behaviour in Canadian Politics (Toronto: McGraw Hill-Ryerson, 1975), 29–58, 39–45Google Scholar, passim. On this point see also Peter Aucoin, “Pressure Groups and Recent Changes in the Policy-Making Process” in the same volume, 172–93.

10 Ibid., 41.

11 Ibid., 39.

12 Ibid., 42.

13 In 1981 at a seminar sponsored by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada some 40 parliamentarians, bureaucrats, group leaders and academics agreed on this point. See the various papers presented at the seminar and published in Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982).Google Scholar

14 Dawson, “National Pressure Groups,” 50. Arguments similar to those presented here are to be found in a variety of studies. See, for example, Richardson, J. J. and Jordan, A. G., Governing Under Pressure: The Policy Process in a Post-Parliamentary Democracy (Oxford: Robertson, 1977)Google Scholar, which deals with British pressure group politics; Terry M. Moe's highly theoretical, but nevertheless extremely helpful, discussion of the interior life of American groups, The Organization of Interests (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980);Google Scholar and Dion's, Leon comparative study, Societe et Politique (Quebec: Les Presses de 1'Universite Laval, 1971)Google Scholar, particularly his discussion of adaptation in volume I, 290.Google Scholar

15 Presthus, “Interest Groups and the Canadian Parliament,” 448.

16 As, for example, Richardson and Jordan (Governing Under Pressure, 188) ask whether different patterns of behaviour represent “fundamental changes in the political system” in Britain.

17 At Ottawa a trend towards executive dominance manifested itself from the outset (Ward, Norman, “The Formative Years of the House of Commons, 1867–1891,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 18 [1952], 431–51).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Even so, as Ward points out, “the hope of patronage… may have made [the private member) dependent on his leaders, but the role he played as the real or potential distributor of favours in his district gave him a stature which few of his successors can enjoy today” (451). In some of the provinces, private members had even more leeway. See, for example, the vivid description of informal alignments which prevailed in the British Columbia legislature until the tum of the century, in Martin Robin, The Rush for Spoils: The Company Province, 1871-1933 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971).Google Scholar

18 The description is taken from Dawson, R. M. and Ward's, Norman useful summary of Canadian party development in The Government of Canada (5th ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970).Google Scholar

19 See Gibbons, Kenneth M. and Rowat, Donald C., Political Corruption in Canada: Cases, Causes and Cures (Ottawa: Carleton, 1976).Google Scholar I elaborate on the extension and impact of executive dominance in “Space, Function and Interest in the Canadian State,” in Dwivedi, O. P. (ed.), The Administrative State in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 107–29.Google Scholar

20 Pressure groups were more common than is generally recognized. Their development offers a rich field for exploration, as Bacchi, L. C. has demonstrated in Liberation Deferred (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983).Google Scholar

21 Clark, S. D., TheCanadian Manufacturers’ Association (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1939), 71–72.Google Scholar

22 See Galbraith, J. K., The New Industrial State (New York: Mentor, 1971)Google Scholar, and Economics and the Public Purpose (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1973).Google Scholar

23 See Coleman, William D. and Jacek, Henry J., “The Political Organization of the Chemical Industry in Canada,”Google Scholar paper presented to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Dalhousie University, May 1981, for an excellent, detailed survey of the complex interrelationships between industry and government in a single policy sector.

24 Sharp, Mitchell, “Decision-making in the Federal Cabinet,” Canadian Public Administration 19 (1976), 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mackintosh, the archetypical “mandarin,” served for many years in senior positions and is considered by many economists to be the .architect of Canada's postwar economic policy. He himself claimed authorship (“except two… paragraphs added by C. D. Howe”) of the White Paper on Employment and Income (1945) andof the ideas it incorporated. The White Paper was the keystone of Canadian economic policy for more than two decades. See Wilson, V. S., “Some Perspectives on Public Policy Analysis,” in Redekop, John H. (ed.), Approaches to Canadian Politics (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1978), 251–53.Google Scholar

25 The term is that used by the federal Royal Commission on the Organization of Government (Glassco Commission)-see its Report (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1962–64)Google Scholar, particularly volume I-and expresses more clearly than the terms “responsibility” and “accountability” the nature of the relationship between ministers and their departments. For many years ministers did literally run their departments, understood thoroughly the interpersonal conflicts which sometimes impeded policy, and did not hesitate to intervene in those conflicts.

26 See Granatstein, J. L., A Man of Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981)Google Scholar, and The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935–57(Toronto: Oxford, 1982);Google Scholar Christina Newman, McCall, Grits (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982);Google Scholar and Wilson, V. Seymour, “Mandarins and Kibitzers: Men in and around the Trenches of Power in Ottawa,” Canadian Public Administration 26 (1983), 446–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 For a general, though rather “whiggish,” survey of the period, see Robert Bothwell, Drummond, Ian, and English, John, Canada Since 1945: Power, Politics and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981).Google Scholar

28 Pross, A. Paul, “Prsssure Groups: Adaptive Instruments of Political Communication,” in Pross (ed.), Pressure Group Behaviour, 19–20.Google Scholar

29 Thompson, Fred and Stanbury, W. T., The Political Economy of Interest Groups in the Legislative Process in Canada (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1979), vii.Google Scholar

30 See, for example, the successive editions of Brian Land's Directory of Associations in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press);Google Scholar the seminars reported in Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982);Google Scholar and Bon, Daniel L., Lobbying: A Right? A Necessity? A Danger?(Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 1981).Google Scholar

31 Even so, there is a respectable literature on the subject. It is reviewed in A. Paul Pross, “From System to Serendipity: The Practice and Study of Public Policy in the Trudeau Years,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 520–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Even after the reforms discussed below this remained a problem, as it has elsewhere. Radwanski, for example, describes Prime Minister Trudeau's practice of paying little attention to policy1 fields to which he attached a low priority (Radwanski, G., Trudeau [Toronto: Macmillan, 1978], 179).Google Scholar

33 Described in Doem, G. Bruce and Aucoin, Peter (eds.), Public Policy in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1979);Google ScholarFrench, R., How Ottawa Decides (Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Economic Policy, 1980);Google Scholar and Campbell, Colin and Szablowski, George J., The Superbureaucrats: Structure and Behaviour in Central Agencies (Toronto: Macmillan, 1979).Google Scholar

34 See French, How Ottawa Decides; James Gillies, Where Business Fails: Business-Government Relations at the Federal Level in Canada (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1981);Google Scholar and Campbell, Colin, Governments Under Stress: Political Executives and Key Bureaucrats in Washington, London and Ottawa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983).Google Scholar

35 See French, How Ottawa Decides.

36 Gillies, Where Business Fails.

37 Some of the evidence supporting this position is referred to below and in the works by Gillies and French cited above. For more detailed and fully documented discussions.see the literature on accountability, particularly the Report of the Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability (Lambert Commission) (Ottawa, 1979), and the Reports of the Auditor General of Canada throughout the mid-1970s.

38 Quoted in a review of Bruce-Gardyne, J. and Lawson, N., The Power Game (London: Macmillan, 1976).Google Scholar

39 This is, of course, a judgment reflecting the literature cited above, particularly the Reports of the auditor-general (which repeatedly warned that government was not in control of the budgetary expenditure system) and the Lambert Commission (which tended to confirm the auditor general's criticism). A federal assistant deputy minister vividly expressed the same view to ajoumalist in 1975: “I always knew the politicians could never control the bureaucracy. But when you reach the point where the bureaucracy can't control the bureaucracy you know it's time to look for another job” (Sandra Gwyn, “Ottawa's Incredible Bureaucratic Explosion,” Saturday Night, August, 1975).

40 Hawkins, Freda, Canada and Immigration: Public Policy and Public Concern (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

41 See Kwavnick, David, Organized Labour and Pressure Politics (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

42 Lemieux, Vincent, “Administration et publics: leur probleme de communication,” Recherches sociographiques 16 (1973), 299–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 A point first noted by Anderson, J. E. (“Pressure Groups and Canadian Bureaucracy,” in Kernaghan, W. D. K. and Willms, A. M. [eds.], Public Administration in Canada: Selected Readings [Toronto: Methuen, 1970], 370–79)Google Scholar and generally accepted in most subsequent studies.

44 For a review of the Canadian literature on regulation, see Schultz, Richard, “Regulation and Public Administration,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 638–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Faulkner, J. Hugh, “Pressuring the Executive,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Gillies and Pigott, “Participation in the Legislative Process,” 268, 263.

47 Schultz, Richard J., Federalism, Bureaucracy and Public Policy: The Politics of Highway Transport Regulation (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1980), 188.Google Scholar In Andrew Roman's phrase, “the Government of Canada is secretly being run by persons earning no more than $20,000 a year” (“Comment,” in Neilson, and MacPherson, [eds.], The Legislative Process in Canada, 214).Google Scholar Roman reports being told “on more than one occasion by someone at the 'private' level that they were amazed or frightened at the ease with which their policy proposals (often in important areas in which they had no specialized knowledge or expertise, had only a little time to prepare, and did very superficial research) sailed through to the Cabinet level virtually unaltered” (215).

48 Pross, “From System to Serendipity,” 537.

49 Aucoin, “Pressure Groups and Recent Changes.” Forexample,in 1974 the Report of the president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers commented on the association's expanding lobbying activities (CAUT Bulletin, June 1, 1974). Within two years the association had hired a full-time “government liaison officer” and had combined with other associations to conduct a major blitz of MPs and officials with a view to combatting government plans to reduce university financing.

50 See Aucoin, “Pressure Groups and Recent Changes,” and the papers presented at the 1981 IPAC seminar on interest groups (Canadian Public Administration 25 [1982]Google Scholar, particularly Paltiel, Khayyam Z., “The Changing Environment and Role of Special Interest Groups,” 198–210, and A. Paul Pross, “Summary of Discussions,” 170–83).Google Scholar

51 Confidential letter.

52 Letter to “Ciné Phile,” M. Parson, Directeur, ONF, Paris, Dec. 6, 1982. These examples are addressed to individuals. Group support is also solicited, however, often publicly through speeches which call for “mobilization” or “joint efforts” to promote this or that policy.

53 By policy communities we mean the clustering of interest groups, associated agencies and interested and/or informed individuals around the agencies generally considered to be the key policy actors in a specific field of government activity. The concept is similar to, but more inclusive than, the American concept of the “subgovernment.” See Ripley, Randall B. and Franklin, Grace A., Congress: The Bureaucracy and Public Policy (Homewood, III.: Dorsey, 1976).Google Scholar

54 Quoted in Hawkins, Canada and Immigration, 312–13.

55 Macdonald, R. D. S., “Inshore Fishing Interests on the Atlantic Coast: Their Response to Extended Jurisdiction by Canada,” Marine Policy, July 1979, 171–89.Google Scholar

56 Faulkner, “Pressuring the Executive,” 248.

57 See, for example. Marc Lalonde, minister of national health and welfare, House of Commons. Debates (June 20, 1975), 6954 (daily edition).

58 For example, Environment Canada provides grants to groups willing to prepare information projects for Environment Week, in order to “further both [the Department's] objectives and the objectives of the environmentally concerned private citizen's action groups” (Information Services. Environment Canada. Atlantic Region, “Funding for… 1984 Environment Week Related Information Projects” [Halifax, mimeo., January, 1984]). The majority of Canadian academic associations are supported by direct grants (see the annual Reports of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), while others such as the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council receive both grants and contracts (APEC, Annual Reports). Faulkner (“Pressuring the Executive”) describes how the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and other groups have been assisted to participate in regulatory hearings.

59 Thus the federal government required that local groups be accorded participation in regional development planning. See Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act: Federal-Provincial Rural Development Agreement (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1965)Google Scholar, parts IV, VI and VIII.

60 Macdonald, “Inshore Fishing Interests.”

61 See Kwavnick, Organized Labour and Pressure Politics.

62 So, for example, Parks Canada maintains regular contact wilth conservation associations, various outdoor leisure groups, biologists and geographers. The Canadian Forestry Service policy community includes members of the forestry profession and their associations, forest industry groups, and so on.

63 See Clark, The Canadian Manufacturers’ Association; Lawrie, N. J., “The Canadian Construction Association: An Interest Group and Its Environment” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1976);Google Scholar and Hill, O. Mary, Canada's Salesman to the World (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

64 The term “legitimacy” as used in the following paragraphs refers to the extent to which the community at large acknowledges and supports the work of a particular institution. The terms “legitimation” and “legitimatingcapacity” refers to the ability of an institution to confer legitimacy on some other institution or on some claim or argument.

65 There are, of course, many who feel that parliament's standing in the community is at “an all time low” and therefore that the claim that parliament is “pre-eminent” is highly contentious. It is worth pointing out that while public regard for parliament may be unprecedentedly low, its respect for the other institutions of government appears to be even lower. On a less qualitative note, it is worth drawing attention to analysis by Kornberg, Clarke and Goddard of Canadian Institute of Public Opinion polls concerning attitudes toward parliament. The polls indicate, they argue, “that the position of Members of Parliament is held in great esteem by the public… The mean score for parliamentary office (82.3) was exceeded only by those for the Prime Minister (86.3) and the police (83.3).” Civil servants, the Governor General and the Queen scored much lower (68.4, 61.3, and 57.8, respectively). On the other hand, respondents were much less complimentary in their assessment of the work of Parliamentarians, leading the authors to conclude that the institution of parliament, rather than its then current membership and accomplishments, had very broad public support. See Kornberg, Allan, Clarke, Harold D. and Goddard, Arthur, “Parliament and the Representational Process in Contemporary Canada,” in Clark, et al. (eds.), Parliament, Policy and Representation, 9–10.Google Scholar

66 In this context it is useful to read Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum, Sociologie de I'État (Paris: Grasset, 1982).Google Scholar

67 Provincial regimes may also rival Ottawa's claims to legitimacy, and in areas of shared or contested jurisdiction this rivalry would certainly affect public perceptions of legitimacy. On the other hand, where either one level of government or the other has clear jurisdiction over a specific policy field, one would expect the responsible legislature to possess pre-eminent legitimacy in that field.

68 We see policy formulation as part of the culminating stage of policy determination. It involves the bringing about of compromises between rival interests and the ultimate selection of alternatives. Both of these are functions which engage the political responsibility of the executive and so properly belong to the prime minister and cabinet. Policy formulation also involves the precise delineation of policy, a task that is best left to the bureaucracy, duly supervised by the executive.

The role of language in determining the power relationships of policy actors is often commented on. See, for example, Leo Panitch, “The Development of Corporatism in Liberal Democracies,” Comparative Political Studies 10 (1977), 61–90;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Chevalier, J., “Un nouveau sens de 1'etat et du service publique,” in Baecque, F. de and Quermonne, J. L. (eds.), Administration et Politique sons la Cinquieme Republique (Paris, 1981), 188.Google Scholar

69 An argument very close to the “level of conflict” one presented by Schattschneider, E. E. in The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960)Google Scholar, and the “search for consensus” argument presented by Richardson and Jordan, Governing Under Pressure.

70 As we have suggested, apart from the legitimacy they derive from subordination to the cabinet, Canadian federal agencies have very limited standing and credibility. Like their American counterparts they cannot avail themselves of the status of the state itself. Furthermore, despite their professional competence, public servants are not held in high esteem by the general public, which tends to look askance at experts and to applaud such sophorisms as “civil servants should be on tap, not on top.” This is not a topic discussed at length in the literature, though some useful insight is to be gained from the 1969 Report of the Task Force on Government Information, To Know and Be Known (Ottawa, 1979)Google Scholar, especially “National Opinion Survey,” Vol. 2, chap. 4, 47–89; and Zussman, David, “The Image of the Public Service in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 63–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 See footnotes 37 and 39 above. It is interesting to note a content analysis of the Winnipeg Free Press that indicates that during the 1970s the paper shifted editorial concern from cabinet and parliament to the bureaucracy. See Kornberg, Allan and Wolfe, Judith D., “Parliament, the Media and the Polls,” in Clarke et al. (eds.), Parliament, Policy and Representation, 46.Google Scholar See also the Globe and Mail (Toronto), July 15, 1982, 1;Google ScholarMacDonald, Marci, et al., “The Money Wasters,” Maclean's, December 15, 1975;Google ScholarHartle, Douglas, “Refugees from Ottawa: Five Public Servants and Why They Left,” Saturday Night, March 1976;Google ScholarStead, Gordon W., “The Federal Bureaucracy and Canadian Disunity,” in Feldman, Elliot J. and Nevitte, Neil (eds.), The Future of North America: Canada, the United States and Quebec Nationalism(Cambridge/Montreal:Harvard Center for International Affairs and Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1979), 213–35;Google Scholar and MacDonald, Flora, “The Minister and the Mandarins,” Policy Options, September/October 1980.Google Scholar

72 Faulkner, “Pressuring the Executive,” 252–53.

73 Canadian Bar Association, Report… on the Reform of Parliament, vii.

74 Thorburn, “Pressure Groups in Canadian Politics,” and Faulkner, “Pressuring the Executive,” 251.

75 Stanbury, W. T., “Lobbying and Interest Group Representation in the Legislative Process,” in Neilson and MacPherson (eds.), The Legislative Process in Canada, 195.Google Scholar

76 The 1980–1981 figures are presented in Faulkner, “Pressuring the Executive,” 251; and those for 1966–1967 in M. Rush, “The Development of the Committee System in the Canadian House of Commons-Reassessment and Reform,” The Parliamentarian 55 (1974), 153.Google Scholar

77 See Rush, “The Development ofthe Committee System,” 154. By 1968–1969 the effect of the procedural reform, and of the election of a prime minister who had campaigned on a platform encouraging participation, was registered in the fact that 1,666 witnesses appeared before House committees. In 1969–1970,1,951 appeared. For discussions of committee impact on draft legislation, see, among others, Friedland, M. L., “pressure Groups and the Development of the Criminal Law,” in Glazebrook, P. R. (ed.), Reshaping the Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of Glanville Williams (London: Stevens, 1978);Google ScholarButler, D. B., “The Adequacy of Committee Consideration of Legislation: The Case of BillC-183,” in Satauri, J. P. and Hurley, J. R., The Canadian House of Commons Observed (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1979);Google ScholarHunter, G. W. C., “The Role ofthe Member of Parliament and the Standing Committees ofthe House of Commons” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Acadia University, 1982);Google Scholar and Rush, M., “Committees in the Canadian House of Commons,”Google Scholar in Lees, John D. and Shaw, Malcolm, Committees in Legislatures: A Comparative Perspective (Durham: Duke University Press. 1979), 191–241.Google Scholar

78 Bulloch, John F., “A View from a Special Interest Group,” in Bon, Lobbying, 12.Google Scholar

79 “The Committee Track Record: A Limited Pay-off,” Parliamentary Government 3 (1983), 9.Google Scholar

80 According to Weir, R. A., “From 1965 to 1967, the period of intensive public debate over the Medicaid [sic]Google Scholar programme, national officials of the CMA met physician-MPs informally only once and did not meet any larger group of MPs at all” (“Federalism, Interest Groups and Parliamentary Government: The Canadian Medical Associa tion,” Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies 11 [1973], 165).Google Scholar

81 “The Committee Track Record,” 9.

82 Ibid., 10.

83 “A View From a Special Interest Group,” 13.

84 As our earlier comments have implied, the bureaucracy's search for legitimating support by no means focussed exclusively on parliament. Massive public relations campaigns directed at the public at large; experimentation with representative bureaucracy; efforts to reconstitute traditional patterns of accountability; and a greater part of the work undertaken to create and/or enlarge policy communities, all impinge on parliament's role, but appear to have been designed to influence public opinion in general. Some of these ventures, in fact, may eventually challenge parliament. Corporatist arrangements or even policy communities fully representative of policy sectors could fall into that category.

85 See Doerr, Audrey, “Parliamentary Accountability and Legislative Potential,” in Clarke et al. (eds.), Parliament. Policy and Representation, 144–60.Google Scholar

86 Nord, Douglas C., “MPs and Senators as Middlemen:Google Scholar The Special Joint Committee on Immigration Policy,” in Clarke et al. (eds.), Parliament, Policy and Representation, 181–94. Similar governmental attempts (involving the constitutional revisions, national energy policy changes and the established programmes financing proposals of 1981–1982) to make use of the legitimating capacity of parliament are described by Audrey Doerr, in “Public Administration: Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations,” Canadian Public Administration 25 (1982), 564–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

87 Gibson, Gordon F., in Neilson, and MacPherson, (eds.), The Legislative Process in Canada, 59.Google Scholar

88 Hanson, A. H., “The Purpose of Parliament,” Parliamentary Affairs 17 (1964), 279–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This article is treated here as reasonably representative of the literature.

89 See, for example. Gillies and Pigott, “Participation in the Legislative Process”; Faulkner. “Pressuring the Executive”; and Kathryn Randle. “Committees at the Crossroads: Will Innovation Lead to Reform?” Parliamentary Government 2 (1981), 3.Google Scholar

90 Canadian Bar Association, Report.…on the Reform of Parliament, 29–30. The CBA committee pointed out that not all the task forces had had as much success with their recommendations.

91 This is consistent with John Stewart's observation that further reform of the committee system would not see the committees make more decisions, but rather would provide that “the governors and members would meet on the issues of the times and do so before the governors had decided what they, under the full weight of their responsibility, must recommend to the House” (The Canadian House of Commons, 283).

92 It is tempting to speculate on the further evolution of both parliament and interest groups under the Mulroney government, which came to power after these comments were written. Despite Mulroney's attempts to constrain public servants' communications with the media in the weeks immediately following his election, it is probable that the norms of behaviour developed in the public service during the Liberal years will reassert themselves once his government is settled in office. Mulroney's frank recognition of interest group participation in policy discussions will, if anything, encourage the further development of more open relations between groups, agencies and parliament. Much will depend on whether the government will continue the use of task forces and on whether it will be able to halt or reverse the diffusion of power.