The Comeback Story Business Recovery in the USA and Canada

Accountability is not a term commonly associated with the Westminster system's executive branch. This is not a new prejudice—more than a century ago, Walter Bagehot said that an English minister "may wield his authority…with as little chance of being called to account as an Eastern despot or French emperor"—but it is a persistent one. This mindset is particularly noticeable among legal analysts and political scientists, and in his most recent book, Ian Brodie wryly imitated the common perception of an isolated and powerful executive: "Canada's prime minister is a dictator. The Canadian government's Sun KingHe governs with the assistance of a few hand-picked advisors or 'courtiers,' much like Zeus soaring in the clouds, hurling lightning bolts from on high into government agencies."Such graphic depictions of government authority underestimate the executive's complexity and the several levels of responsibility. Far from being unaccountable, a government in the modern Westminster system is surrounded by accountability mechanisms on all sides: it cannot think, let alone act, without considering how it will be held accountable for its decisions in a variety of ways to a variety of institutional actors and political constituencies. Bagehot was wrong. No "Eastern despot or French emperor" has ever had to face the opposition at the despatch box or manage a bank of microphones and cameras on his route to his automobile while embroiled in a scandal. Although accountability measures can be classified in a variety of ways, they can be split into two major categories

formal mechanisms of responsible government and less formal 

processes known as responsive government. The normalisation of "virtual" parliament undermines both types of accountability, particularly the subtle processes of responsive government that rely on private, personal encounters between MPs.Few components of the Westminster system have been more discussed, dissected, and debated than the notion of responsible government, so I'll simply touch on it briefly before focusing on the ignored and underappreciated benefits of responsive governance. In a classic work on responsible government, Anthony Birch distinguished three ways in which a government can be considered "responsible": it should be "responsive to public opinion," "prudent and consistent" in its pursuit of policy, and "accountable to the representatives of the electors." All three connotations of the word apply to representative government, but only the third is specific to parliamentary government since it embodies the principle by which ministers are held individually and collectively accountable to Parliament. The combination of the House's role in creating (and unforming) government with the executive's capacity to dissolve Parliament provides the concept of responsible governance bite. These abilities, when combined, ensure that the cabinet and Parliament work together despite the constant and chastening prospect of dissolution by one or both.

The partial integration of executive and legislative functions 

within Parliament allows Parliament to withdraw its confidence, which Bagehot referred to as our system's "efficient secret." If the cabinet were not embedded within Parliament, Parliament's withholding of confidence or supply would result in a standoff with the executive, similar to what we see in presidential systems, with no possibility of forming a new administration. In contrast, the partial fusion of the parliamentary system forces both branches to collaborate in a process that holds the administration accountable in real time. Unlike in a presidential system, where the executive is only held accountable intermittently through elections, a Westminster government is always indirectly accountable to Parliament, where it is constantly scrutinized by members sitting across from, and sometimes behind, it. This encourages a government to be responsive between elections, rather than only in advance of them. To survive, a government must constantly alter its agenda and policies to reflect the shifting preferences of the legislature. To act, it must persuade the legislature or consent to it.This brings us to the concept of responsive government, which I define as the informal ways in which governments are influenced by the legislature—particularly, but not exclusively, by members of its own party—as well as the electorate between elections. Responsible government is a public exercise of authority that adheres to established (although periodically disputed) formal protocols, whereas responsive government acts informally and typically away from the floor of the House of Commons. 

However, the contrast between responsible and responsive 

is not as straightforward as the distinction between what happens in public and what happens in private, or between what is written down (in the constitution, statute, or convention) and what must be read between the lines of the law. Although these distinctions are frequently associated with responsible and responsive government, it is their interdependence that is most important. To put it another way, if responsible government is the premise that a government and its ministers must preserve the House's trust, responsive government is the practice of doing so.The activity of responsive government is occasionally reported in the media, but these accounts are frequently misleading because responsive government makes strategic use of the media as part of its informal processes. What is printed is frequently what one or more parties in the private process wish to make public. To truly comprehend responsive government, one must be familiar with what transpires in the government lobby, cabinet chamber, Parliamentary hallways, and prime minister's office, as well as over drinks in the capital's pubs, restaurants, and private drawing rooms. This requires a look at less traditional sources such as political memoirs, private diaries, biographies, and interviews with retired politicians and civil personnel. It is not required to credit the specifics of individual revelations to remark that stories of back-room politics frequently demonstrate how, when responsible government connects the executive and legislative branches, responsive government offers the ligaments that allow for effective joint action. It is also clear that permitting legislators to work remotely from their homes across thirteen provinces and six time zones would significantly limit this task.