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The Staying Power of the Legislative Status Quo: Collective Choice in Canada's Parliament after Morgentaler

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Thomas Flanagan
Thomas Flanagan
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Abstract

Rational choice theory has drawn attention to the phenomenon of structure-induced equilibrium in situations of potential cycling. When there is no majority, first preference or Condorcet winner, the outcome is determined by agenda control and institutional rules of decision making. Within that context, the status quo has a special advantage because of the parliamentary amendment procedure, in which the status quo, as the default option to the bill in formal form, is not voted upon until the last stage. The unsuccessful attempts of the Canadian government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to respond legislatively to the Supreme Court's Morgentaler decision illustrate these general principles of rational choice. The government was unable to get legislation passed because, with cyclical configurations of opinion in both the House of Commons and the Senate, institutional rules, especially the order of voting required by the parliamentary amendment procedure, favoured the status quo.

Résumé

La théorie des choix rationnels a attiré l'attention sur le phénomène de l'équilibre induit par la structure dans des situations où l'agencement des préférences peut potentiellement mener à un cycle. Lorsqu'il n'y a pas de préférence majoritaire ou d'option gagnante selon les critères de Condorcet, le résultat est déterminé par le contrôle de l'agenda et par les règies de prise de décision institutionalisées. Dans ce contexte, le statu quo est favorisé puisque, dans la procédure parlementaire d'amendement, le statu quo demeure l'option gagnante par défaut jusqu'à l'adoption du projet de loi dans sa forme définitive, et aucun vote n'est tenu sur cette option avant la toute fin des procédures. Les tentatives infructueuses du gouvemement canadien du Premier ministre Brian Mulroney de faire adopter une loi qui aurait répondu à la décision de la Cour suprême dans la cause Morgentaler fournissent une illustration de ces principes généraux de l'approche des choix rationnels. La raison pour laquelle le gouvernement a été incapable de faire adopter une loi suite à ce jugement tient à la configuration cyclique des opinions, tant à la Chambre des Communes qu'au Sénat. Dans les deux cas, les règies institutionelles, en particulier l'ordonnancement des votes requis par la procédure parlementaire d'amendement, donnaient un avantage certain au maintien du statu quo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 31 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1997

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References

1 The impact of Morgentaler upon the practical status quo is harder to describe because funding arrangements and the availability of abortion clinics vary considerably from province to province. However, time series data suggest that the decision did, in practice, help to make abortion more common. Statistics Canada calculates an index called “rate of known voluntary interruptions of pregnancy per 1,000 women aged 13 to 44.” From a value of 7.3 in 1971, this index reached a pre-Morgentaler peak of 12.1 in 1982. In the three years prior to Morgentaler, it was 10.8, 10.7 and 10.7. It increased to 11.0 in 1988, to 11.6 in 1989 and to a new peak of 14.0 in 1990. In the same period, the reported number of abortions performed in the United States upon Canadian women fell from 2,757 in 1987 to 1,573 in 1990, so the increase in the rate of voluntary interruptions of pregnancy had to be due to abortions performed in Canada (Statistics Canada, Report on the Demographic Situation in Canada 1992: Current Demographic Analysis [Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1992], 56).Google Scholar

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