Know How They Vote

October 30 was a dismal day for transparency in Nova Scotia.

After going through the Law Amendments Committee with no amendments, Bills 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 15, 16, 25, 27, 34, 40 all passed Third Reading. Not one of these final votes was recorded in Hansard. Citizens have no objective record of how their local MLA voted on any of these Bills.

The total number of unrecorded votes now sits at 39. That compares with 4 recorded votes, all of which were recorded for either political reasons or tradition.

It is quite obvious that MLAs simply don’t see, or don’t care, that unrecorded votes represent a loss of transparency for citizens. Nova Scotians from one end of the Province to the other must begin to educate their MLA by writing, phoning and e-mailing them on this issue. Know How They Vote has launched a communication campaign to help facilitate that.

Charlie Parker, Speaker of the Legislature has indicated that he intends to call the Committee on Assembly Matters in a “resonable period of time.” Let us make sure that we remind him to do so.

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This House has sat for 29 days. In 29 days, 25 Bills have passed through Second Reading without one recorded vote. In 29 days, 52 MLAs have chosen not to act to bring accountability and transparency to the Legislature.

It is clear that we cannot rely on simply the good will of MLAs to make change in the House. What is needed is a thorough and public review of the Rules and Procedures of the Nova Scotia Legislature. Currently, the rules are against recorded votes; recorded votes are not the default method of voting and they can take up to one hour each. It is understandable, although not acceptable, that MLAs have not been more active in pushing for recorded votes

The Committee on Assembly Matters is mandated with the following task:

The Committee is established to and may examine the rules, procedures, practices, organization and facilities of the House of Assembly and may recommend the provision of support services and facilities for the Members and such examination shall include, but not be limited to, the
following matters:

(a) the Rules and Forms of Procedure of the House of Assembly; and

(b) such matters as are accepted for examination by the Committee upon the request of the House, a committee of the House, a member of the Committee or a member of the House.

Despite the vital role this Committee plays in making sure that the ideals of democracy, accountability and efficiency are represented in the House, it has not met since April 2005. The time for a thorough review of the Rules governing the Nova Scotia Legislature is long overdue.

Today, I have asked the Honourable Charlie Parker, Chair of the Committee on Assembly Matters, to summon the Committee to meet at the earliest possible time. I have also asked him to ensure that the public will have access to the deliberations of the Committee and may be allowed to participate in them.

In order for this to work, we need to show MLAs that there is a public desire to review and change the practices of the Legislature. The MLAs that compose this committee are:

Hon. Charlie Parker                   Mr. Gary Ramey
Hon. Frank Corbett                    Mr. H. Dave Wilson
Mr. David Wilson                       Ms. Diana Whalen
Ms. Vicki Conrad                        Hon. Murray Scott
Mr. Mat Whynott                       Hon. Cecil Clarke

Please write to these Members and tell them that you demand a review of the Rules and Practices of the House of Assembly.

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I have added the 4 recorded votes for October 19 and 20.

Paul MacEwan, a former MLA and Speaker of the Legislature, replied to my letter to the editor in the Cape Breton Post. Read his response, and my counter-response, here.

In light of the politicization of recorded votes on October 19, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to Murray Scott, PC Party House Leader. Read it here.

Read below for commentary on the recent recorded votes.

I am so very encouraged by the tremendous outpour of support in favour of this campaign! Continue to tell you friends, family and colleagues about why this is important and change will come!

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On Monday, I was shocked to turn on the live stream of the Legislature sitting to see “A Recorded Vote has been requested; Bells sounding for recorded vote.”  If that weren’t enough, within 4 hours there had been 2 more recorded votes.

Had my lobbying actually worked? Was the system responding? Were MLAs finally standing up for accountability in the Legislature?

…Not really.

The first recorded vote was driven by politics. The PC Party, frustrated with the NDP Government’s budget, wanted to delay the passage of the budget and so they demanded a recorded vote on a very procedural and routine motion to close debate. One staff member at the Clerk’s office told me that he hadn’t seen a vote on this sort of matter in his 30+ years in the Legislature. So, the PC Party delayed the vote on the budget by taking the full hour allotted for parties to gather their members for the recorded vote on adjournment.

The second and third votes were more substantial, but not path-breaking. First was the motion that the House concur with the Committee of the Whole House on Supply. This is essentially a prerequisite motion needed in order to pass the Budget. Second was the Appropriations Act, 2009, which approves the spending of budget money for the public service. I can confidently say that MLAs did not demand recorded votes on these matters because of this campaign…if you look at the recorded votes for the 59th and 60th General Assemblies, at least half of them were motions to concur with the supply committee and the appropriations act. I suppose it has become tradition to record these votes, for whatever reason.

So, while we now have a total of 4 recorded votes in the 61st General Assembly (the fourth being the Appropriations Act at Third Reading), we are not witnessing positive change in favour of accountable representation…instead, we are seeing business and politics as usual in the Legislature.

While these votes were being recorded, Bills 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 29 (29 being the Budget Bill) all passed Second Reading with non-recorded votes. That means that the actual issues…the Province’s finances, changes to drunk driving laws, and a host of other issues that affect our lives were passed without a written record of which MLAs supported the bill and which MLAs opposed.

I’m glad the politicians had their fun with recorded votes on Tuesday. Maybe next time they can try using them for the right reasons.

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Over the weekend, I tried to contact all candidates running in the Inverness and Antigonish byelections to ask them their opinions on whether MLAs should be recording their votes in the House, and if they were elected would they push for recorded votes. Here are the results:

Ian McNeil (Liberal-Inverness):

“…on the recording of votes in the legislature: as someone who was involved in journalism I believe transparency is paramount in making those decisions and I would do everything I can to forward that.”

“…I think every vote should be recorded. I think everything we do is on the record. I have a deeply engrained understanding of what on the record and off the record means as a jouranlist, and I support that kind of transparency.”

Allan MacMaster (PC-Inverness):

“I’m not afraid of it.”

“I don’t like making commitments like that before an election.”

Nathalie Arsenault (Green-Inverness):

“I think it is a good idea. I think it is more transparent, more democratic. Obviously if the entire riding has voted in a particular individual they want to make sure that they are voting in their interests, and they need to be held accountable.”

“Yes, I would”

Miles Tompkins (Liberal – Antigonish)

“It sounds good. I don’t know if the votes are probably determined in caucus before they are in the House.”

“I think you’d have a hard time with that with the way party politics works.”

“I know it’s sad, but democracy is not perfect.”

“To be honest, I don’t think I could make that promise and I’m sorry for that.”

Darren Thomson (PC-Antigonish)

“I have no problem supporting that. After all, everything that we do is for the people of Antigonish.”

“Yes, I don’t have a problem with that. I’d have to learn about the procedure of the Legislature anyway so I don’t see why I couldn’t.”

(NDP candidates Bert Lewis (Inverness) and Maurice Smith (Antigonish) could not be reached for comment)

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On Friday, MLAs of the 61st General Assembly had two choices. One was to stand up for accountability and democracy and demand that all votes on Bill 1 be recorded in Hansard. The other was to be fine stewards of the status quo and carry on with the damaging practice of non-recorded, non-accountable votes in the House. Regrettably, they chose the latter.

The votes for Second Reading of Bills 1 to amend the Motor Vehicle Act, come after waves of letters and e-mails to Nova Scotia MLAs appealing to them to change the voting behaviour of the House in the name of accountability.

Under House rules, any two MLAs may demand a recorded roll-call vote immediately before the vote is to be held.

The democratic deficit in Nova Scotia is growing. With every unrecorded vote in the Legislature, our MLAs get farther and farther away from our control. It must not continue.

I remain optimistic, however, that there a few good eggs in the Legislature that can listen to reason and stand up for accountability. Before that happens, letters must be written, offices must be called and the media must pay attention. If you want to get involved, please e-mail me at michael.kennedy@live.ca.

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