You elected a member, not a party

Recently I wrote about Question Period and the four MLAs who sit outside the recognized parties. One of them asks three questions nearly every sitting day. The others get a turn once a week, or less. The House leaders of the larger parties work out that order among themselves, and members without a House leader have nobody at the table.

A lot of readers took from that piece that a member who can’t get a question can’t do much at all. That isn’t so, and it isn’t so for MLAs inside a party either.

I know from experience. In three years as a Manitoba MLA, first as a government backbencher and then as an independent, I was never reached in the regular Question Period rotation. I got one question on June 6, 2018, during an emergency sitting held outside the normal schedule. I told the House that day, “In over two years this is my first question.”

I still had plenty to say. I spoke on bills and made members’ statements. As an independent I raised more than 80 points of order and matters of privilege, by the Speaker’s own count, and some of those rulings went against me fairly. I refused leave when the government wanted to change the day’s business without telling me first. In June 2016 I raised the fact that the Chamber wasn’t accessible to a member in a wheelchair. Fifteen months later the floor had been raised and a ramp built.

I didn’t need anyone’s permission for any of it.

An MLA is elected by the people of one constituency. The party helps, sometimes a great deal, but the party doesn’t take the oath. Once sworn in, every MLA has rights under the rules of the Assembly, and those rights come with the seat, not the party card.

Every MLA, in a party or not, can:

• put five written questions to the government each session, which a minister must answer within 30 days
• name one private member’s bill that’s guaranteed a vote
• move one resolution of their own
• give one 10-minute grievance on any subject
• ask the House to set aside its business for an urgent matter
• make members’ statements, present petitions and question the government on its bills
• call for a recorded vote, with names beside the result
• refuse unanimous consent

A whip can ask a member not to use these. A whip can’t take them away.

So why are they used so little? Partly because nobody tells new members they exist. There’s no manual for a new MLA, and certainly none for one who suddenly finds himself outside his caucus. Partly because it’s easier to go along. A backbencher who files a written question the leader’s office didn’t approve will hear about it.

Using the tools the House provides isn’t disloyalty. It’s the job. A party that can’t cope with its own members asking questions in writing has a bigger problem than the question.

Fixing this needs three groups to do their part.

Parties should ease up on discipline. A government doesn’t fall because a backbencher asks a minister something in writing, or votes against a bill that hurts his riding. Treating every independent thought as a threat makes a party weaker.

MLAS should step up. The job is more than voting with the whip and turning up for ribbon cuttings. It means using every tool the House provides for the people who elected them.

And the media should cover what members actually do. When a backbencher introduces a bill or presses their own minister, the story is the bill. It isn’t automatically a party in chaos. If every independent act gets reported as a revolt, members learn to keep their heads down.

If everyone does their own job, democracy works better, and none of it requires changing a single rule.

Twice a week until the House rises on November 5, I’ll take one of these tools at a time: what the rule says, how I used it, and who’s using it now. Next up, the five written questions, and how many actually get asked.

Ask your MLA: Have you filed your five written questions this session?

The Hon. Steven Fletcher is a former Member of Parliament, federal cabinet minister and Manitoba MLA.