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Speaking with confidence

I thought that this week I would give a little background into the procedure of non-confidence votes. The issue arose recently in Manitoba as NDP Premier Greg Selinger faced a motion of non-confidence in the Legislature.
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I thought that this week I would give a little background into the procedure of non-confidence votes. The issue arose recently in Manitoba as NDP Premier Greg Selinger faced a motion of non-confidence in the Legislature. "Confidence" is linked directly to our Westminster model of government and it plays a critical role in ensuring a check on the power of the Prime Minister or, in this case, the Premier.

In order to explain confidence I will draw on a quotation from a well-known political science text. Here the authors are referring to the Federal government but the principles remain the same at the provincial level. Dickerson and Flanagan say, "In the parliamentary process, the lifeblood of the government is party loyalty. For its tenure the government depends not just on the support of the electorate at election time but also on its ability to maintain a majority on the floor of the House of Commons. In other words, the exercise of power hinges on the government's ability to maintain the confidence of the House. The idea of confidence is rooted in the principle of responsible government, which makes the cabinet responsible to the House of Commons. Every legislative proposal made by the government must go to the floor of the House. As long as these proposals are supported by a majority of those voting, the government enjoys the confidence of the House and is ruling "responsibly"."

To make my explanation easier to follow, I am going to refer here to the election of a Premier and the workings of the Provincial legislatures. As most voters are aware, a Premier is not elected directly by the electorate. A Premier becomes a Premier when the political party he/she leads wins the most seats in a general election. And, in fact, this is not a given but rather an accepted practice. The Lieutenant Governor actually appoints the Premier but the common convention is to appoint the leader of the party that won the most seats. Thus after a general election we end up with either a majority government in which the political party with the most seats has obtained more than half of the available seats in the Legislature or a minority government in which one party has the most seats but not more than half of the number available. The Manitoba Legislature has 57 seats. The Manitoba NDP party won 36 of the 57 and therefore the NDP has a majority government.

Every time that a proposal for legislation is made (whether or not it is a government proposal or a proposal by the opposition) it must be voted on in the Legislature. So votes on legislation are votes of confidence but a vote of confidence can also be brought to the floor as a way of challenging the sitting government. Generally, but not always, failed confidence votes lead to the dissolution of Parliament and, most often, to a new election. Mostly, the legislation must be considered "important" enough to trigger dissolution.

So why is the confidence vote so critical? And why does a vote of non-confidence lead to such a dramatic outcome? The answer to this is in the numbers. In the case of a majority government, in order for the governing party to lose a vote, members of their own party would need to vote against the government. The central idea of the Westminster model is that the government is chosen because they can maintain confidence in the House. The Lieutenant Governor is choosing the Premier based on the assumption that he/she will be able to move legislation forward in the House. Failure to bring one's own party members to the party (pun intended) is seen as failing to achieve responsible government. In the case of a minority government, the same rule applies and thus the Premier must ensure that enough members of other parties vote along with government.

One might assume that the opposition parties in minority government situations may want to bring down the government over trivial matters so that they can get another chance at the polls. Yet history shows that non-confidence votes are taken as serious matters and that driving the electorate back into an election is not a choice made lightly.

In the case of Greg Selinger it seems that while some of his own party members are questioning his leadership they are not willing to take down the government as a way to push Selinger from the Premier's seat.