If the House of Commons is the most public space in Parliament, then the parties’ caucus meetings are the most private. Only MPs, Senators and senior political staff attend caucus meetings; the public service, media, and the general public are forbidden entry. Caucus is in many ways the “belly of the beast”—the space where MPs are closest to their party.
But if the party directed the MPs’ actions on the floor of the House, then it was in caucus that MPs said they had a chance to direct their party.
In caucus meetings, the MPs told us they were able to engage and debate with their party colleagues and leaders, raise constituents’ concerns and, through coalition building with their fellow MPs, push local issues onto the national stage.
One MP, who chaired a caucus committee while his party was in government, explained how cabinet ministers presented potential legislation to caucus before it went to cabinet. “A Minister [would] appear before our committee and talk the idea through. If it had merit, then I would sign off that [the MPs] were comfortable with the legislation,” he said.
Several Liberal MPs described how they used caucus to advance local policy concerns in Ottawa. Their caucus structure included sub-caucuses representing regions, demographics and industry sectors. MPs used the sub-caucuses to build coalitions, pushing issues up through the party’s hierarchy. As one MP put it, “the route to change is through the internal caucus system.”
Another MP explained how the process worked. “I was in the Central Ontario caucus. We had more areas in common, so we would meet and report to the Ontario caucus. Then Ontario would report to national caucus. Along the way you’re trying to pick allies so that when the Ontario chair was speaking to the PM, he could say, ‘Ontario feels that this little issue in my riding that I was worried about is an issue.’”
MPs also created sub-caucuses to deal with emerging issues. One MP, concerned with cuts to post-secondary education in the 1990s, initiated a group comprised of MPs with universities in their ridings that helped secure greater federal support for these institutions. “There were upwards of 30 of us in it, either because of interest or because of their ridings, particularly the Maritime ridings where the people locally see universities as economic drivers. We [advised] the higher education
and research community on how to cope with the cuts, and how to take advantage of the changes. Some terrific changes came through,” he said.
Unlike the scripted, often empty rhetoric on display in the House, many MPs said that inside caucus meetings, differences of opinion were valued.
“[Caucus] was probably the most stimulating part of my career,” one Liberal MP reflected. “When I got to Ottawa, I went to my first caucus meeting and the debate was so intense I turned to a colleague and said, ‘Is it always like this?’”
A Conservative MP expressed a similar sentiment. “There was an emphasis on the fact that your membership in the caucus really made a difference. Your voice was counted, and we would spend exhaustive times with individual members at the microphone to argue and debate. There was a great variance of opinion,” he said.
Despite many examples of constructive caucus work, some MPs acknowledged that much depended on their leader’s management style. One MP spoke of how a leadership change altered his caucus. “For a long time, I was part of a party that encouraged that kind of [inclusive] approach. Collectively we would come to a consensus, and the leader would take guidance. I don’t think in our caucus [now] there is quite that emphasis anymore. It’s more top-down,” he said.
Notwithstanding the MPs’ recognition that caucus could serve as a place to pursue constructive goals, the fact that so many MPs told us that they were uncomfortable speaking to or voting for legislation suggests that many issues were not properly raised or debated in caucus. This may be partially the result of time pressures.
“You discuss, and discuss and discuss, but there’s no consensus. But the leader has to leave for the media scrum...and so he would say, ‘We’re going to make a consensus on this, this and this. All agreed?’ We didn’t have time to discuss it. And that’s consensus,” one MP said.
However, the unease that many MPs expressed in following their political party’s direction may also suggest deeper underlying problems with the processes of Parliamentary decision making, and MPs’ role in it.