The Friendly Dictatorship

David E. Smith is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan. He is the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents, The Invisible Crown, and Republican Option in
Canada, Past and Present.

The dustjacket of The Friendly Dictatorship is arresting. Under the
title, a jovial Jean Chrétien, bemedaled in a braided white uniform, is
seen doffing his peaked cap to ... whom? Perhaps crowds gathered in a
sweltering square before a beaux-arts presidential palace? The picture
is anachronistic, since whatever powers the Canadian prime minister may
lay claim to, military authority is not one of them.

That retouched photograph on the cover heralds a synthetic argument
inside. The book’s core thesis is that Canada’s prime minister, and
especially the present occupant of the office, is too powerful. In
Simpson’s words, he is at once an “imperial prime minister” and a
“Sun King.” The referents are familiar, as is the evidence.

Through control of the prerogative, the prime minister distributes
patronage—and Canada’s is a system that depends much upon
appointment. More than that, he regulates the flow and access to
information. Thanks to party discipline, his backbenchers are reduced to
a chorus of approval and his ministers to a focus group. No one can
challenge the PM, least of all the opposition parties. The best chapter
in this five-chapter book is the depiction Simpson offers of the other
four parties in Parliament individually shooting themselves in their
respective feet. Public disinterest in politics, graphically seen in the
decline of voter turnout, is but one aspect of civic disengagement in
general. Interest groups and litigants wax but parties wane.

The Friendly Dictatorship is a marvel of synopsis: anyone unfamiliar
with the last decade of Canadian politics could do no better than to
read this book. Curiously, for a book dressed in Latin American finery,
the text is neither passionate nor argumentative. For all the colorful
package, the content is pure Canadian in its sensibilities and balance.