Good Government? Good Citizens? Courts, Politics and Markets in a Changing Canada by W.A. Bogart. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005
Reviewed by Mike Hogeterp*
In Good Government? Good Citizens? W.A. Bogart provides a thoughtful analysis of the drama of social and political change in Canada over the last several decades.
He begins by noting a dilemma: Canadians live with realities of growing rights and Charter consciousness; expanding power of market forces; and a long term slide in public confidence in representative government to work for the common good. As a result citizenship in Canada has been distilled to the bearing of rights and the consuming of goods. This book is a detailed and nuanced explanation of the forces that shaped this thinning of citizenship.
The decline of representative politics?
University of Windsor law professor Bogart explains that courts and markets become symbols of mistrust in representative government. Rights claims under the Charter have become a major instrument for the pursuit of social change – much of it contesting government policy. On the market side, the debts of activist governments and increasing globalization have planted seeds of doubt that governments can build consensus on the common good effectively and independently.
So progressive supporters of broad Charter rights on one side of the political spectrum and free marketers on the other side find themselves in a curious alliance as “devout worshippers at the temple of choice.”
The Charter and the Courts, and the market are often separately accused as the cause of the decline of politics in Canada. Bogart’s claim that both have chipped away at the credibility of popular governments is, I think, a perceptive and balanced diagnosis.
Bogart provides surveys of the influence of rights talk, market logic and choice in Aboriginal issues, internet populism, education and senior’s policy – all of which are a perceptive commentary on a developing political culture. I appreciate a number of the basic conclusions he draws from these surveys:
- Cyberspace, courts and markets are important parts of our society. The problem is assuming that they can replace representative politics.
- Market forces and the cult of efficiency are not inevitable forces for the shrinking of the state. It takes conscious political leadership to uphold the common good in balance with the demands of market forces.
- There are extravagant expectations of rights talk – that litigation can solve most of our serious social, political and economic issues. It is these assumptions about rights, rather than the courts themselves that pose a serious challenge to representative politics.
Ultimately Bogart provides meaningful analysis of the decline of representative politics and the thinning of citizenship in Canada. He hopes for a restoration of representative politics and believes it rests, at least in part, in the efforts of judges: to challenge myths that rights solve all problems; and to insist that courts and markets are not substitutes for representative politics focused on the common good. I think Bogart’s challenge to judges here ought to extend to the media, political leaders and citizens themselves if the revitalization of politics for the common good is to be achieved.
