Self-control in politics is a boring virtue — and an absolutely necessary one

Ian Shugart, a former clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, was appointed to the Senate last fall after a career of nearly 40 years in government, including 30 years in the public service.

On Tuesday afternoon, having battled health challenges over the past several months, he belatedly rose in the upper chamber to deliver his maiden speech as a senator.

As his topic, he chose restraint.

"Last week in this place, many honourable senators spoke about the risks to democracy in our country. Today, I would like to add what I hope might be a useful contribution to those observations," Shugart said. "I am going to speak about the idea of restraint — an idea, a discipline, that has proven essential in our constitutional and institutional development."

Restraint isn't very exciting. That's sort of the point. And on any given day in Parliament, it might not seem to be much in evidence.

But it is also, quietly, one of the forces that holds a democracy and a country together. Restraint — self-imposed or forced on politicians by voters — is often what allows political systems to continue functioning.

Although Shugart said he hasn't read it, his appeal to restraint will be familiar to readers of How Democracies Die, a brilliant and worrisome book released in 2018. Authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt celebrate the virtue of "forbearance ... the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives."

"Without forbearance, checks and balances give way to deadlock and dysfunction," say Levitsky and Ziblatt, both professors of political science at Harvard.

Speaking to his fellow senators, Shugart cited three examples of restraint.

He noted how then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau chose to negotiate constitutional reforms with the provinces and compromise to complete a deal — despite the fact that he had the legal power to proceed unilaterally.

"Colleagues, I have to ask if either of the main party leaders today would practise that restraint," Shugart said.

Second, Shugart pointed to Ontario Premier Doug Ford's decision to repeal his government's use of the notwithstanding clause to pass back-to-work legislation — a reversal motivated by a ferocious public and political outcry.

Lastly, Shugart encouraged his colleagues in the upper chamber to resist (or continue resisting) any urge they might have to block legislation sent to them by the House of Commons.

The newly independent Senate has mostly disciplined itself to date. While it is now amending legislation more often than it used to, it has not yet refused to pass legislation or insisted that the House bow to its demands for changes.