Hill Life & People
Centralized prime ministerial power ‘part and parcel’ of our history, says author Patrice Dutil
By Laura Ryckewaert Dec. 18, 2017
‘There is no doubt that the Office of the Prime Minister was a centralizing force from the very beginning of Confederation,’ says author and Ryerson University Professor Patrice Dutil.
Ryerson University Professor Patrice Dutil read more than 20,000 orders in council and another 2,000 correspondence letters in researching his new book, Prime Ministerial Power in Canada. Photograph courtesy of Patrice Dutil
From Pierre Trudeau to Stephen Harper, modern Canadian prime ministers are often cast as having ushered in a unique centralization of executive control, but as Ryerson University professor and author Patrice Dutil explores in his new book, it’s been a crucial feature of governance from the start. “It’s not a new thing, it’s an old thing that has managed to reinvent itself with every generation. So people should not be complaining as though centralization of the Office of
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