[Update Aug 2023 – Read first. There has been some fresh interest in this story. We checked and found that some of the links below no longer work, but we leave them in for the record. If your main goal is to find the Whipped documentary ….
In 2015 he wrote this: As some of you may know, CPAC’s license to broadcast Whipped recently expired. That expiration is somewhat untimely, since the secrecy and unaccountability of our political system are important issues that should be discussed during the current federal election. That’s why I’ve decided to make the documentary available on my own Website so Canadians can get a better understanding of how party discipline impacts our democracy.
Here’s the link for the Whipped documentary! http://seanholman.com/whipped/
While you’re there, do check out all his work too.
You can also read posts up to about 2015 on this Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/partydiscipline
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[Update 2019 – This we published in 2013. The “whipped” phenomenon applies to federal and provincial parties, and for ten years from 2008 to Oct 2018 when they were punished by being completely obliterated from City Council in the civic election, Vision Vancouver exercised strict discipline on their councillors. We suspect the whip was Geoff Meggs, who as of 2019 is chief of staff for BC Premier John Horgan (NDP). Douglas Todd in the Vancouver Sun did a fresh story on the big picture here.
Douglas Todd: The trouble with ‘friendly dictators’ and Canada’s whip system
Canadians have come to think the whip system of party discipline is a near-sacred tradition. But it’s largely avoided in most countries. February 22, 2019. Link here. ]
The groundbreaking documentary ‘Whipped: the secret world of party discipline’ is available for viewing online. This 43-minute documentary by investigative journalist Sean Holman shows how the secret system of party discipline in Victoria forces MLAs to vote the party line. The title ‘Whipped!’ makes reference to the ‘party whip’, whose job it is to make sure that all members of the party vote the same way. A number of former politicians cite specific examples in order to explain how the system really works.
While the Whipped documentary exposes the inner workings of block voting in the BC legislature, many of the same techniques are used in other provinces, in Parliament in Ottawa, and in parliaments around the world. In the case of Vancouver City Hall, the block voting techniques are used by the dominant political party in power, Vision Vancouver, which controls 8 out of 11 council votes. For a detailed analysis of voting patterns in Vancouver please see the article Independent or block voting in Council? The Failings of a Democracy.
The full documentary is hosted on the Canadian Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) website; please click on the video link to be taken to the site [not working as of Aug 2023. See update at top]:
The online release of this video in 2013 is very appropriately timed. Canada’s Democracy Week takes place from September 16-23. We’d like to make readers aware of this excellent work.
CityHallWatch was present at the premiere of Whipped when it was screened at UBC on April 25, 2013. After the screening, a lengthy panel discussion reinforced many of the points raised in the documentary. Sean Holman was joined on the panel by former MLAs Olga Ilich, Harold Steves and Gordon Gibson; the discussion was moderated by David Beers. Further information about Whipped can be found on the Party discipline Facebook page and on PartyDiscipline.ca [not working as of Aug 2023]. Sean Holman’s website Public Eye Online [not working as of Aug 2023] contains a treasure trove of over 6,000 articles centred on BC politics.
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