Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive branch) in Westminster democracies are responsible to parliament rather than to the monarch, or, in a colonial context, to the imperial government, and in a republican context, to the president. If the parliament is bicameral, then the government is usually responsible first to the parliament's lower house, which is more representative than the upper house, as it usually has more members and they are always directly elected.
Responsible government and the principle of parliamentary accountability manifests itself in several ways. Firstly, ministers must account to parliament for their decisions and for the performance of their departments. This requirement to make announcements and to answer questions in parliament means that ministers must have the privileges of the floor, which are only granted to those who are members of parliament. Secondly, and most importantly, although ministers are officially appointed by the authority of the head of state and can theoretically be dismissed at the pleasure of the sovereign, they concurrently retain their office subject to their holding the confidence of the lower house of parliament. When the lower house has passed a motion of no confidence in the government, the government must ordinarily immediately resign or submit itself to the electorate in a new general election.
Lastly, the head of state is in turn required to effectuate their executive power only through these responsible ministers. They must never attempt to set up a shadow government of executives or advisors and attempt to use them as instruments of government, or to rely upon their unofficial advice. They generally are not permitted to take any action under the color of their executive power without that action being as a result of the counsel and advisement of their responsible ministers. Common exceptions to this rule include emergency or wartime acts of necessity and the granting of certain state honours. Their ministers are required to counsel them (i.e., explain to them and be sure they understand any issue that they will be called upon to decide) and to form and have recommendations for them (i.e., their advice or advisement) to choose from, which are the ministers' formal, reasoned recommendations as to what course of action should be taken.
History in the British Empire and Commonwealth From the middle of the 19th century, the United Kingdom began to introduce systems of responsible government to the colonial governments of its settler colonies including in Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. These systems were strongly based upon the system that had historically developed in the United Kingdom, with a bicameral legislature and an executive responsible to the Lower House.
Canada
Responsible government was implemented in several colonies of British North America (present-day Canada), between 1848 and 1855, with the executive council formulating policy with the assistance of the legislative branch, which voted approval or disapproval, and the appointed governor enacting those policies that the legislature had approved. This replaced the previous system, whereby the governor took advice from an executive council and used the legislature chiefly to raise money.Phillip A. Buckner, The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America, 1815–1850 (1985) ch. 4
Under responsible government, the executive is also a part of the legislature. The Executive branch must consist of MPs. Responsible government was a major element of Canada's gradual development toward independence. The concept of responsible government is associated in Canada more with self-government than with parliamentary accountability; hence, there is the notion that the Dominion of Newfoundland "gave up responsible government" when it suspended its self-governing status in 1933, as a result of financial problems. It did not regain responsible government until it became a province of Canada in 1949.
Background
At first appointed governors and appointed member who filled the governors' executive councils held power. Even after the formation of elected legislative assemblies, starting with Nova Scotia in 1758, governors and their executive councils did not require the consent of elected legislators in order to carry out all their roles and govern. Only in the decades leading up to Canadian Confederation in 1867 did the governing councils of those British North American colonies become responsible to the elected representatives of the people. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, sparked by the perceived shortcomings of virtual representation, the British government became sensitive to unrest in its remaining colonies with large populations of European-descended colonists. Elected assemblies were introduced to both Upper Canada and Lower Canada with the Constitutional Act 1791. Many reformers called for these assemblies to have some control over the executive power. Political unrest and tensions between the governors and assemblies in both Upper and Lower Canada grew.
After the Rebellions of 1837–1838 in the Canadas, the Earl of Durham was appointed governor general of British North America, with the task of examining the issues and determining how to defuse tensions. Durham openly pronounced French Canadians "inferior" to Anglophones and did not intend for them to participate substantially in the new political system he envisioned, nor did he consult them in creating his report. However, Durham spoke with Anglophone Reformers, including William Warren Baldwin and Robert Baldwin, who argued that he should introduce a system of "responsible government." Meanwhile, Francis Hincks published a newspaper, The Examiner, dedicated to advocacy for responsible government. Accordingly, in his report, Durham recommended that colonies that were developed enough should be granted responsible government. This term specifically meant the policy that British-appointed governors should bow to the will of elected colonial assemblies. Elected legislators had some power to rein in the appointed executive council. But representative government was unquestionably achieved when the executive council was formed of members exclusively from the party having a majority in the representative branch of a colonial legislature, a thing achieved in different colonies starting in the late 1840s.
Implementation Indeed, some sources suggest that responsible government itself was fully or partly in place as early as 1841 or 1842 in the Canadas. Notably, the government was led by a premier, and Premier Draper promised in 1841 that he would resign if he lost the confidence of the House. The next year, this indeed led to Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine replacing Draper. On the other hand, this did not reflect the full principle of collective ministerial responsibility characteristic of responsible government, but an individual form of ministerial responsibility.
Moreover, Durham's views were not shared by everyone -- the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, wrote in one dispatch to London that, if responsible government were implemented, "democracy, in the worst possible form, will prevail in our colonies." In the 1841 elections, decades before the introduction of the secret ballot, Governor General Sydenham used gerrymandering and organized political violence in an effort to influence the outcome. After arriving in Canada in 1843, Governor General Charles Metcalfe entered into numerous disputes with Lafontaine's government, for example when he unilaterally made patronage appointments, which ultimately led almost all of the ministers to resign in protest, whereupon Metcalfe proroged parliament for almost a year. Thus, it is generally accepted that responsible government was not yet in force in the Canadas in the early 1840s. In their common struggle against imperial resistance to full responsible government, Robert Baldwin's Anglophone Reformers forged an alliance with their Francophone counterparts under Lafontaine, thwarting Durham's plan to marginalize and assimilate French Canadians.
The first instance of responsible government in the British Empire outside of the United Kingdom itself was achieved by the colony of Nova Scotia in January and February 1848, through the efforts of Joseph Howe. Howe's push for responsible government was inspired by the work of Thomas McCulloch and Jotham Blanchard almost two decades earlier,Ritchie, Holly. ""For Christ and Covenant:" A Movement for Equal Consideration in Early Nineteenth Century Nova Scotia." Master's Thesis. Saint Mary's University, 2017. pp. 112–116. http://library2.smu.ca/handle/01/27387#.XMmNDrdKg_4 as well as by reading Durham's report. The plaque erected by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly reads: First Responsible Government in the British Empire. The first executive council chosen exclusively from the party having a majority in the representative branch of a colonial legislature was formed in Nova Scotia on 2 February 1848. Following a vote of want of confidence in the preceding council, James Boyle Uniacke, who had moved the resolution, became attorney general and leader of the government. Joseph Howe, the long-time campaigner for this "peaceable revolution", became provincial secretary. Other members of the council were Hugh Bell, Wm.F. Desbarres, Lawrence O.C. Doyle, Herbert Huntingdon, James McNab, Michael Tobin, and George R. Young.
In the Province of Canada, responsible government was introduced through the decisive victory of the Reformers in the 1848 elections, after which the governor general, Lord Elgin, swore in the ministry of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin on 11 March 1848. It was put to the test in the following year, when Reformers in the legislature passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, which provided compensation to French-Canadians who suffered losses during the Rebellions of 1837–1838. Elgin had serious misgivings about the bill, but, nonetheless assented to it, despite demands from the Tories that he refuse to do so. Elgin was physically assaulted by an English-speaking mob for this and the parliament building in Montreal was burned to the ground in the ensuing riots. Nonetheless, the Rebellion Losses Bill helped entrench responsible government into Canadian politics. Moreover, Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul argues that the restraint shown by Lafontaine and Baldwin's government in response to the riots was characteristic of the binational Reform movement championing responsible government in Canada, fundamentally distinguishing it from the more violent and nationalistic revolutionary movements common in Europe and the United States.
Responsible government is sometimes considered to have been introduced in New Brunswick around the same time, in February 1848, when the house resolved to endorse responsible government. In April, the new Lieutenant Governor Edmund Walker Head arrived with a mandate to introduce responsible government, and in May, Head brought in a more balanced representation of members of the Legislative Assembly to the Executive Council and ceded more powers to that body. However, the executive government was in practice able to organize its finances with little responsibility, and the governor ignored the Executive Council's advice regarding judicial appointments. Thus, many sources consider that responsible government in New Brunswick was not properly introduced until after the government changed in 1854.