Canadian Government Primer

If you know me, you knew this post was coming. With a government shutdown looming in the States, I thought it good timing. This is just a brief overview about how things work here. I will try to actually make it brief.

Source: myrts.org

The capital of Canada is Ottawa and is located in the province of Ontario 200 km from Montreal and 450 km from Toronto on the Ottawa river. I live in Alberta, which is on the other side of the country. Canada was part of Great Britain for a very and in 1931 Canada was given nearly entire legislative independence, much like Scotland today. Eight years later Canada declared its independence by declaring war on Nazi Germany a week before Britain. As part of the Commonwealth the country is still loyal to the Queen, who is head of state, and officially the Queen of Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada appoints a Governor General to carry out all constitutional and ceremonial duties the British monarch would if it were possible. But as far as governmental power the governor general and Queen Elizabeth have none. Those powers are reserved to Parliament.

Parliament of Canada (Source: wikipedia)

Canada runs on a parliamentary form of government similar to that seen in Great Britain with a House of Commons and a Senate. The best way I can think of to describe it for those who are only familiar with US politics is to imagine the US House of Representatives. Just as in the House, Canada's House of Commons is made up of democratically-elected representatives from different districts (ridings, they call them) and they are members of national parties and each has a leader, the majority party leader being in charge. Differing from the States, though, the majority leader is the Prime Minister, the head of government--it is not a separately elected office. Just as clarification, if a single party has a majority they can do practically WHATEVER THEY WANT. There's none of this fighting the house and the senate and the White House because they are all run by different parties. If the guys in charge want to get something done, they do it. The Senate is different in every way. Its 105 members are appointed by the PM according to region (24 for Ontario, 24 for Montreal, 24 for the west, 24 for the Maritimes and 9 for the remaining territories). They can be from all walks of life and review legislation more than anything, sort of like a thinktank would review policies and make recommendations. A short but informative article on their present role can be found here from the Canadian magazine McLeans.

I personally love the parliamentary system. Stuff gets done. Sometimes, though, it's bad stuff, and I'll talk about what Albertans think about Trudeau another time. Currently the government is run by the conservatives with Calgarian Steven Harper at the head. Again, this is just the primer, more on politics later