Change Is Good
Change is good – well at least sometimes. We have a new government in Canada and a new Prime Minister-elect. Thirteen years of government under the Liberal party has ended and they can now take a breath and rebuild. When a party is in power for too long, they get stale, and they get too greedy. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Conservatives can govern in a minority parliament and how the other parties will reach compromises with the Conservatives to give us another two years before we go to the polls again.
In reading Karen’s blog posting on this, I noticed that she had a few comments asking about minority governments, election calls, and trying to find similarities with the US political system. The US media actually wrote quite a bit about it for a Canadian election but they too just used the words and didn’t quite explain it. The comment spaces are too small to go into it in any detail, but I’ll try to explain some of it here.
Let’s start at the top:
Canada’s official head of state is the Governor-General. This position is largely ceremonial; however the GG must sign all bills into law that have passed through Parliament and the Senate. The GG is also the only person able to dissolve parliament and formally call an election (also known as dropping the writ). The GG usually does this at the request of the Prime Minister but has the power to dissolve Parliament and call elections if he or she feels it is in the best interest of the country. The GG is appointed by the Prime Minister and stays for a term of 5 years.
The Senate is an appointed house (however many people want it reformed to be an elected house) and once you are appointed, it is a lifetime term. Once again, the sitting Prime Minister appoints senators when seats become available. The Senate is known as the house of “sober second thought” and must debate and vote on all bills passed by parliament. Only bills that pass the Senate are sent to the GG for assent.
The House of Parliament is where the real action takes place. There are 308 members of Parliament, each representing their constituency or riding (similar to congressional districts). Riding boundaries are decided usually by geography (in the case of the far north) or population (in other areas). The number of ridings and their boundaries are adjusted every few years to keep up with population changes.
The party that wins the most seats is asked to form the government. The leader of that party is then sworn in as Prime Minister. So, in Canada, the Prime Minister is only directly elected by the people in his/her riding, not the entire country. The part with the second-highest number of seats is called the loyal opposition and is required to question the government and hold them to account.
If the winning party has more than half the seats in parliament, they form a majority government. A majority government can implement its policies fairly easily since they can make sure they win every vote.
However, we have a multi-party system. So, sometimes the winning party has the most seats, but not more than half. That is a minority government. A government with a minority must negotiate with the other parties to gain enough support to pass their legislation. This is the type of government Canadians elected in 2004 and now again in 2006 (albeit with different parties winning).
Elections must be called every 5 years. However it is the discretion of the Prime Minister to call and election when he/she sees fit. The only other time is if the governing party loses a “vote of confidence” which could be the defeat of a major government bill like the budget, or the opposition parties force a vote specifically calling for the government to resign and they win that vote (the only time this has ever occurred was in November, 2005). There has been talk of electoral reform where there would be fixed election dates every four years (with the exception of elections forced due to non-confidence votes) so that the Prime Minister would no longer be able to time the election for when they wanted it.
Minority governments in Canada have only averaged a 15-18 month life span. All sides have to keep up appearances of trying to make it work, but the governing party may force the opposition parties to defeat it (if they feel they can get a majority) or the opposition parties will bring down a government if they feel the time is ripe for them. I personally thing we are going to get two years out of this government because the Liberals have to choose a new leader (Paul Martin, the outgoing PM announced he was resigning as leader of the Liberal Party) and they will need the time to get that new leader and get him/her introduced to the public.
In reading Karen’s blog posting on this, I noticed that she had a few comments asking about minority governments, election calls, and trying to find similarities with the US political system. The US media actually wrote quite a bit about it for a Canadian election but they too just used the words and didn’t quite explain it. The comment spaces are too small to go into it in any detail, but I’ll try to explain some of it here.
Let’s start at the top:
Canada’s official head of state is the Governor-General. This position is largely ceremonial; however the GG must sign all bills into law that have passed through Parliament and the Senate. The GG is also the only person able to dissolve parliament and formally call an election (also known as dropping the writ). The GG usually does this at the request of the Prime Minister but has the power to dissolve Parliament and call elections if he or she feels it is in the best interest of the country. The GG is appointed by the Prime Minister and stays for a term of 5 years.
The Senate is an appointed house (however many people want it reformed to be an elected house) and once you are appointed, it is a lifetime term. Once again, the sitting Prime Minister appoints senators when seats become available. The Senate is known as the house of “sober second thought” and must debate and vote on all bills passed by parliament. Only bills that pass the Senate are sent to the GG for assent.
The House of Parliament is where the real action takes place. There are 308 members of Parliament, each representing their constituency or riding (similar to congressional districts). Riding boundaries are decided usually by geography (in the case of the far north) or population (in other areas). The number of ridings and their boundaries are adjusted every few years to keep up with population changes.
The party that wins the most seats is asked to form the government. The leader of that party is then sworn in as Prime Minister. So, in Canada, the Prime Minister is only directly elected by the people in his/her riding, not the entire country. The part with the second-highest number of seats is called the loyal opposition and is required to question the government and hold them to account.
If the winning party has more than half the seats in parliament, they form a majority government. A majority government can implement its policies fairly easily since they can make sure they win every vote.
However, we have a multi-party system. So, sometimes the winning party has the most seats, but not more than half. That is a minority government. A government with a minority must negotiate with the other parties to gain enough support to pass their legislation. This is the type of government Canadians elected in 2004 and now again in 2006 (albeit with different parties winning).
Elections must be called every 5 years. However it is the discretion of the Prime Minister to call and election when he/she sees fit. The only other time is if the governing party loses a “vote of confidence” which could be the defeat of a major government bill like the budget, or the opposition parties force a vote specifically calling for the government to resign and they win that vote (the only time this has ever occurred was in November, 2005). There has been talk of electoral reform where there would be fixed election dates every four years (with the exception of elections forced due to non-confidence votes) so that the Prime Minister would no longer be able to time the election for when they wanted it.
Minority governments in Canada have only averaged a 15-18 month life span. All sides have to keep up appearances of trying to make it work, but the governing party may force the opposition parties to defeat it (if they feel they can get a majority) or the opposition parties will bring down a government if they feel the time is ripe for them. I personally thing we are going to get two years out of this government because the Liberals have to choose a new leader (Paul Martin, the outgoing PM announced he was resigning as leader of the Liberal Party) and they will need the time to get that new leader and get him/her introduced to the public.
posted by Mike at 11:02 p.m.
3 Comments:
well mike, i wish i could say it's all a bit more clear now, but i'm still as confused as ever.
it sounds like the "vote of confidence" thing is similar to our impeachment process... maybe? except, not so much.
politics are confusing. i hope you'll write more about the process over time, if the mood hits. and i might be back with questions... hope you don't mind.
Both impeachment and a vote of non-confidence have the same thing in mind ... sort of.
From what I know of impeachemnt, it can be a very long drwan out process and the only result is that the president is fired and the vice president takes over.
A vote of non-confidence in the parliamentary system has the effect of forcing the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament and call a general election. The vote is only about 15 minutes, and the overall process is about a week (the motion has to be scheduled into the order paper about a week in advance).
So, in Canada we don't fire the Prime Minister, we fire the entire parliament and send it to the people to choose their next government.
Mike, thanks for the Canadian civics lesson. I have to profess an embarrassing ignorance of Canadian politics despite the fact we're neighbors. And another thanks for your advice on my blog back in September recommending I make our U.S. national debt "real" by calculating what it equates to per person. I now frequently reference this number in conversation and recently used it in my Cost of War rant on the 10th of this month.
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