Canadian government?

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nathanielstyza

Active member
so i was browsing through youtube videos and a fell upon a bunch of videos of New Democratic Policy leader, Jack Layton.

so basically the point is, i started to get interested in canadian gov't because i have often felt like you guys are doing a good number of things more efficiently. i honestly didn't know that there was a queen of canada until right now so keep it relatively basic, but could some of you canucks fill me in on the roughly how the canadian government works?

greatly appreciated.
 
so what, if anything, does the queen actually do? i dont understand why they have one.

i was under the impression that the prime minister basically runs shit but the video kinda hinted that that black woman(cant remember her postition) ran shit.

i also didnt understand how long the prime minister stays in office, is there no set term?

how is the prime minister elected?
 
lolz. We were originally a colony of britain, and we got declared our own country in 1867. England has the queen, that we just so happen to sorta be under. We're just mad friends yadigg.

We elect the local people in our regions running for office, and whatever party gets the most votes and therefore seats wins.
 
that makes sense. these local people are the MP's correct?

is there a certain number of MP's that can be elected from each province or how does that work?

and if the PM is the highest up of whichever party how do the MP's choose who is the best for the job?

and again, dont exactly understand how he gets removed from the seet.

how do elections for the MP's work and when is the next one?

thanks for the info thus far
 
Yes fingerpaint is correct. And no the queen does dick all but we DO need her permission before we do shit like go to war. Im not sure of the maximum amount of time a prime minister can stay in office but there really is no minimum, as at any time the opposition can call and election.
 
Well basically we have 308 seats in the house of commons. MPs or Members of parliment are elected to represent each of these seats in the house of commons. The seats are divided across the country based on population (southern ontario and other highly populated areas have more representation then other places such as Nunavut does).

We have three main parties; the Liberals, The Conservatives and the New democratic Party. The bloq Quebecois also gets alot of seats but all of them are in Quebec, thier main goal is to seperate from the rest of the country, making Quebec its own. Every party has a leader and the party that wins the most seats (not votes) takes control of the country. Right now the Conservatives have almost twice the amount of seats as the Liberals but only 11% more votes. Also right now the green party has no seats while the Bloq have 49 but the Green party only has 3% less votes then the Bloq.

Not like in the U.S we can have a minority or majority government. A minority is when the party in power has less seats then the other parties combined, this makes work in the House of Commons pretty slow. Right now we have a Conservative minority.

The Canadian way of voting is based on the British First Past the Post System. Many people find it unfair because they believe the percentage of population is not being represented properly. Other systems are being thought of but it does not look like anything will be changed anytime soon.

We also have a senate which is a group of people who are appointed and remain on the senate until they die or are 75 years old. The senate serves no real purpose, they are suposed to look over proposed bills and new laws and can reject them but almost never do.

The queen is the head of state although she does not really do anything anymore. I forget when but we used to have to send all bills to the queen to be passed.

There are some other things to do witht eh governement but i think i covered most of the basics
 
uhhmmm,

so

Its not just the MP's who choose the leader of their respective party. Anyone who's a card carrying member of the party goes and votes for who they think is best suited. (Card carrying member basically means you've been directly employed by the party at some point i'm pretty sure.)

And i thought i already answered the MP question?
 
yeah we elect MPs in our region. there's usually an MP for each party (conservative, liberal, NDP, green, and the bloc quebecois in quebec) for each region.

every MP elected goes to ottawa and sits in the house of parliament. the party with the most MPs in government chooses the prime minister.

^ thats super super basic but yeah.

and the queen is basically a figure head. we were a british colony and now are part of the commonwealth along with australia and a bunch of other countries. she doesnt do much but i don't mind having her on our coins. she seems like a nice lady.
 
Hokay, Let me explain the Queen to everybody.

In 1759 there was a battle between the English and the French for the control of Canada, it took place on the Plains of Abraham and the English won. Since then Canada has been closely tied to England and the British empire. We existed as a colony until the 19th century when in 1867 Canada was unified as a country and became a Dominion of the British Empire. That means we were a self governing country but part of the empire and thus had to listen to major decisions etc. Think of how a state is part of the USA, they can make some of their own decisions but if the US goes to war, their soldiers go to, economy helps out etc. Follow me so far...now the way Canada communicated with the Queen and the empire is through the Governor General (that black lady currently).

Following the First World War some things changed. Canada was forced to go to war once the English had declared war on Germany, because we were a dominion, however we could decide how to help and how much to do. The First World War was conflict on a never before seen scale and Canada emerged as one of the most effective groups on the allied side, because of this we gained some power in negotiations with the British Government. Example being Canada told England that if something like Passchendeale ever happened again they would never get another Canadian soldier under their control. Anyway, following the First World War Canada emerged as a commonwealth country, not a dominion. That means we are still part of the empire and associated with the Queen, which is why technically she is our head of state and still has some tasks. However, we are now compleately our own country and can make our own decisions to support or disagree with Britain. This is why we waited 1 day before joining the Second World War.

The current role of the Queen is mostly a ceremonial one, however, Parliament can only be dissolved by her power (exercised by the Governor General) which is why Harper (our PM) had to go to her to perogue parliament recently.

Any questions?

 
The next election has no set date. It could be tomorrow. Thats the benefit of the Canadian government... everything is perpetually mysterious....
 
umm basicallly,

we live in igloos, and we have tribes. and you can walk from toronto to vancouver. no bigs.
 
whenever theres a federal election, we have elections for mp'sfor example, charles d'souza is the the mp for liberals in my areacome election day, you could go in, vote for him, or vote for another dudethe liberal party and all its members decide who they will put at the head of the partywhoever that is will be the prime minister if their party gets the majority of seats in parliament
 
There will be a federal election in 4 year from last fall when we had are last election.MP are elected during the federal election.
 
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