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Powers and limitations of the canadian prime minister
Powers of prime minister canada
Powers of prime minister canada
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Canadian political scientist Mathew Kerby notes that the Canadian prime minister possess the power to appoint cabinet ministers to his/her liking. Of course, the power to elect the governing body of Canada based on one’s own opinion of what Canada should be is absolutely telling as to just how powerful the position of Prime Minister of Canada is. The Prime Minister should not possess the exclusive power to elect the Federal Cabinet of Canada. Before someone is elected Prime Minister, their political party must name them as the leader of the party. Then all Canadian citizens, who are 18 years or older, are eligible to vote for their Member of Parliament, who sits in the House of Commons and debates Canadian issues. The Political Party with the most MP’s is then the governing party of Canada, …show more content…
That way the Cabinet would have a higher probability to achieve what Canadian citizens want it to. But with this solution, comes a comparable problem: time. There are currently 26 members of Cabinet. Excluding the Prime Minister and Leader of Government, there are 24 ministers. Including the time it would take for federal campaigning and ballot counts alone; assuming that members of Conservative, Liberal, New Democratic, Green, Bloc Quebecois and Independents all had MP’s campaigning for each position; Canadian citizens would have to decide on 24 positions from a possible 144 MP’s. Furthermore, how are we, as Canadian citizens, qualified to select a minister of Finance. Why don’t we just elect someone to do it for us? Someone who we deem qualified to make the decisions so that we don’t have to. We do that already. Perhaps the Prime Minister’s power is not excessive. And that how the Prime Minister’s power is democratic due to the fact that we vote in the political party to give the Prime Minister their
Of the federal political parties in Canada, GPC has the highest percentage of young adults among its active members.3 Approximately 25% of its members are below the age of 30, while the majority of members are between the ages of 40-65.3 This age distribution is drastically different than...
It is cold hard fact that Canadian government is not entirely democratic. The question remains of how to deal with this. Canadian government, as effective as it currently is, has major factors in their system that have a negative effect on Canadians. Our current voting system favors the higher-populated provinces and creates a tyranny of the majority. Our Senate is distinctly undemocratic as it is an assigned position. Our head of State, the Prime Minister, holds too much power. Unless we resolve these issues, our government will remain far from a perfect governing system.
It has become widely accepted that Canada uses a first past the post electoral system. However, this system may not be in the best interest of Canada any more. There are many reasons why Canada should change its electoral system to a mixed member proportional one, a variant of proportional representation. With a first past the post system, the elected officials will always be of the majority and this excludes minorities from fair representation. Adopting MMP can create stronger voter turnouts, more personal campaigning, better individual representation, and better party selection. John Hiemstra and Harold Janson, are both in favour of a MMP electoral system. They understand that with the switch, the citizens will get more representation in parliament, their preferred choice will have some say in the House of Commons, and finally someone can be held accountable which creates a closer knit between citizens and Members of Parliament. Nelson Wiseman argues against the MMP system because he feels that there is nothing to be fixed in Canada. If the current system has been working well thus far, there is no need to change it. MMP would allow smaller parties to have their voices heard. Unfortunately first past the post tends to have an over representation of regional parties; contrary to first past the post system, MMP lets Canadians have advocates and legislators who the majority of citizens agree with. Another advantage of MMP is the elimination of strategic voting. With MMP people can finally vote for who they want to rather than choose who the majority may prefer. A change in the electoral system of Canada will create a more fair and just Parliament governing the citizens.
This essay has argued that there are many limitations that the Prime Minister is subjected too. The three most important are federalism in Canadian society, the role of the Governor General, and the charter of rights and freedoms. I used two different views of federalism and illustrated how both of them put boundaries on the Prime Minister’s power. Next I explain the powers of the governor general, and explained the ability to dissolve parliament in greater detail. Last I analyzed how the charter of rights of freedoms has limited the Prime Minister’s power with respect to policy-making, interests groups and the courts. The Prime Minister does not have absolute power in Canadian society, there are many infringements on the power that they have to respect.
Canada is a society built on the promise of democracy; democracy being defined as “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” In order to operate at full potential, the people of Canada must voice their opinions and participate fully in the political system. This is why it’s shocking to see that people are becoming less engaged in politics and the voter turnout has steadily been declining over the last 20 years. This lack of participation by Canadians is creating a government that is influenced by fewer people, which is detrimental to the democratic system Canada is built on.
Justin Trudeau, newly elected prime minister of Canada, and the Liberal Party made many promises during their election campaign to better the lives of the Canadian people, economy and make a positive change. With that being said he and his liberal party promised to legalize cannabis. In this paper, I will outline the promises made by Trudeau, discuss why Trudeau and the liberals are making this promise, explain how the promise will be kept and provide information to shed light on how legalization is a good idea for Canada.
Canada has a central government designed to deal with the country as a whole. Things like national defense, banking, currency, and commerce are controlled by the central government. All other matters are left to the provinces to deal with. Such as education, hospitals, and civil rights are responsibilities of the states. The Canadian Parliament consists of two houses. Their Senate is made up of 104 members who serve until the age of seventy-five.
In Mellon’s article, several aspects are mentioned supporting the belief that the prime minister is too powerful. One significant tool the prime minister possesses is “… the power to make a multitude of senior governmental and public service appointments both at home and abroad,” (Mellon 164). Mellon goes on to state the significance the prime minister has when allowed to appoint the government’s key member...
In depth of prime minister-Every prime minister can serve for two terms. Each term being 4 years long. The prime minister’s main duty is to keep the legislature in check, and make executive decisions. He shall be the head of negotiations with other countries. He is in command of all military forces, though the legislature will be in control of the use of force. The Prime Minister must represent the whole country with great valor, and equality.
In fact, two of the issues are related to the education system and the media, while the third issue was about possible reforms to the House. First, the education system was deemed to be necessary for educating the youth and making them aware of Canada’s parliamentary system of governance. In fact, it was argued in the discussion that voting is habit forming. In other words, voting at a young age does correlate to the continuation of voting until later in life. The discussion also focused on the lack of adequate civics classes and resources in some provinces in Canada and the impact on the student’s knowledge about Canada’s political parties and elections. Second, the role of the media as the promoter of parliamentary affairs affects Canadians’ awareness of what the legislative is doing. It was argued that parliamentarians use their own social media accounts to bypass the mainstream media and promote their own views and actions to the Canadians that follow them. Also, several questions in the discussions focused on the media as the fourth estate and the fact that the news is not always reported in a non-partisan
The Government performs the executive functions of the country. The affairs of Government are decided by the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister. Members of the Cabinet are given the formal title of "minister" and each hold a different part of government duties, for example the Minister of Children and Education - Christine Antorini. Altogether they are 19 Ministers incl. the Prime Minister. These ministers are all elected by the parliament.
Furthermore, a president and prime minister is also present in India’s government. India’s president is appointed by the legislative body and has minimal legislative power. The president’s power over the legislature is limited to asking for a review of bill that is asked for him to sign (Article 356). Once again, power is concentrated into the legislative branch by giving them the power to appoint the president. The prime minister is appointed by the president, and is responsible for leading the cabinet and advising the president (Article 78). The presidents of both countries are largely ceremonial because of the power concentrated within the legislature.
The size of the Council of Ministers should depend on the circumstances and requirements of the country (recently, a similar change has been brought forth by Modi).
The members of British parliament refer to the two chambers made up of the popularly elected House of Common and non elected House of Lords. In the view of Almond et al (2000: 136), within the British parliament, the prime minister occupies a unique position sometimes refers to as Primus inter pares i.e first among equal. But to become a prime minister, a politician must first be elected leader of his/her political party, which qualifies him/her to be prime minister if his/her party wins the majority seat in the
In the British System members of the Cabinet are drawn from and are therefore accountable for Parliament – so the executive and legislature are thus fused. It can duly be referred as The Dictatorship of the Cabinet. So, the Prime Minister will draw Cabinet members from MPs in the House of Commons or member of the House of Lords (and can even make someone a Lord specifically to put them in the Cabinet). Secondly, government policy (e.g. planned legislation, orders issued, priorities decided for time or spending) is decided collectively – with the Cabinet, not the PM, deciding policy and the Prime Minister being Primus inter pares (‘First among equals). In practice though, full Cabinet only decides policy when there are major disagreements on