ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (03/01/84)
utcsrgv!peterr (Peter Rowley) makes this comment in his last message: From a Canadian fascinated by the spectacle of about half of the Democratic candidates being thrown out based on the opinions of two states... Well, now all you Americans can be fascinated by the spectacle of the new Prime Minister of Canada being chosen, not by the people, nor by their elected representatives the House of Commons, but by a convention of the Liberal Party members! You might compare this to the Republicans holding a national convention to choose the vice-president AFTER Reagan is elected president, and without primaries. Once Canada went through 5 Prime Ministers between elections. Say, anybody know if I can join the party now and get a vote in the convention? Mark Brader, Toronto Speaking for myself.
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (03/02/84)
Mark Brader comments on our new Prime Minister being able to take office
without being elected. Note a couple of things: (1) the new Prime Minister
must be a member of Parliament before becoming Prime Minister (i.e., must
be elected by the voters in one riding), and (2) the Prime Minister is
not our head of state, only the head of government. In a legal sense
the Prime Minister has much less power than the President, since acts
of government are effected by the Governor-General in Council, which in
practise means the Cabinet. Our head of state is the Queen, represented
in Canada by the Governor-General.
Dave Sherman
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{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davepeterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (03/02/84)
Delegates are chosen by local Liberal riding associations to go to the national convention to choose a leader. The delegate selection meetings are in no particular order, as far as I know, and are on a riding-by-riding basis, not province-by-province. So one meeting has much less influence on the overall picture than in the US. With the consequence that one does not get the travelling media circus that seems to follow the primaries. My fascination was with the apparently disproportionate power given to New Hampshire and Iowa. I don't see anything similar in the Canadian system. On the other hand, I've never heard of the Americans having 9 year olds and street people being dragged in to vote at delegate selection meetings like the Progressive Conservatives had here. And it's more democratic to let the population at large elect a candidate, despite all the problems. p. rowley, U. Toronto
custead@sask.UUCP (Custead) (03/02/84)
Dave Sherman writes:
Mark Brader comments on our new Prime Minister being able to take office
without being elected. Note a couple of things: (1) the new Prime Minister
must be a member of Parliament before becoming Prime Minister (i.e., must
be elected by the voters in one riding)...
Well being a member of Parliament is not the same thing as being elected
by the voters. In particular, an appointed senator can be prime minister
(and has been in the past) without ever receiving a single vote from
ANYONE.
Yet another loophole in the Canadian system...remember recent appointments
to the senate in order to have cabinet ministers in regions where you
don't get no votes...a cabinet minister is a fairly important job...
does not require facing the electorate though. Prime minister simply
means 'first cabinet minister', and the principle is the same.ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (03/02/84)
Dave Sherman (utcsrgv!dave) writes:
Mark Brader comments on our new Prime Minister being able to take office
without being elected. Note a couple of things: (1) the new Prime Minister
must be a member of Parliament before becoming Prime Minister (i.e., must
be elected by the voters in one riding)
For the benefit of foreigners, "riding" is colloquial for "electoral district".
Yes, and Parliament also has to "ratify" the choice with a vote of confidence,
doesn't it? But both of these things are practical certainties; the party in
power can always find one riding where its new PM will be elected if they have
to (it was done for Mackenzie King twice), and as long as the party has a
majority and is not hopelessly divided they will give the vote of confidence.
By the way, could a Senator (appointed) rather than a member of the House of
Commons (elected) be chosen Prime Minister? Senators can be in the Cabinet...
Anyway, my point is this. A convention of people that we did not elect will
choose one candidate. If (s)he's already an MP, (s)he was not elected to be
PM, only to be an MP. If not, one riding will be asked to vote on whether
this person should be the new PM or whether some other person will be their MP.
Nobody is asked to vote for a PM.
and (2) the Prime Minister is
not our head of state, only the head of government. In a legal sense
the Prime Minister has much less power than the President, since acts
of government are effected by the Governor-General in Council, which in
practise means the Cabinet. Our head of state is the Queen, represented
in Canada by the Governor-General.
The head of government is what matters. If (s)he can't dominate the
Cabinet, (s)he won't get to be PM. The Queen and G-G are figureheads
with what amounts *in practice* to consultative power only.
Well, I've said my piece. If the Liberals choose a poor PM, they'll lose
the next election anyway. In practice, we should worry more about being
presented with a choice of poor candidates in the general election.
But this convention thing... it's just not democratic, and I don't like it.
Mark Brader, Toronto
Speaking for myself.tbray@mprvaxa.UUCP (Tim Bray) (03/03/84)
x <-- USENET insecticide I am not particularly worried about the elected-ness of our PM - the process is a democratic one. But Dave Sherman is dodging the issue with the head of state/govt. argument; in practical terms, the Canadian PM wields much more unconstrained executive power than the US prez. This is due to the fact that the PM is in effective control of both the legislative and executive branches of government. Tim Bray
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (03/04/84)
I stand corrected; yes, indeed, a "member of Parliament" can in fact
be an unelected member of the Senate. That is, until we have an elected
Senate...
Dave Sherman
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davejulian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (03/05/84)
In my view, the whole system of government is flawed in a much more serious way than that of whether the PM is elected as such or not: The division of MPs among "parties" where the party whips assume the power to control how MPs vote on the issues. It makes a mockery of the debates, and also of the "representation". When an MP decides to vote against the party line because of his/her conscience or strongly held beliefs or on behalf of her/his electors, it is a noteworthy matter, rather than a routine event.
mnh@utcsrgv.UUCP (Mark Hume) (05/16/84)
The Canadian Prime Minister doesn't have to get elected before becoming PM. In Law, the person becoming PM doesn't ever have to be elected. In practice (convention), a person elected party leader of the ruling party seeks a seat in the Commons by having a member of his/her party resign and by calling a by-election (by the way, this person is already the PM and thus is the one to call the by-election). However, there has been at least one PM who was a Senator, and there has been a cabinet minister who was neither a Senator nor an MP. So it seems that the PM need not be connected to Parliament in any way. Just some ramblings, Mark Hume