Checks And Balances Of The Senate

In Canada, the Prime Minister has too much power, some PM take advantages of this power while others do not. The Prime Minister is the head of the party with a plurality of seats in the House of Commons. Some of the things that the PM is responsible for are: summons and dissolves, decides of the cabinet make up, advising the governor general, etc. All of these responsibilities allocated to the PM give him the absolute power. First, the PM has the ability to choose when to end the session of the parliament or simply dissolve it. The PM could use this power for his advantages. For example, Stephen Harper asked Michaëlle Jean to suspend the Parliament because he knew that a coalition was formed against him and could even lead to new elections.

The concept of power is a divisive matter in the American political system, as the actors holding it are sometimes unable to impose it as a result of their limited authority to do so. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the national government depend on each-others point of view. Part of the Constitution was designed with the purpose of making it impossible for either of these three to become more powerful than the others. Each of them has the ability to check and balance the way that the other two function. In spite of the fact that this system was created with the intention of preventing power from being shared unequally in the country, it sometimes serves as a tool for political gridlock, considering that the judicial branches can debate in regard to a particular topic for unlimited amounts of time before actually reaching a conclusion regarding the respective issue.

The Senate plays a key role in tandem with the House of Commons, in the operation of Canada’s government, some people think that the Senate should be abolished; however without the Senate, “The right to bear arms” could become true for Canada. The Senate should be reformed; abolishing or keeping the Senate at its current state would be unjust. The current Senate is not elected, effective, nor equal.

The Scrutiny of executives by the Parliament would not let political parties to abuse its power as Select Committees question the Prime Minister publicly. A confidence vote, meaning a motion of no confidence, is a vote on whether a group of people still has confidence in a government or leader. This is mainly a statement or vote which states that a person in a superior position, be it government, managerial, etc, is no longer deemed fit to hold that position. Votes of no confidence would not let the leader of a political power to hold this post is the Prime Minister is found to be dictatorial. Other members of Executive, for example cabinet discussions, scrutinise the Prime Minister

My thoughts about the power between Congress and The Presidency I think it’s all about balance. We look to Congress and The Supreme Court to lead our government and The President to be the head of our country to make hard decisions that sometimes lead our country into war. With that said neither one at the same time should have too much power we don’t want a dictatorship and our constitution was made to give the President the freedom to be great leaders. It's all about balance and doing what’s best for our country with both Congress and The

Many modern democracies have a bicameral legislature which is a body of government that consist of two legislative chambers. The bicameral legislature provides representation for both, the citizens of the country and the state legislature on a federal level. The Canadian parliament has two chambers, the lower chamber which is an elected House of Commons and the upper chamber which is the non-elected Senate. The Canadian Senate is assumed to be a “sober second thought” [3] on government legislation which is a phrase that describes the Senate’s role in promoting and defending regional interest. There has been an immense amount of the public outcry regarding the Senate after spending scandal that occurred during the recent election period. A question that has induced discussion in parliament is whether the Canadian Senate should be reformed or not? This issue divides the population in half because of differing views. Some political parties want the abolition of the Senate to occur while other parties would like to have an elected Senate because provinces are not represented equally. A method of deciding the faith of the current Senate, the functions of the Senate and objectives of Senate reform should be defined. The assumptions about the purpose of the Senate, problems of the current Senate, the goal of Senate reform and the method of achieving the reform may help provide a consensus on how the Senate should be reformed.

David C. Docherty’s scholarly journal responds to the continual controversy and debate of the usefulness of the Canadian senate in 2002. Docherty’s article does an amazing job at analyzing the current Canadian senate and argues that the senate is a failing Canadian institution because of two democratic deficiencies: the undemocratic nature of senator selection and the inability of senators to represent provinces properly (45). These two features of why the senate is a failing Canadian institution can be compared to how Rand Dyck defines democracy in Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches. Docherty looks at several previous senate reforms and answers the question of why these senate reforms failed, in doing so Docherty lays down a framework for a possible successful senate reform but acknowledges the obstacles. Docherty does a very good job at accessing the problem of the senate, accessing the problem of previous reforms, and suggesting a plausible type of reform for the senate. This provides the reader with the knowledge of why the Canadian senate is a failing institution but also the possible solutions of how the senate can be reformed in order to maximize its democratic potential. Although, Docherty fails to provide an exact reform that needs to be taken, he just draws upon other failures and hypothesis that this may be the right solution for reform. Rand Dyck’s chapter 11 fills in the missing gap of reform that needs to be taken by drawing upon one of the best attempts at

Canada’s parliamentary system is designed to preclude the formation of absolute power. Critics and followers of Canadian politics argue that the Prime Minister of Canada stands alone from the rest of the government. The powers vested in the prime minister, along with the persistent media attention given to the position, reinforce the Prime Minister of Canada’s superior role both in the House of Commons and in the public. The result has led to concerns regarding the power of the prime minister. Hugh Mellon argues that the prime minister of Canada is indeed too powerful. Mellon refers to the prime minister’s control over Canada a prime-ministerial government, where the prime minister encounters few constraints on the usage of his powers.

One major issue that allows the Prime Minister execute such a high degree of ministerial power is the Cabinets ability to use party discipline to ensure it has its party’s support. MPs of the party must always “toe the party line” to guarantee the will of the PM is carried out. If any elected member of the Prime Ministers’ party were to vote against the PM, the PM has the executive

Explain the system of checks and balances within the American government and its significance. Be sure to provide examples and discuss alternative views.

Today, Ontario and Quebec have maintained their 24 member senatorial status. The four Western provinces have 6 members each. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick both have 10 seats. Prince Edward Island was given 4 out of the original 24 Maritime senators. Together, Newfoundland and Labrador have a total of 6 members. Finally, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories stand in the equation with 1 senator apiece. Along with the Senate`s original intentions, the principle of equality between the provinces is evidently lost. The Senate primarily fails because it was formerly created to balance out the representation by population which lies in the House of Commons however currently only seems to reinforce it. In fact, Canada’s central provinces, Ontario and Quebec, account for 60 percent of the seats in the House of Commons and almost half of the seats in the Senate at 46 percent.5 The inadequacy of regional representation is emphasized as the Canada West Foundation clearly states: “Canada is the only democratic federal system in the world in which the regions with the largest populations dominate both houses of the national legislature.“6 With an unelected Senate that no longer fulfills its role of equal regional representation and a House of Commons grounded on the representation of provinces proportional to their population, the legitimacy of Parliament has become a

The consequences of the senate not being able to reform have been western provinces feeling like they are left out in the process of decision-making, policy making and other legislative decisions made by the federal government. “The senate was envisioned as a legislative body that would serve several functions in addition to legislation”(Lawlor, Crandol,2013). The senate is refereed as the sober second thought in terms of legislation review but the second thought is rarely concerning the western provinces. Western alienation is caused by regional misrepresentation which is mainly caused by the senate. According to Lawlor, some provincial governments have challenged the unilateral approach by the senate to restructure itself. However the Supreme Court Of Canada will consider a reference case on the constitutional status of senate reform in November 2013. This means that the senate may be reformed this year, the western provinces would prefer a senate that can represent their interests. The senate may need a reform in order to remove the discrimination of the west but in order to do this, it must reform the whole committee that the senate works with.

The Senate was established for predominately two reasons: act as a check on legislation passed by the Executive and House of Commons and as scholar Shamus Reid asserts “it was meant to enhance the intra-state nature of Canada’s federalism by offering a regional perspective in federal government policy-making.” Most academics would agree that the Senate has done reasonably well fulfilling its first obligation. However, the Senate has not acted as admirably on the latter role; this stems from the “Prime Minister [being] given free reign in the Constitution to nominate any individual believed to fit the Senate’s mandate, allowing for the reparation of potential deficits of professional perspective in the policy-making process. () Consequently, this results in Senators that are inherently loyal party members and partisan rather than fervent regional advocates and may result in Senators representing the interests of the party instead of a region. Because of the deficiencies present in the current system under which the Senate operates, the Triple E Senate Reform movement from Alberta grew in political strength and espoused the the Senate as not just a “sober second thought” but also to fulfill its obligations to the lower population regions of Canada.

Congress has many functions to keep it working and functioning. They do many things to make laws, make sure they’re fair, and much more. There are also many committees with important jobs. There are many things that influence congressional elections such as reapportionment, redistricting, much more. There are many people who make up the House and Senate and they have many important jobs to keep things running smoothly.

“Critically analyse both the roles of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and the relationship between them. Discuss whether the Government’s involvement in the performance of the functions of Parliament is appropriate or excessive for a system of checks and balances”