Discuss Harper's Failed Strategic Manipulation Of Canada's Political And Electoral Institutions

Now that you are up to date with currents events I will briefly touch on some strong point of the Canadian democratic system. Citizens in Canada indirectly hold power in a free electoral system and are given better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than other systems of government. The freedom of speech, freedom of political expression, and the freedom of the media allow citizens to vote in favour of their own interest. Democracy in Canada is rooted on the grounds of equal rights; this gives people equality before the law, human rights, free and fair elections and so on. In comparison to the Third World, power is in the hands of the “Big Men”, the police and army are the ones who hold control not the people and where corruption is a norm, Canada may look like a utopia. Another strong point in the Canadian political system is everyone no matter race or sex has the right to vote as long as you are a Canadian citizen over the age of eighteen. Until the 60s/70s parties would make up electoral boundaries this was done to increase the number of votes in that location this is called gerrymander, this was unfair because certain parties had an advantage over others. However, now under the Electoral Boundaries Commissions this problem does not occur and no party has the upper hand over another. Interestingly the

As time goes on, some countries become more relevant in the global sphere while others start to fade away. Canada is a country that only becomes more relevant as time goes on. Since being granted full sovereignty, Canada has had a growing role as a major world player. Much of their international growth has to do with its close ties to the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the country has also undergone huge change and refocusing on a domestic level. With influence from both Europe and the United States, Canada has a very unique system of governing. This paper will focus on a few major areas of Canada. It will look into the history of Canada, the structure of its government, its politics, and many of the major issues it faces today.

idea of turning Canada back to its original roots. He compares Harper's government system with Pierre Trudeau’s. Arguing about the struggles and failures of

The electoral system in Canada is also known as a “first past the post” system. “First past the post” means the candidate with the highest number of votes wins the congressional seat, whereas the other candidates with a lower number of votes don’t get any representation. There are many cons to this system that will be highlighted throughout this essay. I will argue that the electoral system requires reform due to the discrepancies between the percentage of popular votes and the number of seats won. Canada’s electoral system has many problems and is not seen as fully democratic since it has provided poor representation for both candidates that win and lose. Candidates can win seats with less than 50% of votes, meaning that even if the majority of the nation, or province did not vote for the candidate they still win the election as they consume the highest number of votes among the parties. FPTP allows two people in different ridings to get the same number of votes with the outcome of one winner since the distribution of votes and seats are unequal. The system can also encourage strategic voting such as not voting for whom you think is the best fit but voting for the candidate that seems most likely to win in order to beat candidate you dislike. FPTP leads to an imbalance of power and has the potential for corruption.

Canada’s friendly neighbor to the South, the US, has an electoral system that is composed of 3 separate elections, one of them deciding the head of state. The president elected by the people and he or she is the determining person of the country’s political system. In the US runs like a majority system” In Canada, however, elections are held slightly differently. Citizens vote for a Member of Parliament in a 308-seat house and candidates win not by a majority, unlike in the US, but by a plurality. This means that a candidate can actually win by simply having more votes than the other candidates. This method of representative democracy, in general, does not cause too much controversy in a global scope but has

The issue of electoral reform has become more important than ever in Canada in recent years as the general public has come to realize that our current first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system, formally known as single-member plurality (SMP) has produced majority governments of questionable legitimacy. Of the major democracies in the world, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the only countries that still have SMP systems in place. Interestingly enough, there has been enormous political tension and division in the last few years in these countries, culminating with the election results in Canada and the USA this year that polarized both countries. In the last year we have seen

The Canadian Prime Minister presents the illusion that this so-called democratic Canada is run by the will of the people and attempts to maintain this image, yet the truth is that the power stays

With his announcement on August 2, 2015 Prime Minister Stephen Harper set in motion a 78-day election campaign, one of the longest and quite possibly the most expensive in Canadian history (Maloney, 2015). The structural constraints posed by the first-past-the-post electoral system, and the institutional constraints of the parliamentary system and campaign spending legislation were all potentially beneficial to Harper and the Conservative Party, but his underestimation of strategic voting and the power of social media, combined with his use of polarising debates and the decision of many popular incumbent Tory MP’s not to run, led to his party’s downfall and the creation of a Liberal majority government. This essay delves deeper into the factors behind the Conservative Party’s loss in the October 2015 Canadian election, in an attempt to understand why they were unable to secure a fourth mandate and come out first-past-the-other parties.

It has now been over two, and a half years since us citizens have decided to nominate Justin Pierre James Trudeau as the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada. Justin Trudeau may be an appealing Prime Minister to many, but many Canadians are failing to understand that he is forbidding Canada to propel forward and to meet its true potential in many facets. Not many actions Justin Trudeau raised have affected Canada vastly in the past two years, at least not for the good. Trudeau has also been operating in contrast to his pledges such as the tax promises. ( Financial Post, 27 Sept. 2017.) Ever since November 2015 (when Trudeau was elected), citizens (especially middle class) had high hopes, and were lead to dismay, and over the course of time, began

How can the Canadian government be dominated by one ruler when it has democratic elections with many competing parties? Mellon believes that Canadian elections have low voter turnouts and even lower public interest. Canadian elections are essentially sporadic. Finally, Mellon also believes that prime ministers “…are supported by a growing circle of advisors, pollsters, and spin doctors that help protect their position,” (Hugh 175). The main focus of Mellon’s argument is this idea of a prime-ministerial government.

Although Canadian electoral system has always undergone periodic reforms, new challenges always accompany electoral changes and therefore the system should be consistently reformed to meet new circumstances.The current electoral system in Canada is a product of a series of electoral changes that have always taken place since the foundation of the Canadian confederation in the mid 1880s. During the early years, the rights of individuals to vote were significantly limited as only white males had the right to vote but only after meeting certain requirements. A secret ballot was unheard, and it was only after a number of changes were implemented that all social groups in Canada were given the right to vote. Even after these changes, electoral

In this essay, I will demonstrate that the Prime Minister is powerful and can cause many potential dangers by analyzing different elements inside and outside of our government over the period of different Prime Ministers throughout the Canadian political history.

Canada has been experiencing an increase of support for electoral reform, so much so that in the most recent election in 2015 electoral reform was one of now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s campaign. There is no doubt that a significant part of the Canadian public is interested in seeing electoral reform come to fruition. It is only a matter of determining if reform is the best solution. According to Cross “there are three primary factors working together to create a fertile ground for electoral reform projects… These three factors are disproportionality in the translation of votes into seats, a general democratic malaise, and the relative financial cost of democratic reform in comparison with reforms in other policy fields” (p. 78, 2005).

Over the years, political power in Canada has been held by older men of Anglo-Celtic or Francophone heritage, rather than by females or members of Canada 's ethnic groups. In fact, the Canadian political sphere is considered a vertical mosaic because different ethnicities, languages, regional groupings, and religious groupings hold unequal status and power. Indeed, the representations of women and minority groups has been unproportioned with respect to their population. Therefore, when there are absences from the decision making process in representation of these aforementioned groups, there is a big concern in respect to the legitimacy of the political system. In fact, a third of Canadians express disappointment in respect to the way

In 2011, three legal and constitutional scholars, Peter Aucoin, Mark D. Jarvis and Lori Turnbull set out to write a book detailing what they believed to be obvious and egregious errors in the way in which the current form of responsible government as it was practiced in the Canadian federal government, fell short of operating within basic democratic parameters. Canada has a system that is based one the Westminster system, in which its the Constitution act of 1867 is influenced by British principles and conventions. “Democratizing the Constitution reforming responsible government” is a book that makes an analysis for the reform of responsible government in Canada. The authors believe that from the unclear rules, pertaining to the role and power of the prime minster foresees for a failing responsible government. In this essay the functions of the government , conventions of the constitution, the a proposal for reform will be addressed.