How Does Depression Affect The Formation Of Canada?

Politically during the 1930’s was not great because of a few different things. Firstly, there is the Hands-off policy by Mackenzie King who believed that the Stock Market Crash was temporary in the business cycle. During the 1929 winter, many provincial governments asked for help to deal with

It is interesting to note that this sweep, in which the Progressive-Conservatives essentially dominated in all provinces never got the same attention that the Liberals' victories had received in the 1960s and 1970s and in particular Trudeau's stature among the population versus Mulroney's is noteworthy. There was no sort of Mulroneymania among the press and the general population. The question is why did Mulroney fail, despite having greater electoral success in 1984 than Trudeau did in 1968, why was Mulroney unable to capture the same amount of the enthusiasm that Trudeau had in 1968? It may have to do with the fact that many of the key platform planks among the Liberals and the Progressive-Conservatives were similar, in particular when it came to Quebec. I was surprised just how closely Mulroney's Quebec policy, despite being a Progressive-Conservative, mirrored that of Trudeau's. In addition, when it comes to discussing Quebec politics, it is rather surprising to see the Quebec population, which was by-in-large politically left-leaning, vote en masse for a Progressive-Conservative party running on a neoconservative platform, the fact that Mulroney promised

The Statute of Westminister allowed Canada to make their own laws and regulations. Britain couldn’t rule Canada, but the Privy Council in Britain is still higher than Supreme Court of Canada. The document was signed in Britain, since Canada was still part of British Empire at the time. British Empire passed the Statute of Westminister on Dec. 11, 1931 and Canada gained complete independence. This Statute effected not only Canada but five more dominions, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Irish Free State, the Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.

The Labour government of 1974-1979 also won two elections, the 1974 February election and the 1974 October election, however both were won by a minority. The February election was won by 4 seats and the October election was won by 42 seats. The reason for the slim win is to do with inflation. The Labour governments of 1974-1979 were in office at a bad time because Britain had started to suffer from huge inflation because of the oil price rise in 1973, and so voters didn’t have a clear decision on which they were going to vote for. This shows that at the moment the 1964-1970 Labour Government was more successful by far because of their majority of 110 seats in the 1966 election.

Throughout a significant period in history, 1945-79, a two party system was obviously predominant; the Labour and Conservative parties being the only two with the possibility of achieving majority vote and therefore forming a government. People voted for the party which represented their social class e.g.

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

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.

Another important reason that Canada should select a different election system is that the FPTP system has a large impact on smaller parties. According to Political Scientist Maurice Duverger’s Law, given enough time FPTP systems will eventually become a

Canada in the 1930s was in a state of economic depression and the people, notably living in the west, were finding it difficult to secure a source of income. R.B. Bennett was elected as Prime Minister by Canadians in 1930 on the basis that he would end unemployment, but by 1932 his government was seemingly overwhelmed by the persistence of the Depression and was becoming

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

During both the 1970 and 1973 elections, the caucus won under 10 seats out of a possible 110 – even though they had roughly 30 per cent of the popular vote** (FOOTNOTE Canadian encyclopedia). Despite their initial failure though, the PQ emerged victorious in the 1976 election, defeating the liberal opposition while taking 41 percent of the popular vote and 71 seats. This victory was attributed largely to an electoral strategy in which the party promised to hold a plebiscite on Quebec independence during its first year in office – a promise it would keep, though not within the originally proposed timeline. This surprising win by the PQ is considered on of the most important elections in Quebec’s history, rivalled only by the aforementioned 1960 vote that brought Jean Lesage and his Liberals into prominence. The repercussions of this famous election were seen not only in the province of Quebec, but also throughout the rest of

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

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

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.

district. The CCF won only 5 seats in the Federal election in 1935. Douglas made a