The British Parliamentary System : A Democratic Model Of Governing That Canada

“The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within”. (Gandhi) A lawful and fair democracy is one that represents the people, where the will of the people is done not where the government’s will is enforced. Here in Canada we believe a democratic government is well suited for its people but like any other system it has its flaws. This country was a model democracy. Canada’s wealth, respect for legal, human and civil rights almost promises that this country has the potential to uphold a legitimate democracy. Reading headlines today concerning the state of democracy in Canada we can see how our political system is slipping. A democracy should uphold the rights of its people rather than the rights of a

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.

‘Parliamentary sovereignty is a constitutional relic. It has been rendered obsolete, in particular, by the supremacy of EU law and the UK’s statutory recognition of human rights. We should no longer talk about this irrelevant doctrine.’

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.

Federally, there is a commission put together each decade to reassess electoral boundaries; sometimes boundaries are redrawn, sometimes in the event of a population boom in an area – a move from rural to urban. Normally, “the number of voters per constituency should not… vary more than + or – 25% from the average,” (SFU.ca). The number of electoral district equals the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of that province; in New Brunswick, there are currently 55 seats in the Legislative Assembly. This means that, unlike some electoral systems, there is only one candidate running in each riding. For a potential Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to win their seat, they must get a higher percentage of the vote – just one percent higher. Because one only needs one percent more than their contestants, rather than majority of the vote, SMP is sometimes referred to as “first past the post.” Finally, the party and leader can form the government if they have more seats than the other parties; this does not really take into account the popular vote. If the leading party won more than half of the seats it is referred to as a majority government; however, if less than half the seats were won it is called a minority government and, if the opposition and other parties so choose, they can vote to dissolve government, thus calling an election.

In Canadian government it best to have legislators who do not vote their own interests and they vote the interests of their constituents. If legislators vote in their own interests they could be going against their own parties or the constituents that voted them in. Even if they know a lot about the subject they should still keep their interests out of their decisions and keep the interests of their constituents. Legislators that vote their own interests might even be going against the party policies, which could get them kicked out of the party or disciplined. Legislators are there to represent the people of their riding, not to vote their own interests in.

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

Basically, voters select one candidate from their riding, just like in an SMP system, but they also place a vote for which party they would like to form the government. This second vote determines the amount of seats that each party gains proportional to the amount of votes they collected in the countries. The representatives from each party are then made up of the elected representatives from each riding (if that party was able to elect any) and other members selected by the leader1. An STV system, which is what the Citizen’s Assembly recommended to the people of BC, can be found in Ireland, Malta, and in some levels of government in Australia. Voters rank candidates according to their priorities, choosing as many as they wish. For example, a certain voter could select a Conservative as his or her first choice, a Liberal as the second, a New Democrat as third, and then cast no votes for the Green Party. When each a candidate reaches a certain quota of first place votes, they are elected, and the extra first place votes that they did not need are distributed to the other parties according to their overall ranking. If a second candidate is then elected, his or her extra votes are then distributed to the remaining parties, and so on . This system is rather complicated, especially when compared to our current system, but computerized voting systems have generally alleviated any problems.

The need for government reform in Upper and Lower Canada was created because of the incompetent way the government managed the country, a lack of representation in the government, a lack of understanding of the colonist's in Upper and Lower Canada, and discrimination towards the French in Lower Canada. Numerous colonists arrived to Upper and Lower Canada to begin a new life with a proper government however, the government in Canada did not satisfy their needs.

There are Canadian citizens who thought that the Canadian government we have is perfect, citizens who believed that every aspect of the government was truly democratic, and citizens who believe that government could do no wrong. Truly this group of believers has been living a lie. In our Canadian system of government, large aspects within are far from democratic and need to be changed. Liberal-minded people will cry out for a change in order for government to serve the people better, and on the other hand the more conservative thinkers will argue that no change is needed because our government is efficient and considerate. However, our voting system, our Senate, and the power vested to the Prime Minister are far from democratic, do not

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

The 2015 Canadian federal election, which took place on October 19, 2015, saw the Liberal Party's victory and the Conservative Party's defeat. Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party called the election early, after 10 years in Parliament and a strong run in the 2011 federal election, believing it would grant them the upper hand. This decision to dissolve parliament in August instead of September granted them longer campaign time, but did not make as great of an impact as they had wanted it to. The structural and institutional constraints Harper had to take into account were that, in Canada, we use parliamentary system with single member districts and the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system. These constraints made it more likely that

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

Over the recent decades, Canada’s political landscape has undergone several shifts with the 2015 elections taking another new course of government. The 2015 elections market Canada’s 29th general elections following a request of the Jim Prentice to the governor of Alberta to dissolve the legislative assembly in April 2015. Further, this marked the fourth time that the people of Alberta changed their system of government. With reference to the provincial election act, the set election date was set and the people of Alberta were allowed to the polls. This election led to the majority of the progressive conservative associations of Alberta (PCs) losing their positions as several New Democratic Party (NDP) aspirants were elected into the

Canada has a Parliamentary Democracy system of government. Its governmental system holds the law as the highest authority. The Constitution Act of 1867, is the beginning of Canada’s Constitution, which stated Canada shall operate under one Parliament that will include three distinct elements such as, The Crown, The Senate, and The House of Commons. In addition, Canada as a federal state shared lawmaking between one federal, ten provincial and three territorial governments. The Legislature has the power to enact laws, which consist of persons chosen to represent the Canadian people. The system is called Representative System of Government. The Federal Legislature is bicameral that has two legislative chambers, which includes an Upper House,