Has anyone been following this crazy political/constitutional crisis going on in Canada? Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper was re-elected several weeks ago, but he didn’t win a majority of seats in Parliament. He subsequently gave a response to the economic crisis that pissed a bunch of people off. Now three parties have formed a majority coalition to try to oust him. And one of those parties is the Bloc Québécois, the Quebec separatist group. So along with a economic and political crisis, the separatism issue is thrown in as well.
So, Harper was facing a vote of no confidence — and in response, today he suspended Parliament for the next two months! And he got permission to do this from the Governor-General of Canada! Who is appointed by the Queen! As in, the British monarch! As in, “Oh yeah, Canada isn’t really an independent country after all!”
What the hell is going on up there?
Here’s a Canadian columnist’s view on the whole debacle.
Sorry, last paragraph. Safari is playing up. To say that he got permission from the Governor General who is appointed by the Queen, and your last sentence are fairly simplistic. Most Commonwealth countries these days, including Australia (my home on the sunburnt beach), Canada, and indeed Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are constitutional monarchies, i.e. the Queen is the Queen of Canada, the Queen of Australia, etc, depending upon where she happens to physically be at the time. The appointment of Governors General, although approved by the monarch, are usually from a list of say 3 or 4, which are submitted by the Prime Minister, i.e. the person (male or female) who leads the party with the most number of seats (or districts), or leads the major party in a coalition or grouping of political parties with the same general ideals who are opposed to one political ideal (say Conservatives/Liberals, opposed to Social Democrats/Greens etc. The recommendation of the Prime Minister is fairly implicit and that’s what the Queen/King (in future?) is going to choose). Its not since 1975 (as far as I’m aware) that a Queen’s representative has sacked a Prime Minister, and that was here in Australia. Still, its an interesting discussion point, if somewhat moot and I note the columnist got 129 replies, so its certainly worthy of discussion with a differing range of views, and isn’t that what a democracy is all about.
Hope you and yours have a great holiday season.
Hi guy. A couple of points to consider. I think you’ll find the last election in Canada, held fairly recently, was fairly close, and seemed to keep the status quo. Apathy is an amazing thing, and seems to be a word wide phenomenon.
Quebec is still a province of some importance, and even though there may be some in Quebec who want to secede, the fact that the country is bi-lingual in its signs and legislation means that the issue isn’t going away. At times like this it just simmers along and comes to the forefront and seems to make itself an easy target for those against the idea. I mean no disrespect to Quebecois, separationists or the rest of Canada. These are just my thoughts.
Morrie pointed out what I was going to. In the UK, the Queen appoints the Prime Minister “on the advice of Parliament” and cabinet ministers “on the advice of the Prime Minister” which means she is constitutionally required to do whatever Parliament and the Prime Minister tell her to do. The monarch theoretically has the power to dissolve or prorogue or suspend Parliament, but only if the Prime Minister asks her to, which means that it is the Prime Minister who actually exercises these powers of the Crown.
Canada is an independent realm and Betty Windsor is Queen of Canada at the same time she is Queen of the the United Kingdom, Australia, Bermuda, etc. But she cannot be everywhere so the Governor-General (formerly the Viceroy) takes the constitutional place of the monarch. Just as the monarch “appoints” only those ministers whom the Prime Minister asks her to, she only appoints Governors-General whom the Prime Minister submits to her. The office of Governor-General is just as symbolic and ceremonial as that of the Crown: while he can suspend Parliament, he can only do so on the “advice” of the Prime Minister.
Essentially, the Queen and her representative the Governor-General are like ceremonial rubber stamps that the government uses to officially legitimate its work. This is just the relic of the evolutionary nature of the British constitutional system, but it makes for tremendous fun.
Points taken, but what about the fact that a prime minister who was reelected just a few weeks ago has shut down Parliament to avoid a vote of no confidence? I mean, it’s crazy!
Crazy, but within the rules of the game. Just part of what makes British-style politics much more fun than ours, IMO :)
A lot of the confusion comes about because the basic dynamics of Canadian politics have changed greatly. From the Second World War right up until 1990, you had two federal parties, one of the centre-left (Liberals) and one of the centre-right (Progressive Conservatvies), both equally matched in strength, with a social-democratic New Democratic Party in a perpetual minority.
In 1990, Québec nationalists broke away from the Progressive Conservatives to form the Bloc Québécois, which has consistently pulled a large majority of Québec’s seats in the federal parliament. In 1993, the Progressive Conservative Party imploded, with the western Canada-based Reform/Alliance Party eventually swallowing up the remnants of the PC to form the new Conservative Party.
Since until recently the Bloc was not associated with government, this has made the task of forming a majority government considerably more difficult. Since the Bloc isn’t going away, the NDP isn’t going away, the Liberals are having problems breaking out of their strongholds in major Canadian cities and the Conservatives can’t project their power out of most of western Canada and rural Ontario, this creates a situation of perpetual minorities.