Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Jim, Toronto on October 3, 2008:

You could say that the comments by Ritz were real crackers.

Uh, sorry. I just can't pass up a really bad (and obvious) joke, which may or may not have already been made in a less blatant form in the article.

As for debating the merits of the two systems, I would have to defend our Canadian one. Partly because I've grown up with it, but also because I would rather have someone who is supposed to have a certain amount of knowledge on the subject as watchdog than some half-baked hack (uh, certain humour columnists excepted of course).

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Yes, I did use "Ritz cracked" in the story. No, I didn't take offense: I'm a fully baked hack! -rc

Posted by Johor, New Zealand on October 3, 2008:

The Canadian parliamentary system like that in all ex British colonies and Dominions (even Zimbabwe!) try to follow the British Westminster model to some extent. Some countries like Australia and New Zealand have given up the 'first past the post' system and opted for some form of proportional representation. It doesn't necessarily work any better that the Canadian or British system and is certainly more complex and confusing for the voter.

But there is absolutely no doubt that this system keeps a government on its toes. I find that in the USA the press has been proving extremely negligent over the past 8 years in performing its proper function and has let GWB and RC get away with far too much. Perhaps that because so many of the newspaper ownership is tied up with the Elephant in power!

Posted by David, Perth on October 3, 2008:

I think that the critic (or in Australia, the Shadow minister) is an important role in Politics, not only do they still represent their electorate, but also they hold the government to account.

From wiki: "It is the Shadow Cabinet's responsibility to pass criticism on the current government and its respective legislation, as well as offering alternative policies." Wiki Link

The press on the other hand, should be reporting what has happened (or what has not), and only by using opinion/editorial pieces properly should they (and those invited to write them) be purporting a view.

Posted by Zoe Brain Canberra Australia on October 4, 2008:

We have a similar system in Australia, but with 3 major and one minor party:
Liberals - centerist conservatives
National - rural centerist conservative
Labor - centerist leftists
and
Greens - leftist

The Liberals and Nationals are in a permanent coalition, and there's less difference between them than between the different factions in the Australian Labor Party.

There's also a handful of independents, less than half a dozen.

We have preferential voting, which means that the candidate least odious to the electorate tends to win.

The concept of "shadow ministers" is the same as in Canada, but the Lib/Nat coalition share theirs, and when in government, there will be some Lib and some Nat ministers in cabinet.

We have a house of reps, and a senate, along US lines.

There are two major differences though, and although minor, they are significant. The first is that party discipline is much stronger. "Crossing the floor" and voting with the other side, or even abstaining, will, more often than not, lead to expulsion from the party. This is the main source of the "independents", who can usually be trusted to follow one or the other party line, but have special interests, such as anti-gambling.

The second is that legislation is only allowed to have one purpose - no "earmarks". No "A Bill to increase pensions to widows and orphans... and also give my cousin Vladimir a tax break, fund a perpetual-motion machine factory, and issue a commemorative stamp".

There's still horse-trading, but it tends to cut out the worse excesses.

Posted by Robert , Kingston, NY, USA on October 4, 2008:

I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know this -- and thankful for the information. And yes, it does sound like a much better system than we have in the US, for the reasons stated. Please accept my humble gratitude for the civics lesson.

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Don't feel bad, Robert -- I didn't know about the "critic" either. It was interesting indeed. -rc

Posted by John, Montreal West, Canada on October 4, 2008:

I must say that Magnus' explanation of the Canadian political system is very accurate. However, I disagree with his characterization of the Green Party as a 'left-wing' party. So I would like to make some additional comments in order to assist those who would like to understand our political system a bit better.

The Conservative Party was formed in 2003 by a merger between the Progressive Conservative Party (popularly known in Canada as the PC's) and the Canadian Alliance Party. The Progressive Conservative Party was a fiscally conservative party but had a progressive view on social issues (as an example, a leader of the PC's, John Diefenbaker, led the fight against the death penalty back in the 1960s). The Canadian Alliance Party was fiscally and socially conservative, more along the lines of the Republican Party in the US. It was formed from the Reform Party, which was based in Western Canada and was never able to capture the imagination of other Canadians.

With these two parties fracturing the right-wing vote, the Liberals were able to govern unopposed for most of the 1990s and the early years of the new century. A movement then arose to tone-down some of the more rabidly right-wing members of the Canadian Alliance Party and merge with the PC's. This finally happened in 2003 with the formation of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Under Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party received the most seats in the 2006 election. However, they did not have enough seats to form a majority and thus could be defeated if the opposition parties voted against them in votes known as "confidence votes" (ie they needed to have the confidence of a majority of the members in the House of Commons who were present for the vote).

In August of this year, sensing disarray and a weak leader in their prime opposition party, the Liberal Party of Canada, Stephen Harper called an election, hoping to get a majority and be able to govern without having to be as careful about being defeated. I won't get into the process -- this is long enough already!

So that is why we are currently having an election in Canada!

My other quibble with Magnus' description was that the Green party of Canada is "leftist". I personally supported the Progressive Conservative Party for several decades and would never vote for a party that was left-wing. As I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative, I took great issue with the social conservatism of many members of the Conservative Party of Canada. So I did not vote for that party in the past two elections: I "parked" my vote by voting for the Green's.

Although the Greens are left-wing on environmental issues, under the leadership of Elizabeth May, the Green Party of Canada has become more centrist on non-environmental issues -- and is even fiscally conservative on some issues. As an example, they support reducing income and payroll taxes while implementing a carbon tax to replace the government revenue that will be lost by those reductions. So I am no longer parking my vote: I have become a Green Party voter!

Posted by Patti, Ontario, Canada on October 4, 2008:

Legislation for one purpose - what a great policy!

I have often heard bits about the "coalition" system of other democratic governments, and wondered how it worked. Thanks for the responses.

Of course, the listeria outbreak really has been a terrible, terrible thing, with incredible honesty and apologies expressed by the president of Maple Leaf Foods. It was absolutely stunning to me that Ritz thought that joking about it would be acceptable -- just goes to show AGAIN that many politicians aren't the brightest bulbs.

Posted by Kurt, Cambridge Ontario Canada on October 4, 2008:

It is interesting to note the differences. The idea of critic is longstanding and does keep the minister on his or her toes.

Comparing this to the American system, we elect every member of the House of Commons (equivalent to the House of Representatives) at the same time, as opposed to half every two years. Magnus is correct in the voting mechanism -- you vote for your riding's representative who wins a seat in Parliment. The party with the most number of seats is the party in power and the leader of that party is the Prime Minister. This person is also elected in a specific riding too, in other words wins a seat in a riding just like everyone else.

It does get a bit interesting in the choosing of a leader of a party. There are no primaries, but the party itself chooses it's leader, usually throgh a internal voting system, and the exact method is set by the party itself. What is interesting is that a party leader may, in fact, lose an election, or be voted as leader by their party, and not have a seat in Parliment. This doesn't happen very often, but is currently present in the Green party, where the leader does not have a seat. I am uncertain of the exact mechanism, but if the party in power's leader does not have a seat, they can go on for a while in that state, but an election would be soon or the party would choose another leader.

The timing of elections is, even now, quite different. If the house is in a minority government situation (party in power has the most seats of any party but less than half), a defeat of a major bill (such as the budget) or a motion of non-confidence can "bring the house down" and cause an election. It can also be called by the Prime Minister. In the past, elections must be held at least every five years, but again the timing was at the whim of the Prime Minister, so there was a lot of strategy in calling the election. Minority governments would desire a majority government so they don't have to listen to their critics as closely).

Recently, the house passed a bill stating that the election dates would be set every four years at a specific time, attempting to eliminate the party in power from setting up a great advantage (e.g. great tax cut announced and then call an election), however the party that introduced this bill essentially broke their own law that they pushed through the house, and called an election (it was due in 2009, we currently have an election on Oct 14th).

There are of course, advantages to both, but one thing I feel is a good thing is our entire election, from the calling of it to voting day, is only a few weeks long. It was called at the beginning of September. Moving to fixed date would allow for the protracted 18 month furvor that we see in the US.

We also have a senate. This is closer to the House of Lords in the UK, than the US. Members are appointed for life and vacancies are filled by the appointment by the Prime Minister at the time. It is suposed to be the "house of sober thought" and that members would not be constrained or tied to buying votes, but devotion of to duty and country would be the motivator. It's legislative powers are less than the American senate, and of course, doesn't quite live up to its ideal. Reform of the senate has been talked about for a number if years.

Posted by Pierre Ontario, Canada on October 4, 2008:

Your various writers previous to me have done a first class job of summarizing the Canadian Parliamentary System! (As well, they should be given kudos for their general comments on the Generic Parliamentary System!)
I can say this, having a BA in Political Science. In fact, I could not have written a better description myself. Your friend Magnus MUST be a professor or something. This is perhaps the BEST of your blog series.

A couple of notes:

For a long time we have discussed getting a 3E Senate in Canada: Equal, Elected, Effective. We have yet to do it.

Equal: Similar to the US, each Province would get so many members. Currently Senators are either replaces or added - Elevated it is called - at the entire whim of whatever Prime Minister has the honours of appointing them. Therefore, a PM has no responsibility or duty to see that all Provinces have an equal number of Senators. Because so many PM's have come from Quebec, you can guess they are well represented!

Elected: Many Canadians would like to vote for their senators, to have a say in who gets Elevated. Currently, we have absolutely no say as to whom, or why, or where they come from.

Effective: The Senate, that House of Sober Second Thought, is all too often NOT that Sober.... It is thought that terms (say 8 - 10 years) would be preferable than being appointed until they choose to retire, or are forced to.

Our Media does do some criticism as the US media does, but not to such an adversarial level. Oddly enough, some of the best criticism comes from our national broadcaster, the CBC. We have had a number or cheap to produce, but very educational and active, "public interest" TV and radio shows over the years. Marketplace, The Fifth Estate, W5, This Hour has 22 Minutes, and so on. Google CBC and CTV, the two biggest networks. These "news shows" done in a semi-documentary format, are investigative journalism at its best. (Sort of the Randy Cassinghams of Canada!)

At any rate, You all deserve a hearty well done!

Posted by Don in Nawlins on October 4, 2008:

I'm not sure the concept of "coalition government" would work well in the USA. I'm fairly sure that's why we changed the original method of determining a Vice President (it was the second-place candidate!). And to quibble somewhat over the Canadian explanation, "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" does not OPPOSE the government, but QUESTIONS the government's policies and operations. An antagonism for sheer political gain is not the intention, as it seems to be all-too-often in a two-party (win-or-lose) system.