Canadian PM dissolves Parliament?
 

Oh man and I thought Bush was bad.

Isnt that like Bush dismissing COngress?

I do not think you Canadians have a right anymore to disparage the American Government.

You have lost all credibility.
How does a Prime Minister go and dismiss an entire Parliament?
SOunds like your Prime Minister has Putin on speed dial LOL!


http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americ....ap/index.html

Ummm ... in the Canadian Parliamentary system, the Prime Minister goes to the Governor-General (the Queen's spokesperson) and asks the GG to ask the Queen to dissolve the current parliament before elections can be held to elect a new parliament ...

It is all part of a protocol that is purely for show now, since Canada has had its independance from Great Britain since 1982, when the Canada Act was given Royal Assent.

So really Britain still calls the shots?

but it is merely a formality? What if she said no? lol!

This is to funny!

whats really mind blowing is the dismissal!
Thats like Bush dismissing congress whom are elected officials by each state isnt it?

SO ya gonna have an all conservative parliament when the new lackeys come in?

maybe the tinfoil hats have been right all along... Canada, US, Mexico....

the new Euro.....

I thought you were trying to be funny at first but I think you're serious... :helpme

To be fair we do not hear much about Canadian politics or how everything is handled.

The idea that someone can ask someone else which is sort of tradition now (queen) for a new election and then just fire everybody does sound a wee bit funny or at least interesting. (use of the word foreign would of been appropriate and not at the same time)

Yup I really do not get it.
I do not know shit about Canadian Politics.

But its kinda odd to remove a bunch of government leaders by asking a representative of the Queen of England if its OK...

Both parts are totally weird actually.

I thought you guys were liberals and well now it looks like a conservative just wiped them out by talking to the crown.

Australia disolves parlament election time too. Many Commonwealth countries do (if not most/all).

What happens if nobody (PM or whoever) asks for it to be disolved?
Does it just carry on and everyone has job security?

Funnest thread ever. Americans FTW.

I actually don't know that much on the political systems entire workings. But that isn't the case. I think it usually occurs when there is a deadlock in parliament over key legislation (of course there are many conditions to it all), therefore the Prime Minister actually asks for another election, to allow the people to decide (of course they hope in their favor by voting them a greater majority to push through their legislation irregardless of the opposition and any independents objection to it) and hopefully resolve the deadlock. There are a few conditions to it all of course, and yes the British part if just a formality. The same formality exists on many levels in Australia.

wait... canada is a country??

Hey I already admitted my ignorance on the subject before hand.

Um not sure ... though I know the Queen has executive power and can sack a government .. well the govenor general can. Has happened once before too, the govenor general sacked an aussie PM :)

Not really sure if the PM refused to disolve parlament and tried to hang onto power, think Zimbabwe is a good example of a commonwealth country that didn't follow the election process correctly. Still no way anyone is telling that nutcase what to do, so its not really too relevant.

What do you mean the PM refused to dissolve parliament? The PM, in the case of early dissolution, is the one who asks to dissolve parliament, and call an early election because he feels his Government is not being allowed by the opposition (including independents) to operate freely enough. The opposition can't ask to dissolve parliament and call and early election. In the other instance, more common dissolution of parliament (i.e. a new election) of parliament simply occurs at the end of fixed terms defined by the Constitution (whether it is 3 years or 4 or 5), like in any democratic model.

I remember studying the parliamentary system of government in my polisci classes in my small(ish) town American high school. Didn't everybody else? Firstly a president and a prime minister are different offices. Secondly, when the British election starts the parliament is dissolved which only means everybody's seats are up for election. This is called a general election. Then, which ever party returns the most number of seats to the house of commons (talking UK here) becomes the party in charge. Then that party picks a leader and that leader is the Prime Minister and a 'new parliament' is instated. It is all just formality. Plus, I don't know about Canada but elections in the UK are a couple of weeks long rather than the forever the US ones take. Then when the election is had the new guy goes into office the next day rather than a few months later than in the States. I loved watching that on my first election in the UK..the moving vans were at Downing Street overnight. Now, if something happened such as an emergency that required parliamentary action during the election, the old parliament would deal with it until the new was formed.

In the UK, an election has to be called within a 5 year period of the last general election. The PM decides when that election happens but it has to be within 5 years. Which, makes the game of politics interesting and a bit like chess. For example, a lot of people think Gordon Brown should have called a general election right after he took over for Blair so that he would then have had a chance of winning and would know he had 5 years in office for the party. However, he didn't and now things are falling apart under his feet. So, the party could toss him out and put in a new leader or they could try to wait until the last possible moment to call the next election and hope things have become better in the economy, etc.

AlienQ shines yet again.
Yes, our PM can call an election. That definitely ranks right up there with rigging voting machines, messing up voting ballots, winning without the popular vote, going to war on false pretences, passing laws in the middle of the night and the myriad of other crap going on in the US.

Yes AlienQ. You win. We're the ones who've lost all credibility because we use a system that's worked for a long long time and you've JUST heard about it.
How do you Americans put it? "Who cares what you think about our politics?"

it means you dont know anything...but you choose to post believing you do...that is trule scary

Of course we are right.

i dont think you understand what dissolving parliment is

I don't think AlienQ as an ounce of clue... But it does bring a nice chuckle on a Monday morning :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Now where's badpug with his funny 2cents :pimp

how exactly do you come up with that conclusion after being told that canada has been independant from britain for over 20 years, and that the act is merely for show ?

here is a video series that may be of some help:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=w0DmF4RFyUw

Heck, even in the UK informing the Queen of the intent to dissolve parliament is just for show at this point.

Yeah, we're the guys who are north of the USA. You know, the place where a lot of your oil comes from.

If you took history class you may recall that we gave you an ass whooping in 1812 and torched the Whitehouse, which happened to be painted pink at the time.

Get some new jokes. You've been repeating this one for years now bud.

God AlienQ has a low iq

You Canadians are so touchie.
Way before any of this I admited to not knowing Canadian Politics.

As time goes by the more and more convinced I am that you people are just pretentious fuck off's that do nothing but try and brow beat Americans.

I do stress "Try".

In Canada, the Prime Minister has to call an election in order for it to take place.

In order to call the election, he has to ask the Governor General (who represents the Queen) to dissolve Parliament. But this is only a formality. She can't say no even if she wanted to because everybody already knows that the Prime Minister is walking over to her house to ask her.

It's kind of like George Bush dismissing Congress and his Cabinet. But it's kind of not, because in Canada, the Prime Minister is part of the Parliament. So when it gets dissolved, he is out of a job too.

And there is no job security; by law, elections must take place at least once every five years.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I've said it before and I'll say it again. AlienQ is one of the top 3 if not the #1 most entertaining people on the board.

Can you really be that dumb? Wherever you saw that, if you would have bothered to click the link you could have read about it and learned. But instead you got excited and (I can just see it now) giggling like a little school girl went right to GFY.com and started typing away.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Can you find the USA on a map of the world?? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Awright smart guys...
What if the representative of the queen said no?

What then?

There would be a referendum for a republic, or some form of an amendment to the constitution shortly thereafter and Canada or Australia would cut her out of the process. That's the point of it just being for show, it isn't a "real" power. It is kind of like saying what if the President of the US decided just to stay on after his term had finished. It doesn't happen because the true combined forces of power that dictate how the process should and does work wouldn't allow it.

Camilla makes the call ...

Like previously said, the power for the Queen to approve or disapprove a government in the UK isn't even a real power any longer. It is just ceremony. If for some reason the Queen said no it would happen anyway and her days as anything at all for the country would be over.

Bingo. Harper says parliment is not working due to the minority government so he called an election. I am not in favor of having one but what can you do. I hope the election produces zero results and solves nothing. We've had a liberal government for many, many years up here but then they got caught stealing some millions of dollars via shady business deals and then lost to the conservatives in the last election. However since the conservatives only won by a minority, it is basically impossible to pass anything that the liberals won't allow to pass. Harper must think its an easy win for him I assume but I hope he is wrong. Majority governments make it too easy to pass any crazy law they want.

Maybe you guys should initiate something, like Americans did in Boston a couple of hundred years ago? ;)

We had a vote for a republic here not long ago, and it was voted down in favor of the monarchy. They are pushing for another vote at the moment, and the current Prime Minister is behind it. The big intellectual debate relating to it though is how exactly will our system be modeled if we have a republic, a lot of people want to radically change it at the same time, whilst many are in favor of keeping just about everything (other than the Queen / Governor General) in place.

In the Canadian system, you dissolve parliment to force an election. Another way to do it is a vote of no-confidence. It's actually superior to the american system in that all of parliment has the ability to take action if a terrible leader who makes bad decisions is put into place, or some other event occurs that requires a change in leadership.

The election likely won't change things, except perhaps give the NPD a lot of new seats. Harper is an asshole, Dion is a bumbling idiot.. the only party leader worth any salt is Jack Layton.

After that advertising scandal I have no idea how Harper has his head so far up his ass to think that he's not just playing suckyboy after a matter of the pot calling the kettle black and being found out for doing it.

Oh and minority government parties have to kiss the ass of smaller parties in order to get them to pass legislation. When the conservatives went to Layton in 2005 to try to get legislation pushed through. he put them over a lovely barrell and steamrolled them into making NPD (and actually GOOD) changes to the bill. That's why it's set up that way, so even the little guys have an opportunity to get things done.

This is very confusing and quite stupid. I mean in Canada theya calling for new elections next month. Now how can the oposition party hold primaries to see who will run against the incumbant? Then run a general election campaign in just 6 weeks? Or do they people just vote for the aprty and decide who fills the seat later? Either way it stupid. Our way is better. Not perfect but better.

Why do they need to have primaries when they already have party leaders and it is the party running not an individual?

I think you miss the point. People from the parties run for various seats. So, lets say each seat is a State just to give an example. There is a local race in each State. Then which ever party wins the most seats is in control of the parliament. Then that party has a leader of the party who becomes a Prime Minister (and the rest are just ministers). The PM can come and go but the party won the election so they stay until the next election.

Um let's say they did that in America. Congress is dissvoled, now if a republican is currently holding a seat in my Congressional district then how can the democrats field a candidate to grab that seat in 6 weeks? What if 5 democrats want that seat? First they have to have a primary then that guy runs against the rubuplican. Now you can't do all that in 6 weeks. Like I said stupid.

Fuck you are stupid. This should be your last post here. You just run your mouth without even pretending to have any idea what the fuck you are talking about.

Yet amazingly it works in countries all over the world and has for rather a long time. Why do you have to have a local primary for somebody to run for a local seat? The party puts a candidate up in that seat. When is the last time you voted in a primary to pick who ran for congress in your area?

Both systems have their ups and downs, and both are corruptible. In the end they all lead to the same result though, do you really think you have more choice in actual policy in America than we do here? Or vice versa? Ultimately all democracies are still representative democracies, and the only difference you are talking about here is that we put our trust in the party leaders and members (our representatives) to choose who they want to lead their party to election, as opposed to voting for the party leader ourselves. But again, as Sarah alluded to, the individual PM doesn't have the same kind of power as the President (in the US case) does so the point is kind of mute.

no taxation without representation.

we fucked the queen/king, you can too :2 cents:


/oldschool