A third related to the power of the Governor General. It completely underestimated the awesome power of the job.
This may have been an example of describing how the job functions in practice - which is significantly more circumscribed than the law provides. In practice, the G-G does what the Prime Minister instructs her to do. The last time a G-G didn't was in the 1920s (the King-Byng affair), and it was such a huge controversy that we still drag it out and talk about it every time the question of the G-G's power is raised.
It would take some very unusual circumstances for the G-G to actually take action beyond her current ceremonial/ambassadorial role.
(NB: When Canadians refer to the Prime Minister as the "Premier" are they confused? In Australia only the state government leaders are called premiers.)
How odd. I've never run into the Prime Minister being called Premier instead - although, in Quebec French usage, one is called the premier ministre of Canada and the other the premier ministre of the province. And we have things called First Ministers Conferences which include both the Premiers and the Prime Minister. You must have run into a pocket of very non-standard usage, because I've (quite literally) lived in every region of Canada except our far north, and have never heard or read that.
I'm not sure what you mean by electoral reform. You might consider altering the upper house to one that is elected. You could use a proportional representation system like ours. (Cunningly enough constructed, it would not require a constitutional amendment.)
Those are exactly the two areas that we keep looking at, though senate reform is on the back-burner just now and the current hot issue is proportional representation. Close to half of the provinces are considering the introduction of proportional representation systems. If that goes through and works well, it will probably be adopted at the federal level as well.
The whole issue of religion and politics dates back to the Old Country and antipathy between protestants and catholics.Here, its a far more complicated picture. In the beginning, we had two primarily Protestant English-speaking blocs - Upper Canada and the Maritimes - and the primarily Catholic French-speaking Quebec, which saw itself - and to some degree still sees itself - as a conquered and colonised people. So immediately you have religion, language and regionalism bordering on nationalism all tangled up together. In the 1960s in Quebec, there was a revolt against a strong collusion between church and state at the provincial level, resulting in a rapid development of secularism, progressive politics and separatism. So now we have a Quebec that's both nominally Catholic and strongly secular. The rest of Canada is to some extent less secular (the West in particular), and much more varied in terms of religion.
It's wonderful to hear about same-sex marriages in Canada. Actual legislation against it sailed through here in Australia, making us nominally more conservative than Americans on this issue.
Well, there is still the possibility that the bill will not pass - we are in a minority government situation at the moment. Most analysts think that with the support of the NDP and the Bloc quebecois, the governing Liberals will have enough votes (a significant proportion of Liberals are voting against the bill). Even if the bill fails, court cases in the remaining five jurisdictions will eventually do the job, although it will take a long time in Alberta, our most conservative province by far.
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branchandroot
Re: C eh N eh D eh
Date: 2005-01-31 06:50 pm (UTC)This may have been an example of describing how the job functions in practice - which is significantly more circumscribed than the law provides. In practice, the G-G does what the Prime Minister instructs her to do. The last time a G-G didn't was in the 1920s (the King-Byng affair), and it was such a huge controversy that we still drag it out and talk about it every time the question of the G-G's power is raised.
It would take some very unusual circumstances for the G-G to actually take action beyond her current ceremonial/ambassadorial role.
(NB: When Canadians refer to the Prime Minister as the "Premier" are they confused? In Australia only the state government leaders are called premiers.)
How odd. I've never run into the Prime Minister being called Premier instead - although, in Quebec French usage, one is called the premier ministre of Canada and the other the premier ministre of the province. And we have things called First Ministers Conferences which include both the Premiers and the Prime Minister. You must have run into a pocket of very non-standard usage, because I've (quite literally) lived in every region of Canada except our far north, and have never heard or read that.
I'm not sure what you mean by electoral reform. You might consider altering the upper house to one that is elected. You could use a proportional representation system like ours. (Cunningly enough constructed, it would not require a constitutional amendment.)
Those are exactly the two areas that we keep looking at, though senate reform is on the back-burner just now and the current hot issue is proportional representation. Close to half of the provinces are considering the introduction of proportional representation systems. If that goes through and works well, it will probably be adopted at the federal level as well.
The whole issue of religion and politics dates back to the Old Country and antipathy between protestants and catholics.Here, its a far more complicated picture. In the beginning, we had two primarily Protestant English-speaking blocs - Upper Canada and the Maritimes - and the primarily Catholic French-speaking Quebec, which saw itself - and to some degree still sees itself - as a conquered and colonised people. So immediately you have religion, language and regionalism bordering on nationalism all tangled up together. In the 1960s in Quebec, there was a revolt against a strong collusion between church and state at the provincial level, resulting in a rapid development of secularism, progressive politics and separatism. So now we have a Quebec that's both nominally Catholic and strongly secular. The rest of Canada is to some extent less secular (the West in particular), and much more varied in terms of religion.
It's wonderful to hear about same-sex marriages in Canada. Actual legislation against it sailed through here in Australia, making us nominally more conservative than Americans on this issue.
Well, there is still the possibility that the bill will not pass - we are in a minority government situation at the moment. Most analysts think that with the support of the NDP and the Bloc quebecois, the governing Liberals will have enough votes (a significant proportion of Liberals are voting against the bill). Even if the bill fails, court cases in the remaining five jurisdictions will eventually do the job, although it will take a long time in Alberta, our most conservative province by far.