Originally posted by Lilly:
1. How does your government work?
2. Do you have 'governors' for your provinces?
3. Have you 'representatives' for your regions within your provinces?
4. How often do you vote?
5. How old must one be to cote in Canada?
6. What are your 'pressing' issues?
7. What are your taxes like ('cos you're Socialist)?
8. What exactly do your taxes pay for?
9. Are your universities/colleges really expensive?
10. Is your public education well funded as a result of the country being Socialist?
Uhhhmmm...I think that may be all for now...I hope you can and will answer these for me, it would be much appreciated.
*i do not know much about canadian governance or any governance for that matter(i know what i need to), if there are any canadian poli sci majors around who could describe the functions in a little more detail, feel free.
The Canadian government works more or less like the British system. I believe the design is called Westminster. Our parliament is in Ottawa, making the city the capital,
.
the basic design of the parliamentary system is as follows
ignore the stuff about the queen and governor general. imo they are largely figureheads who do little more than remind those with grey hair of the 'good old times'. they serve no purpose but at the same time they aren't harming anyone to any substantial effect.
anyhoo we elect a new prime minister at least once every 5 years. you vote for the pm by voting for their regional representative of the same party. these 'regional representatives' are called members of parliament. there are 301 positions available for an mp across canada based on geographical placement and population distribution. there are 10 official parties and there is a maximum of 12 official parties(i've never understood why they have a cap on this) but presently only 5 parties are represented in parliament off the top of my head.
whoever is the leader of whichever party wins the most mp positions becomes the prime minister. the prime minister is the ultimate decision maker in the government. one of their primary responsibilities is to select cabinet leaders or ministers. the cabinet ministers are the heads on key areas(ie justice, industry, education, health, etc.) and they are made up of mp's of the same party as the pm. then there is the senate. senators are appointed by the government at the time, i think there are a little more than 100 and they are geographically distributed by the provincial population(so ontario and quebec would have a lot more than anyone else, pei will have by far the least). the senate serves as a kind of level headed, second thought group who investigate most of what comes before them with an unconvinced eye. the senators can sometimes be a pain in the backside in my opinion 'cause they can strike down just about anything that comes there way and they are appointed but anyway.
basically the combined legislature, made up of the house of commons(elected) and the senate(appointed) propose and pass bills which are applied by the judiciary who are all appointed.
the public service is made up of people like me who run around like chickens with our heads cut off doing all the work(i only do that two days a week tho
)
that, i think, are all the basics of canadian government.
our provinces have premiers which is what ernie eves has just been elected to do(the article that started this thread).
we vote every 5 years and like america our provincial and federal elections are seperate.
you must be 18 to vote
SOCIALIST!?! omg, i don't know if you could say we are socialist. we are definetely more socially conscious than american's but we are distinctly capitalist pigs like yourselves
our taxes are definetely higher, for instance people who are in the 'high' bracket are taxed somewhere close to 50% of taxable income(i know 'cause i hear my father complaining). we also pay a goods and services tax on, well, goods and services. few things are exempt from this and it is currently 7% tho the current government was initially elected on promises that the gst would be repealed they later backed off and admitted their mistake.
our taxes are for the same things that your's are i believe. they get distributed to the various needs of the state, ie health care. health care is rapidly declining in canada however. there is also a very real housing and drug problem in some areas. housing in toronto, vancouver; drugs are becoming troublesome in many smaller communities as people are deciding they have no hope of going anywhere in life.
our universities and colleges are relatively cheap relative to yours. i have numerous american friends who came here for the cheap tuition and the favorable exchange rate. a lot of american students end up at either queens(kingston) or mcgill(montreal) as they are the closest things we have to 'ivy league' schools(assuming they have the right program) my tuition is presently about $4500, two years ago when i started i think it was around $4200, it is steadily rising by about $100 a year for me. i don't feel my tuition is outrageous but that is because i can afford it. i have a few friends who are not going to go as far in life as they could because they couldn't afford tuition and that pisses me off-->not the kind of thing i want to see happen in canada and is one of the things i would like to see changed.
our public education as in sub post secondary(kindergarten, elementary, high school i mean
) is provincially controlled so it varies quite largely from province to province(though all the provinces seem convinced they are the worst off) i know in ontario it is bad, mike harris slashed our educational resources to the bare minimum and it is undeniable that the resources of teachers have been significantly reduced, class sizes increased and conditions worsened.
umm, i think that is about all i have to offer. are you gonna come up here for school lilly? come to mcgill i'm thinking about doing post-grad there or maybe sfu in b.c.
