Canadian Parliamentary System Analysis

The Canadian Parliamentary system is traditionally built off a system of checks and balances that allows for the federal office ensure that irrational and inappropriate ideas and decisions are unable to be pushed through. However, in time, this system has begun to diminish within Canada. Canadian politics has become an area of controversy within Canada, beginning with when Pierre Trudeau amended the 1970 Elections Act, and continuing through to Canada’s past Prime Minister Stephen Harper. These changes within parliament allowed for the Prime Minister to appoint everyone who sits in office. This helps push forward the Prime Minister’s personal agenda with minimal resistance. The Prime Minister has control over who is appointed into office, who …show more content…
The former process of creating and maintain checks and balances for the Prime Minister are slowly becoming obsolete, as Member’s of Parliament are unable to speak freely within the House of Commons. Operating under the fear of loss of job security, and that the party’s leader chooses who is able to speak on each matter in legislature has caused for paranoia to overcome the member’s. This came about in the early 1980s when Jeanne Suave suggested for parties to provide the names of those who will be addressing the House of Commons in advance as a time-saving matter during Parliament . The leader has the final say in who is approved to speak on behalf of issues in Member’s statements. However, this has become a problem of freedom of speech, as the party’s leadership can prevent certain people from addressing the House of Commons with certain topics in mind- which is seen with Stephen Harper’s silencing of MP Mark Warawa . The Prime Minister has been able to use this to his/her own advantage, and history has proven that the leader will take advantage of this lack of checks in order to get their personal agenda pushed through. This was evident when Jean Chretien decided to vote for the Kyoto Accord without informing his Cabinet of his decision- forcing the Cabinet to learn about this new policy at the same time and in the same manner …show more content…
With this, it guarantees that one specific party is unable to terminate legislature, or ‘pause’ it, due to unjust reasons. Some Canadians feel it is unfair for the Prime Minister to be able to prorogue legislature without fair or just causes. Seeming as most legislatures take a break from December to February and a June to September, proroguing legislature should be unnecessary; legislatures should utilize these break times to plan and reset their governments. There have been numerous occasions which the Canadian government has prorogued legislature, some due to reasons that warrant a distrust within the government. As was the case in 2008 when Stephen Harper asked the Governor General for prorogation to avoid a vote of non-confidence against his minority government . Proroguing may be justifiable however, such as in 2003, when former Prime Minister Jean Chretien stopped parliament to avoid a report about the Adscam Scandal, but this pause in legislature was tolerable among Canadians as it occurred during the turnover of Prime Ministry to Paul Martin, allowing Mr. Martin to have a fresh start with his own legislature . Canadians have shown a distaste with the Prime Ministers ability to simply call legislature into a state of dismissal, such as when Stephen Harper called it once again in 2009 in order to avoid conversations and