Governmental Structure of Canada. Is the Canadian Prime Minister Too Powerful - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: IS THE CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER TOO POWERFUL Is the Canadian Prime Minister too powerful [The of the will appear here] [Thename of the institution will appear here] [The name of the Professor] [Course] Introduction Canada has a parliamentary system in which the prime minister is the head of government. He is the person who controls the cabinet as he is the head of the executive branch. The prime minister is the person who appoints the MPs for the various cabinets such as immigration, defense and other areas therefore the decisions governing the government policy for all the cabinets as well as the responsibility of the actions of those cabinets is vested on the Prime Minister. Majority of the evidences sighted in various literary works point towards the fact that the Canadian prime minister has a lot of power and can influence the decisions of the government and the country of Canada. The fact that cannot be ignored is that the Canadian prime minister exercises a great deal of power especially when in the parliament his party enjoys the majority (Dickerson, Flanaganand O’Neill, 2009). There are obvious evidences of the Canadian prime minister not being too powerful but the majority facts are in the favor of him being powerful and dictating the rules and regulations governing the state resulting in the favor of prime-ministerial power. Governmental Structure of Canada Canada’s parliament is divided into three levels. The main governing body is the Queen of Elizabeth II and the Governor General (David Johnston currently) who acts on the behalf of the Queen to perform official functions as the Queen is not physically present in Canada. The second level is of the senate that is appointed on the prime minister’s recommendation and the third being the House of Commons consisting of the government members and the Opposition members. Queen Elizabeth II performs the ceremonial functions in Canada. All the political, executive and legislative powers are directed from the Queen .The Governor in General acts on behalf of Queen Elizabeth, he performs functions such as General elections declaration, closing and opening the Parliament and reads speeches from The Throne. The role of the Prime Minister who is the first amongst the parliament members and is the head of the government is to make and implement decisions pertaining to the policy of the government. He is designated to choose cabinet and its members for carrying out the various tasks of the country. No one person can handle all the tasks therefore cabinets are formed but the supreme authority is the prime minister himself. He can shuffle the cabinet members from one portfolio to another, can delete the cabinets and can add cabinets for whatever reason he thinks is right. This statement is strong evidence in favor of the Canadian President being a powerful governing body. The Cabinet and the Canadian prime minister speaks as one voice because conflicts amongst them can result in Cabinet members being demoted or dropped from the Parliament (Mallory, 1984). The legislature is a part of the government and has the duty of making the laws. It consists of the appointed as well as elected members, the Senate is appointed and the House of Commons is elected. Drawn from the House of Commons, the executive (the prime minister and the cabinet members) control the agenda in the House of Commons and they have the right to vote in order to turn the legislative that is proposed into practice (Malcolmson and Myers, 2009). Concluding the structure it could be said that there are three levels and the prime minister is the part of the second level and governs the third level that is the legislature. He is an important figure and works under the supervision of the Governor General who is acting figure in lieu of the Queen. Power in the Hands of the Canadian Prime Minister The Canadian Prime minister is the central figure in the Canadian politics and the law governing the state of Canada. He is behind all the progress that is currently under process in Canada. He has not only has announced the adult basic education program in Canada but has launched the construction of pedestrian tunnel connecting the Billy bishop airport to downtown Toronto. He has not only been powerful as a prime minister but has used the powers in the right direction therefore he is a star in front of the Canadian media and the public. According to the Gallup poll in 1988 as cited from Donald Savoie book, only 31% of the respondents could name the cabinet members that are working under the prime minister and 5% could name the deputy minister this clearly shows that the prime minister has turned himself into a television celebrity. However, now the status of the prime minister has changed, he faces no challenges or opposition from other members and is now the Primus without any qualification. As Donald in his work “Governing from the centre: The concentration of power in Canadian politics” has mentioned that there is no longer any Inter or Paris which means that he is the boss in deciding the rules and regulations governing Canada. Canadian Prime minister faces less difficulty in passing bills. The bill is first passed through the House of Commons (elected by the Prime Minister). Bills are introduced by the cabinet members who are sponsoring the particular legislation and then approved by the prime minister. After the bill is printed it is called for a debate and in this debate votes are placed in favor of the bill and opposing the bill. The majority decision is accepted and the bill becomes a law after being carefully studied by a standing committee of the House of Common, here the bill can be amended by proposing changes or further additions in the bill. The prime minister appoints the cabinet members and has control over the House of Commons therefore no member opposes the prime minister over the acceptance or rejection of the bill. Everybody speaks one voice while deciding in favor or against a bill in order to protect his or her position in the cabinet but this is not always true as cabinet member, the senate and the House of Commons have the right to go against the majority’s opinion. Prime ministers chair cabinet, which may often entail further strategic advantages, such as the authority to alter cabinet membership. Being the strongest member of the parliament the President can make any sort of changes as and when he feels so. As Donald J Savoie in “Governing from the centre: The concentration of power in Canadian politics” concludes that “ A Canadian prime minister holding a clear majority in Parliament could easily make a similar claim. Indeed, there have been many instances during the past twenty-five years or so when various prime ministers have chosen to pursue initiatives both large and small without even consulting their cabinets” (Savoie, 1999). The power over the cabinet members can also be gauged by the statement in the literary work of Patrick Malcolmson, Richard Myres “The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada”, Patrick concludes that “The Minister who prove to be a thorn in the side of their prime minister may well be demoted to a less attractive portfolio or dropped from the cabinet altogether. Conversely, ministers who support the prime minister’s views may improve their chances of promotion to a more important cabinet post.” Prime Minister in Canada does not face any sort of revolt from their cabinet members when their government is suffering from recession or is unpopular amongst the public. Prime Ministers of other countries can even be dumped from their offices if they are not performing well. In Canada if a prime minister is unpopular he might not be get good number of votes in the next elections but he surely will not be asked to resign. The prime minister is the person the Canadians look up to when they need help in times of trouble. This indicates the power and the sheer prominence of the Canadian prime minister for example when the United States was struck by terrorist attacks in September 11, 2001 most of the Canadians turned to their prime minister for his guidance. He has the power to appoint senior governmental and public service people (including Senate, cabinet members, ambassadors, parliamentary secretaries, Governor General, senators, and Crown corporation executives). Mr. Harper the current prime minister of Canada has strengthen his powers as a prime minister by taking the responsibility of appointing the chairs of the committees of the House of Commons which was traditionally been carried out by House of Commons committees themselves. It is the sole responsibility of the Canadian Prime minister to form panels whenever a need arises such as the panel he appointed for advice on Canadian involvement in Afghanistan. Unlike US congressional system, in parliamentary system prime minister is the one who selects the panel members and enjoys control over their research works. Traditionally the Prime Minister office handled the routine tasks for the prime minister. The office was acting as a secretariat who handled tasks such as scheduling meetings, answering mails etc. but now the office has more than 100 officers who have good working knowledge about the political scenario and they are responsible for giving their expert political advice. They are linked with their political party which provides them control over the planning of their campaign, national opinion polling and the selection of candidates for their campaign. Overall we can conclude that the Canadian Prime Minister is provided with guidance and assistance in all areas making his position strong against the opposition (Simpson, 2002). He is the one who delivers governmental messages, make public appearance at various symbolic and defend his government or his minister’s position at the media platform. For example it was Paul Martin the former prime minister who appeared in a media address to defend the charge against the Liberal Party from corruption within the government advertising expenditure. Prime Minister plays a dominant role in deciding what foreign initiatives it should undertake and explores the possibility of free trade with different nations across the globe. Opposing the Power of the Prime Minister The Canadian Prime minister though enjoys primacy in the country of Canada but due increasing foreign income from provinces other than Ottawa the focus of power and money has shifted to other provinces. Premier uses informal meetings to stand for their province’s rights that might be ignored by the prime ministers and the federal government. They form majority and through provincial governmental power they outweigh the powers of the prime ministers. Such a case was witnessed when Frank McKenna had two proposals to be accepted by the Prime Minister Chretien and for this he had an informal meeting with the prime minister while playing golf resulting in a conference on the economic future of Atlantic Canada and the improvement of the infrastructure on the Tans Canada Highway. Recently in the Canadian politics Harper and Tony Guinty (Premier of Ontario) are having a disagreement and this is creating a negative image of the prime minister as he has been caught creating bad publicity during informal meetings (Brodie and Linda, 2003). The Canadian Prime minister also faces limitation on exercising his duties with sheer prominence because of the existence of other ministers. Although the Prime minister enjoys full power in Canada as per the parliamentary law, but the ministers can form a lobby against the prime minister; destroying the power of the prime minister. Though the prime minister cannot be asked to resign from his position but he for sure might not be elected in the next general elections. A similar case evolved during the mid 1990s when Paul Martin the former finance minister wanted to announce major pension reforms in his budget. Chretien who was Prime Minister at that time objected his view and therefore received threats from Paul Martin that he would resign from his position. In order to hold Mr. Martin back the Chretien and Martin compromised on the note that he will be allowed to introduce the reforms but they will not be announced until the next year. Then there were other ministers who were opposing most of his actions and many in the liberal party wanted him to resign. He although becoming unpopular in his government, appeared in the elections of 2000 and won. He wanted to complete his third term as a prime minister but due to Mr. Paul having majority of the ministers of the liberal party in his favor made him resign before the completion of his tenure. This reflects that prime minister though having ‘prime-ministerial power’ over the other ministers in the cabinet can be asked to resign although no prime minister or premier has the right to do so (Barker, and Charlton, 2009). Setting election date the helps the prime minister to defend his position as the opposition party is unprepared. However the fixed election system has been proposed recently in Canada and this is a constraint on the flexible election dates which was traditionally been a responsibility of the prime minister. British Columbia and other states are according to Milner have adopted fixed election dates in order to have fair election results. This feature of voting on a particular assigned date not only results in fair results but also increases the number of voters on the day of the election (Milner, 2005). Media in every country has a freedom of expression and can influence the power of the prime minister at various occasions. Media focuses on the negative side of the prime minister’s words. Media use various investigative techniques to destroy the image of the prime minister in the eyes of the public. Though media in Canada has its limitation of broadcasting news on the television but still the news that it airs could be manipulated and presented it in a negative manner. No media is powerful enough to fight with the government but it can create a negative picture of the government (Dawson, Dawson and Ward, 1989). Strong contradiction from the large and majority of the provinces can land prime minister into trouble and his position could be strongly effected. The federal and provincial ministers instead of providing advice and guidance on laws to be passed or guidance on other policy matters creates problems in the effective leadership of their prime minister. Provincial and the federal government do not view the country as a whole but they intend to protect their province’s rights such a case was observed in Meech Lake Accord when Quebec wanted to be separated from Canada and form it self as a separate nation (Dyke, 2008). Discussion Despite the fact that prime minister’s powers are threatened by forces that are out of his control he still enjoys a prime-ministerial power as reviewed from books and articles. He although enjoying a sacred and influential power over the other cabinet members and opposition party can fall a prey to their maligned actions without even knowing about it. The evidences cited against him are just few examples that have been experienced by few of the nine individuals occupying the prime ministerial position. If the prime minister has complete knowledge of his party members and opposition’s underlying feelings about him he could protect his position. David Savoie has presented strong evidence in favor of the prime minister having control over other ministers and the country as a whole in the example of him signing the NAFTA agreement on free trade. Prime minister in his example was firing the trade minister if they didn’t agree to his agreement of free trade. Conclusion History of Canadian prime ministers and their tenure shows that a limited number of individuals occupied the prime minister’s position that is nine individuals held the position for over 80% of the time. This shows the clear dominance of the prime minister in Canada as he chooses to dominate over a longer period of time. In most of the situations the members and the premier cannot easily contradict the prime minister. Although some critics object the view that one prime minister is not enough to exercise control over the whole country because of the complexity in ruling a nation but in reality the prime minister is the one and only ruler in Canada. References Barker, P., & Charlton, M. (2009). Is the Prime Minister Too Powerful? Crosscurrents: contemporary political issues (6th ed., pp. 160-194). Canada Brodie, J. and Linda T., (2003) Reinventing Canada: Politics of the 21st Century.  New York: Prentice Hall. Dawson, R. M., Dawson, W. F and Ward, N. (1989) Democratic government in Canada, Canada: University of Toronto Press Dickerson, M. O., Flanagan, T. and O’Neill, B. (2009) An Introduction to Government and Politics: A Conceptual Approach, Ohio: Cengage Learning Dyck, R. (2008).  Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches. 5th edition. Canada: Nelson Thomson Learning. Malcolmson, P., and Myers, R (2009). The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada, Canada: University of Toronto Press Mallory, J. R. (1984) The structure of Canadian government, Canada: Gage Publications Milner, H. (2005) Fixing Canada’s Unfixed Election Dates, IRPP Policy Matters Vol. 6 no.6 Savoie, D. (1999) Governing from the centre: the concentration of power in Canadian politics, Canada: University of Toronto Press Simpson, J. (2002) Friendly Dictatorship, Canada: McClelland & Stewart Read More