C
crazymike
Guest
Since everyone thinks Canadian vote by a show of hands, I figured I would explain rougly how our system works.
We have 3 main levels of government.
Federal - Country wide, the leader is called the Prime Minister
Provinvial - Province wide, the leader is called the Premier
Municipal - Town/City wide, called the Mayor.
We don't elect sheriffs, etc...
There are 5 main partys.
NDP - New Conservatives Party. They are left wing socialists. Not the best of partys IMO, but a lesser of two evils.
Liberal - Left wing, they are the strongest party in Canada. Not the best, but we could do worse.
Convervative - This is the equivelent to Bush. A great party to vote for if you are rich and running a large corporation. This party exists purely for the benefit of it's corporate friends. The last time we had them in power at a provincial level they destroyed our school system, job security and many other things.
Quebecois - Their primary goal is to seperate Quebec from Canada and make them their own country. They don't do well in any place but Quebec. Quebec wants to be a seperate country, we can save this for politics 201.
Green - The main focus is the environment. They are a good party with some good ideas but rarely show more than 10% of seats. They are anti war and believe in global peace.
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In Canada when you vote for Prime Minister you vote for their representitive in your area. For instance voting in Toronto, you would vote for your Liberal representitive in Toronto. The party with the most votes in Toronto is awarded a seat in the house.
Here is where things get tricky. In Canada we have two forms of government. The most common being a minority government.
A minority government is when the winning party (the one with the most seats) has less than 50% of the votes. This means that although they are put in government, all policies must be voted on by the other partys who have seats in the house.
An example of minority government is as follows.
Liberal - 40%
NDP - 30%
Green - 30%
If the liberals want to pass a policy regarding a new tax, NDP and Green must vote on it. If they vote against it, then the Liberals need to rework their policy until they all agree.
In the rare case Canada has a majority government, then the other partys have no say.
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Once the party is in power, they assign specific jobs to representitives in each area. For instance, the person you voted for in Toronto who gained a seat might be assiend Education minister, etc...
This is a very basic understand of Canadian politics. As you can tell it's very different than Americas.
We have 3 main levels of government.
Federal - Country wide, the leader is called the Prime Minister
Provinvial - Province wide, the leader is called the Premier
Municipal - Town/City wide, called the Mayor.
We don't elect sheriffs, etc...
There are 5 main partys.
NDP - New Conservatives Party. They are left wing socialists. Not the best of partys IMO, but a lesser of two evils.
Liberal - Left wing, they are the strongest party in Canada. Not the best, but we could do worse.
Convervative - This is the equivelent to Bush. A great party to vote for if you are rich and running a large corporation. This party exists purely for the benefit of it's corporate friends. The last time we had them in power at a provincial level they destroyed our school system, job security and many other things.
Quebecois - Their primary goal is to seperate Quebec from Canada and make them their own country. They don't do well in any place but Quebec. Quebec wants to be a seperate country, we can save this for politics 201.
Green - The main focus is the environment. They are a good party with some good ideas but rarely show more than 10% of seats. They are anti war and believe in global peace.
-------------
In Canada when you vote for Prime Minister you vote for their representitive in your area. For instance voting in Toronto, you would vote for your Liberal representitive in Toronto. The party with the most votes in Toronto is awarded a seat in the house.
Here is where things get tricky. In Canada we have two forms of government. The most common being a minority government.
A minority government is when the winning party (the one with the most seats) has less than 50% of the votes. This means that although they are put in government, all policies must be voted on by the other partys who have seats in the house.
An example of minority government is as follows.
Liberal - 40%
NDP - 30%
Green - 30%
If the liberals want to pass a policy regarding a new tax, NDP and Green must vote on it. If they vote against it, then the Liberals need to rework their policy until they all agree.
In the rare case Canada has a majority government, then the other partys have no say.
----
Once the party is in power, they assign specific jobs to representitives in each area. For instance, the person you voted for in Toronto who gained a seat might be assiend Education minister, etc...
This is a very basic understand of Canadian politics. As you can tell it's very different than Americas.