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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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In parliamentary systems, the government needs to maintain the confidence of the majority. Any elected official can request a vote of confidence be held and, at least in Canada, certain votes are always considered votes of confidence (ex. the government's budget). If a confidence vote fails, parliament dissolves and can't do anything until a new parliament is formed. All seats are up for re-election. Since the government can't do anything until an election is held, they tend to happen very quickly.
The government can prevent a no confidence vote by swaying enough members. It's a bit of a non-issue if the current government already holds the majority of seats. If they don't hold a majority, they'll often make deals with a smaller party in exchange for their confidence. This can be as little as modifying a bill to as much as forming an official coalition and granting members of another party cabinet positions.
I think I'm understanding how it supposed to work: Because it's a unicameral legislature that appoints the executive, there's no possibility of checks and balances by bicameral legislature and pseudo-democratic election of executive. So, the larger parties don't kill off the smaller parties because, if they aren't part of the majority coalition, they need smaller party favor to in the future be part of the majority coalition.
Is that generally the right idea?
Is it safe to assume that some things, like changing a federal or provincial constitution, would take more than a majority?
In practice, that's generally the idea. Small parties haven't gone away because larger parties can usually bet on them lending a hand when the large party fails to win a majority, and voters aren't afraid to vote for a small party when polls are split. However, this is mostly a left wing thing, at least in Canada. Small right wing parties tend to eventually join up with the "big tent" Conservative party. Although it's mostly because small right wing parties tend to be unable to convince conservative voters to switch from the big party to their little party.
Canada has a bicameral legislature, just like the UK. Our second chamber is the Senate, modelled after the UKs second chamber, The House of Lords. Senators are appointed by the Prime Minister and can serve until 75 (technically they are appointed by the reigning monarch but the constitution requires them to listen to the Prime Minister). All bills must pass a vote in both chambers before it is law.
In practice, the appointed Senators don't like to vote down bills that have been approved by the elected Members of Parliament since it upsets Canadians who have been asking "what is the point of the senate?" and "why don't we get rid of it?" for a long time. They will typically only request small changes to avoid loosing their very cushy jobs, though there are times they do play politics. They claim to be the chamber of "sober second thought", where things are debated on their merits without political fervor. To their credit, most of their debates do end with a unanimous decision.
For changing the constitution, it requires approval of Parliament (technically the Senate has a say but at most they can only delay changes for 180 days) and 7 out of 10 provinces. In cases where the change affects only one province, only Parliament that province needs to approve.
There are a few special parts of the constitution that need to be absolutely unanimous: removal of the monarchy, lowering the minumum number of seats a province has in parliment, removing English or French from the offical languages, and changing the composition of the Supreme Court.
The bicameral system operates at the extremes. The Senate is appointed sorta for life like our Supreme Court. But, the Parliament can be dissolved at any time by failure to form a majority coalition.
Super cool.
The best thank you I have is trying to demonstrate depth of understanding.
One purpose of the Senate appears to be to protect the minority from the majority. Another appears to be to protect the majority from the mediocre results of democratic governance. These roles are never safe, politic, or popular. That's why they're appointed effectively for life.
I don't know what's "best". But, I think I now better understand why it was designed the way it is. Thank you.