OK, I've been thinking about yesterday's election. It bugged me for a couple of reasons. Here's why.
For one thing, I'm cautious about the whole parliamentary system. It elects the leader of the country/province by electing its party, which means the leader could be far more powerful than in the weird system south of 49.
In the U.S., it's theoretically possible for voters to say, "Yeah, I want a Democratic president, but I'll vote for the Republican candidates for the House of Representatives and leave the Senate too close to call." Or switch the words around to reflect a governor, a state house, and a state senate.
I like that. I like having all those checks and balances. It keeps a megalomaniacal dimwit from, say, bombing a country because he feels like it. Just a hypothetical.
Yes, all these checks and balances cause gridlock sometimes. Yes, it keeps the government from being as efficient at changing policy as it could be. But sometimes, that slow response is a good thing. After all, an entire civil service full of bureaucrats works hard every day to keep the government running, to keep money flowing to the retired, the veterans, the needy, and in this day and age, the businesses. I know; I was one of them.
The other part of the parliamentary system I find disconcerting is the relative weakness of the federal senate and entire lack of a provincial senate.
To see why this is a problem, you have to know about state representatives. In the U.S., you elect state representatives (we'll keep this a state/provincial comparison for simplicity's sake) every two years. If your state gets a boneheaded bit in its teeth about something, like the issue here of public support for religious schools, and you accidentally elect a bonehead representative, you know he's got two years max and you can replace him.
Not only that, you have this whole other set of people who supposedly work for your interests--your senators. They represent large geographic areas (entire states, in the federal government) and so can't be as responsive to individual problems, but at least they're someone else to fire off letters to.
Senators in the U.S. have real power, too. They propose legislation, as do representatives, and they have to approve legislation that comes from the representatives. So, if you get an entire house of bonehead representatives, the senate is there to prevent them from causing too much harm. Plus, some percentage of the senate can override a governor's veto.
However, Canadians don't have this whole other set of people to turn to. The federal senate is made up of political appointees (though the current Conservative government has proposed changing that). Their mandate is to review proposed legislation. Whatever that means.
And Canadians don't know how long they're stuck with possible bonehead representatives. In the parliamentary system, the government calls elections more or less at its own discretion. If the government is a majority government, it can wait a long time--four years, five years, something like that. In an election like yesterday's, you could end up with a bonehead MPP in a majority government and no chance in sight to replace him.
After two-plus years of living full-time here, I'm beginning to understand the system I left behind. The light dawns on the path I was walking before. I wonder how many years it will take before I understand the system I live in now!
