How did the new Canadian PM get his post?

[eablair3]

Maybe someone from Canada or someone who knows can help me to understand this. There was no election. No Canadian voted for Paul Martin a week or more ago. Yet, he was appointed the new PM? Who appointed him? Why was he chosen? How was he chosen?

I read where Canada's political system provides for the leader of the majority party (in this case the Liberal Party) to be the PM. So, who determines who leads the Liberal Party? Didn't those people then just choose the new PM?

I see where elections are required once every 5 years, and often happen every 3.5 or 4 years when the PM is feeling esp confident.

But, it seems like a strange way to go. Canada gets a new prime minister and no one voted for him? He gets to run as the incumbent some time in the future. I know the American electoral system needs to be reformed, but at least there is a so-called election before someone gets office.

Any help in understanding Canada's process would be appreciated.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. Diebold voting machines?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. In a Parliamentary system, the leader of the largest party is PM

The Liberals selected Martin at a leadership convention last month. Martin is expected to seek a new mandate in April.

[eablair3]

5. So, Party bigwigs select who leads Canada

thanks. So, some people in the Liberal Party decided who was going to be the next PM. Seems kind of strange that party members select who is going to be the next PM. The people didn't even vote for the guy, yet he is the PM?

I saw where Martin, the new PM, may decide to hold elections next spring, but, he's already the PM. He'll be running as the incumbent. And, he decides when these elections occur.

Seems like Terry McAuliffe would love this system with party bigwigs selecting who should lead without an election where Canadian people vote for the individual they want.

thanks.

[Lisa]

26. Some parties up here are abandoning the "delegate" system ...

Martin was elected by a majority of the people who were selected as delegates from their local constituencies. However, the federal NDP threw its leadership vote open to everyone who was a member in good standing. (This included me, since I joined up before the deadline.) And I believe the Canadian Alliance also does this.

The provincial BC NDP wanted to change to "one member one vote" for their leadership selection last month, but were held up by the lack of acceptable online software ... they didn't want to go to Accenture for this (the Arthur Andersen spinoff that's also trying to privatize our public utilities) so they decided to go with the traditional delegate system this time around. But next time, it will definitely be an open vote.

I agree, it IS a strange concept, that we would have an "unelected leader". (Wow, just like the USA!) But it's accepted in Canadian political culture that leaders who get in this way don't really have full standing in the eyes of the public until they lead their parties to an actual electoral victory. In general, they don't have much time before they're expected to "drop the writ" (call an election). For example, who remembers John Turner and Kim Campbell's governments? (They had to carry the can for retired leaders, Trudeau and Mulroney respectively, and both got the stuffing kicked out of them in the election.)

[terrya]

11. It will be interesting to see how the new united PC party does...

When elections are called in the spring.

Predictions?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

If Harper leads, very poorly. If Bernard Lord becomes leader, better.

[Minstrel Boy]

18. I've begun to wonder how well Lord would do.

I think his abilities are vastly overrated. He seems over his head running New Brunswick.

If Harper is leader, he'll be able at least to count on the core Alliance vote in Alberta, though not much beyond. With Lord - a Maritimer, and maybe even more "Progressive" than "Conservative" for the liking of the former Alliance members - perhaps not even that. He'll have a helluva hard time distinguishing his policies from Martin's. But the new Conservatives should be looking for some stability right now, after so much upheaval. I think they'll go with Harper, rather than bring in a new guy with just four months or so before an election.

Oddly, if Lord takes the jump and gets the nod, then Torontonian Jack Layton will be the most Western national leader!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

19. Lord is an unknown quantity. It's possible I've bought into the hype.

Harper is a known quantity, and happily, deeply uncharismatic.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

12. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Definitely not a dupe, this.

Oh, alright it is.

[Toronto Ron]

3. A few vague answers:

I've been away from Canada too long to answer your questions properly, but here are a couple of remarks:

-As you suggest, Canada's parliamentary system means that a vote in the federal election is actually a vote for the party, NOT the individual running for Prime Minister. In fact, you are voting for the party's representative in your own district. The party with the most winning representatives earns the right to form the government.

-The leader of the Liberal party is determined by members of the party, so it is an "insider" sort of situation, I think.

-There will likely be a federal election next year, because Martin would like to confirm his legitimacy.

-Note that the Canadian Prime Minister does not have nearly the executive power that the U.S. President does.

[Parrcrow]

4. Paul Martin

The new Prime Minister was elected by the Liberal Party as their leader last month. The Governor General, the powerless representative of the Queen fills an entirely ceremonial role as Head of State, but according to form will ask the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament to form a government. A newly elected leader becoming PM will routinely call an election in order to renew his or her government's mandate.

I hope this helped.

[eablair3]

7. thanks

thanks. I didn't realize that is how it went. I thought, or just assumed, that people in Canada got to vote directly for who they wanted to be the PM. I didn't know that it worked this way.

[newyawker99]

25. Hi Parrcrow!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Minstrel Boy]

6. The party which has the "confidence of the House" forms the government

The Liberal Party still holds a majority despite Chretien's retirement, so it has the "confidence" of parliament.

After Paul Martin won the Liberal leadership, he was asked by the Governor General (our official head of state, though appointed by the Prime Minister) to form a government, because the Liberals still held a majority of seats in Parliament.

But since Martin does not have a mandate from the people, he's expected to call an election in about four months.

[eablair3]

8. I was listening to Democracy Now

Dem Now had a segment on Martin this morning, and it made me wonder how he got to be PM.

Sounds like he is significantly to the right of Chretien. Apparently, Martin is in favor of supporting the U.S. and sending Canadian troops to Iraq and elsewhere that Bush would want.

Is Martin's appointment a turn to the right for Canada?

[Spazito]

9. Martin voted against sending troops to Iraq..

and has made no indication that he is going to do that as PM. He has tweaked Bush's nose twice already re decriminalizing marijuana and the Arar issue. He will make polite noises to Bush but will not be kissing his ass. He is pro-Canada all the way.

[eablair3]

13. I was just looking where he is considered "Pro-American"

maybe I heard more than was there re the troops to Iraq comment, but here's one article:


Pro-American Canadian taking over as PM
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer, 12/12/2003

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's first foreign visitor when he took office was Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien but Bush never returned the gesture with an official visit to Canada -- a sign of the recent tension between the two countries.

Differences over Iraq have frayed U.S.-Canadian relations. But conditions may be riper for a Bush visit now that Canadians are swearing in a prime minister who views the United States as his country's "closest friend."

snip

http://www.boston.com/news/world/canada/articles/2003/12/12/pro_american_canadian_taking_over_as_pm/

[eablair3]

23. DEM Now Segment now up - David Pratt - Defense Minister

Yes, I heard it wrong, ... apparently Martin appointed someone (David Pratt) to be the defense minister and Pratt is the one who was in favor of sending Canadian troops to Iraq.

http://www.democracynow.org/

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/22/173238

Leaning To The Right? A Look At Canada’s New Prime Minister

Canada’s former finance minister Paul Martin was sworn in as prime minister on December 12th. Martin replaces Jean Chretien who headed up the Liberal Party as prime minister for the last 10 years.
At Martin's swearing-in ceremony, a Native Canadian elder conducted a "cleansing ceremony" complete with burning sage as a sign that the government would change course, even though Martin has succeeded a fellow Liberal whom he served as finance minister.

Martin has announced his aim to strengthen Canada's international standing, particularly in relations with the United States. He has appointed David Pratt defense minister who urged the previous government to join the invasion of Iraq. Pratt is expected to be an articulate advocate for increasing the military budget.

snip

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Martin is to the right of Chretien. I'd consider his government

slightly right of centre (in a Canadian sense). Martin has moved to the right for three reasons. One is his own political philosophy, the second is an attempt to destroy the new (neo-)Conservative Party at birth, while the third is an attempt to win votes and seats in (supposedly) more-conservative Western Canada.
This does not represent a shift to the right by Canada, as the actions of the government have not yet been ratified by the electorate in an election. The move by Martin to the right will free up space on the left for the social-democratic/socialist New Democratic Party to gain ground.

[Minstrel Boy]

14. Martin does mean a turn to the right, but

it's important to note that the Canadian and American understandings of political "right" and "left" are not equivalent. In the US, Martin would probably be regarded as a centre-left Democrat.

From CTV:

"New Prime Minister Paul Martin is moving the Liberal Party away from its centrist position, and is offering his caucus little room for open debate, says his former leadership opponent, Sheila Copps.

"Speaking in a political roundtable on CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Copps agreed with a recent New York Times editorial that said Canada's new leader had adopted a more conservative position than his predecessor, Jean Chretien."
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1072037341953_67446541///?hub=Canada

The next election will be very interesting, and very promising for the Canadian Left.

The NDP - Canada's socialist party - is reenergized, and is poised to make significant gains, possibly even forming the official opposition.
The Liberals under Martin are providing an opening for the NDP to scoop up a bunch of centre-left votes.

The "united right" Conservative party is in disarray. The "progressive" wing of the former Progressive Conserative Party is alienated from the far right, and will likely bleed off to the Liberals and even the NDP.

[eablair3]

15. thanks to everyone for your replies (NT)

[Parrcrow]

20. In England

(the mother of all Parliaments) when a leader resigns or gets the boot, ala Margaret Thatcher, the Party caucus can elect a new leader. That is Party members who are sitting in Parliament as opposed to the party membership as a whole.

Can anyone remember how long it took John Major to call an election after Thatcher got the bums rush?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

21. 18 months (Oct 1990 to April 1992)

[Parrcrow]

22. thanks Byron

seems excessive, doesn't it?

[Devils Advocate NZ]

16. All you could ever want to know about the Canadian Government

and how it works is right here:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/idb/forsey/index-e.asp

But I must point out that the PM is not "appointed" in the sense you seem to think. The Prime Minister, like all ministers, must be an elected Member of Parliament.

Unlike the US, where senior cabinet officials are not elected, and can even have been DEFEATED in elections (take Ashcroft), in Canada and other Parliamentary democracies, Cabinet members are elected MPs and thus have to have won the approval of the electorate to even be in Parliament in the first place.

If you ask me, this is a much more democratic system than the US, where unelected fuck-knuckles like Ashcroft can be appointed to positions of great power without even have gotten enough votes to sit in the House or Senate.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

17. If you're in NZ, how does the uni-cameral system work?

We're having some debate over our senate right now, and I favour dumping it. You guys just have the one house, is that right?

[Devils Advocate NZ]

24. Yes, we do.

We now have a proportional representation system, so it is not as simple as it used to be, but we find it works quite well.

Here's how it goes: We have 120 seats in Parliament - 69 Electorate seats, (62 General - 7 Maori) and 51 List seats. The Electorate seats are filled by straight First Past the Post elections held in each of the 69 electorates which are determined by population so that each electorate has roughly the same population.

One quirk of the NZ system is caused by the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi is our founding document in which Maori sceded sovereignty to the Crown. As a result of the Treaty, Maori have 7 seats in Parliament that represent the Maori people. Thus in any one town or city, a person may be enrolled in the general electorate or the Maori electorate, and thus can only vote for one of the two electorates that represent that town or city. Only Maori people may enroll in the Maori electorate, but if they do they have no vote in the general electorate. This was to ensure that Maori received a voice in Parliament even though they are a small minority (now that is) of the total electorate.

The List seats are filled from each party's "Party List" (which must be published before the election) with the parties receiving the number of seats that represents their proportion of the "party vote". A party that wins at least one Electorate seat, or more than 5% of the party vote is elligble to receive list seats. The idea is that if Labour has 45%, National has 35%, and the Green's have 10% of the Party vote, then Labour should have 45% of the seats in Parliament, National 35% and the Greens 10%.

This percentage is made up of a combination of the Electorate seats won, and List seats. So for example if the Greens won 1 Electorate seat and 10% of the party vote, they would receive 11 list seats to bring their total to 12 (or 10% of the seats in Parliament)

On election day, each voter receives a ballot that contains the candidates for their electorate, as well as a list of registered political parties. The voter selects the candidate they wish to win their electorate seat, and the party they wish to support. These two votes do not necessarily have to be for the same party.

For example, you can vote for the Labour Candidate for your electorate, but give your party vote to the Greens. What this means is that people who support the Green party, but, knowing the Greens are unlikely to win a majority of seats, wish to ensure that the most electable left wing party does get that majority, can still have their votes counted.

Ever since we brought in this system, the Green party has recieved between 5 and 10% of the "party vote" ensuring that they had between 5 and 10% of the of the seats in Parliament. Before we went to MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) the Green party was never able to achieve any seats in parliament, even though up to 10% of the population voted for them.

So now we have how the MP's are elected. The next step is the Government itself. This is pretty standard. The party or parties (that is coalition of parties) that hold the majority of seats in Parliament (and thus the majority of votes) is called upon by the Governor General to form a Government. The leader of the majority party (or, by agreement, coalition) becomes the Prime Minister, and selects the Cabinet members.

The Governor General's role is pretty much the same as in Canada.

Bills are read in parliament three times. After the first reading they are sent to a select committee where public input is sought etc. The select committee then reports back to Parliament with any recommended changes, and the Bill is read again.

Parliament then decides whether the bill should proceed. At this stage Parliament gets down to the nuts and bolts and it is debated in detail and any amendments made to it before its final reading.

After the third and final reading to Parliament it is voted upon and, if passed, is signed by the Governor General and becomes law.

For detailed info on how it all works check out:

http://www.govt.nz/en/aboutnz/

If you have any questions, feel free to ask :-)