Casual Friday (wear jeans) - 6th March, 2015

A charlatan PM can take us from democracy to democracy as window dressing in the span of a single season.

I actually wrote an essay about the power of the Prime Minister, and there are more checks and balances in the Canadian system that at first viewing.

First, we have to assume that bill C-(boundary changes guidance) (to benefit those same party MPs) would not be opposed by Canadian society. That you, I, and many other Canadians, would not write to our MPs and complain bitterly about such a new bill, that academics and opposition politicians would not be speaking out over it thus forcing some amendments in the House. An example of this I can give is the so-called Fair Elections Act, which had to be amended due to the black eye the government received over it publicly.

Then we would have to assume that even if a national outcry over a bill that you've described did not happen that there are not MPs of the governing party's caucus who would not see such a bill as being unjust. That means that there would have to be 160+ MPs, all who are as much a charlatan as the Prime Minister.

Even if both the above were true, we would also have to assume an opposition in the House of Commons that is completely asleep at the wheel. Traditionally, opposition parties can command public opinion and shape the debate as well as do an effective job of holding the government's feet to the fire.

After that we would have to assume that the Senate was in the tank for our charlatan MP. It is possible that the government could have a majority in the Senate and that the government side of that house is completely controlled by the PMO. Even then, it would still make headlines if even just one of the 54+ government side Senators (assuming it is not early in Prime Minister Charlatan's mandate and the Senate majority is not still comprised of the previous governing party's Senators) had enough scruples to not be a charlatan like the PM and the government caucus MPs as assumed above, which is likely due to Senators who were appointed by previous PMs would have job security and little loyalty to the current PM. Former Prime Ministers Stephen Harper or Tom Mulcair's Senators would not feel the need to back Prime Minister Charlatan so completely.

The above also assumes that the opposition in the Senate would be asleep at the wheel and would not be pointing out how bad and undemocratic the bill in question is.

Even if all the above came to pass, we would have to assume that the Supreme Court would not rule that this bill is a blatant violation of the Constitution, of the foundations of our democracy, or some other reason for the Supreme Court to strike down this bill.

Even then, we would have to assume that the premiers of the provinces would not be up in arms and fully willing to smack some sense into a charlatan federal political party. Federalism is actually a bigger check on federal power here in Canada than in the U.S. because provinces have more power here than states do there.

Those are quite a few checks and balances, some are run by democratic processes, others are institutional. Some require the involvement of the people as an aggregate, others require just certain people to stand up to the executive.

The Prime Minister could never just pass such a bill as an order-in-council, they simply do not have that power. /u/Majromax is arguing that American Presidents have used executive orders (equivalent to our orders-in-council) to pass actual legislation, which is beyond the power of the executive here in Canada as all the powers of the crown must be exercised by a democratic Parliament.

/r/CanadaPolitics Thread