Canada and the World Backgrounder articles from September 1997

Canada and the World Backgrounder archives from September 1997

The conscience of Parliament: Canada lost one of its finest citizens in June 1997 when Stanley Knowles died at the age of 88.(Obituary)
September 1, 1997... Canada lost one of its finest citizens in June 1997 when Stanley Knowles died at the age of 88 He was born in Los Angeles, California, but Stanley Knowles was a Canadian through and through. His parents were from Nova Scotia and had gone to...

The seed of democracy: Canada inherited its parliamentary tradition from England.
September 1, 1997... Canada inherited its parliamentary tradition from England As long as humans have been organized in societies there have been parliaments. Of course, the first parliaments didn't look much like ours -- a group of elders might gather around...

Meeting of the wise men.(role of a council called the witenagemot in Anglo-Saxon England)
September 1, 1997... Witenagemot is the Old English word for an assembly of wise men, or councillors, in Anglo-Saxon England. They met to advise the king on judicial and administrative matters. Originally a gathering of all the freemen of a tribe, it eventually...

Early votes.(election of the first Assembly in Canada in Nova Scotia in 1758)
September 1, 1997... The first Assembly elected in what was to become Canada was in Nova Scotia in 1758; but it was far from a democratic body. In the early days of Canadian elections only men who owned property could vote, and there were no secret ballots. The...

From bill to law: a complicated system is involved in the making of laws.(Canadian parliamentary system)
September 1, 1997... Everything starts with an election. Voters go to the polls, and decide who they want to govern them. The leader of the political party that wins the most seats in the election becomes Prime Minister. He or she then picks a Cabinet. This is...

Conflict or consensus.(seating arrangements of parliaments)
September 1, 1997... Parliaments following the British tradition seat MPs on | opposite sides of a central aisle. They are separated, tradition says, by a distance equivalent to at least two sword lengths. This places MPs of differing political views directly...

The first commoner.(duties of the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons)
September 1, 1997... All Members of the House of Commons are equal. However, one of them is elected by the others to be the "first" representative of the House. Once elected the new Speaker pretends to be unwilling to take the job. He or she is more or less dragged...

Backbench bills.(how individual members of the Canadian House of Commons can introduce Private Members' Bills)
September 1, 1997... Government bills form the bulk of legislation in the House. But, individual Members can introduce bills of their own. Private Members' Bills rarely become law, and even getting one onto the floor of the House is a bit of a lottery. Under rules...

Toeing the line: the rule of party discipline gives the prime minister and premiers immense power.(party discipline in Canada)
September 1, 1997... The rule of party discipline gives the prime minister and premiers immense power The Prime Minister gives and the Prime Minister takes away. Through this power to make or break the careers of Members of Parliament, the Prime Minister...

Policy formation.(role of political parties in formation of policy)
September 1, 1997... Let's suppose that you and I have different views on university education. You think it should be free and I think it should not. In my view, tuition fees should be even higher than they are today, and the number of students drastically cut....

Insiders and outsiders.(political party history in Canada)
September 1, 1997... Most Canadian political parties trace their origins to Europe, where they developed in several ways. The first to form did so from inside legislatures among those already elected; the best-known examples being the Liberal and Conservative...

The price of dissent.(political dissent in Canada and the United Kingdom)
September 1, 1997... In the British Parliament individual backbenchers have far more freedom to vote according to their conscience than does his or her Canadian counterpart. But, letting free-spirited MPs have their own way can be costly. Control over the caucus...

Unbalanced power: Canada has prospered under its current system of parliamentary government, but there are many experts who believe its time for a change.
September 1, 1997... Canada has prospered under its current system of parliamentary government, but there are many experts who believe its time for a change James Gillies is no wild-eyed radical. He was a Member of Parliament in the 1970s. He's now a professor...

Natural solution.(Natural Law Party wants entrance to Canadian Houses of Parliament to face west)
September 1, 1997... The Natural Law Party knows what's wrong with Parliament. And, it knows how to fix it. According to the party, buildings with entrances on the south or west sides are prone to disharmony. And which way does the main entrance to the Houses of...

Let the people speak.(referendum movement in Canada)
September 1, 1997... In the 1997 federal election, one in three Canadians with l the right to vote didn't bother to cast a ballot. A large portion of those 6.5 million non-voters belong to the group that says: "Politicians only pretend to listen to voters in...

Making votes count.(suggestions for electoral reform in Canada)
September 1, 1997... After every election in Canada the editorial and letters pages of our newspapers are full of comment calling for a change in our electoral system; 1997 was no exception. Our "first-past-the-post" system tends to produce stable, majority...

Regional shut-out.(politicians from Quebec were prime ministers of Canada 93% of the time from 1967 to 1997)
September 1, 1997... In the 30 years from 1967 to 1997, politicians from Quebec have occupied the Prime Minister's Office almost all the time. Quebeckers have sat in the Prime Minister's chair for all but 25 months out of three decades; that's 93% of the time. By...

Right system wrong place.(Canada has parliamentary system of government in a federal state)
September 1, 1997... Political scientists usually say that parliamentary systems, such as Canada's, work best in unitary states. Britain is a unitary state; the national government is much more powerful than the next level, counties, which look after purely local...

Political theatre.(Parliamentary Question Period in Canada)
September 1, 1997... For most Canadians who pay any attention, Question Period is the only part of the parliamentary process they see; unfortunately, it is probably Parliament's least important activity and the one that shows politicians in their worst light ...

An honourable member.(British Columbia Premier Mike Harcourt's rude response to a Liberal critic)
September 1, 1997... During Question Period in the provincial legislature in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1995, Liberal critic de Jong said the government was acting like the Mafia by refusing to release information on an NDP fundraising group under...

The trust gap.(lack of trust in politicians in Canada)
September 1, 1997... A public opinion poll in 1996 found that only 15% of Canadians believed politicians to be trustworthy. That puts them behind lawyers (24%) and way behind farmers (80%). A couple of years earlier, another poll found that 44% of Canadians believed...

Living comfortably ever after.(pensions of Canadian Members of Parliament)
September 1, 1997... One thing that really annoys the public is the pensions MPs enjoy. The pensions are reckoned to be five to six times more generous than those given to average Canadians. After only six years in office, an MP can retire and start to draw a...

Crisis of followship.(Canadian voters are not politically informed)
September 1, 1997... There are those who say that lack of trust in politicians can be blamed, to some extent, on the voters themselves. Polls consistently show that most people don't know who their MP is. Often, the public doesn't know which level of government is...

The persuasion industry.(lobbying in Canada)
September 1, 1997... Lobbying is a $100-million-a-year business which has the reputation of being filled with shadowy figures who know how to cut back-room deals with government officials for rich clients. This may have been true in the past but today lobbyists...

Closing doors.(lobby groups criticize 1991 rule changes in Canadian House of Commons)
September 1, 1997... In 1991, lobby groups weren't too pleased with House of Commons rule changes, which they said could jeopardize their ability to fight government bills. The new rules were made to slash the number of Commons sitting days, reduce the time...

PACs with a punch.(role of political action committees in financing U.S. political campaigns)
September 1, 1997... Candidates for office in the United States must pay all their campaign expenses out of their own pockets. Apart from a few very wealthy individuals, this means candidates must raise the money they need from donations. Much of the cash is...

The age of the soundbite.(influence of media coverage on Canadian politics)
September 1, 1997... The demand of television for drama and action means that very complex issues are often condensed to catchy, but simplistic, phrases; this gives credence to the view that news coverage, particularly of Parliament, has become so superficial that...

Private lives.(increased media coverage of the private lives of politicians)
September 1, 1997... Forty years ago, journalists very, very rarely reported on the private lives of politicians. References to misbehaviour, if made at all, would be in the form of code phrases. If a cabinet minister got roaring drunk at a state dinner he might...

Off the record.(use of unnamed sources in political journalism)
September 1, 1997... Winnipeg historian and writer Allan Levine agrees that the television age helped transform political journalism. But he also says new ethical standards -- set by the reporters themselves -- altered the way political information was gathered...

The other place.(Canadian Senate)
September 1, 1997... The public image of the Senate is of a place where political has-beens are rewarded with a fat pay cheque for doing nothing; but, the Senate could be a lot more When the Senate was created under the Constitution Act, 1867, the idea was that...

How to get there.(appointment process for Canadian Senators)
September 1, 1997... Senators are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister. It has 104 members; 24 from the Maritimes (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have 10 each, Prince Edward Island has four), 24 from Quebec, 24 from Ontario, 24 from...