When talking about apportionment in our last class we
mentioned the United States’ House of Representatives as an example. There are of course other countries which
have to deal with apportionment in their legislatures. One of these countries is Canada. The Canadian parliament consists of the House
of Commons, the Senate, and the Queen.
Only the House of Commons is elected by the people of Canada. The Senate members come into office by the
recommendation of the Prime Minister.
The Queen is represented in Canada by the Governor General, who is
chosen by the Queen based on the advice given to her by the Prime
Minister. When the Queen is in Canada
she “performs many important ceremonial duties”.
Since the only elected body is the House of Commons, I will
focus on them. In order to be elected to
the House of Commons one must get the most votes in her or his constituency,
which is similar to the term district. A
candidate can win an election “even if he or she gets less than half of the
total votes”. This indicates that the
U.S. is not the only nation that uses the Plurality method of voting. There are 308 seats total in the House of
Commons. These seats “are distributed
roughly in proportion to the population of each province and territory”. Bigger population equals more seats in the
House of Commons. Additionally, “Every
province or territory must have at least as many Members in the Commons as it
has in the Senate”.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/GuideToHoC/index-e.htm
Good example I think! It is also interesting to know and learn more about how Canada's system works.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting to see that Canada also uses the plurality method. I don't think it is always fair to have more representatives for larger provinces unless it's a very populated area.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Canada had a Queen. It puts a different spin on my thought process. What if America had a Queen? I don't think that would work well because I heard that we were too rude. We would not know how to act on that lol. But it sounds like losers can win . . . how do you get less than half of the votes and still win? I really dislike this method.
ReplyDeleteThat’s the problem with Plurality; people with less than half of the total votes can win. For example, say Candidate A has 40% of the votes, Candidate B has 30%, and Candidate C has 30%. A would win because it has 40%, which is the highest percentage of the three. If you added together the votes of B and C, however, you would find that 60% of voters do not want A to win. Now if A had 80%, B had 10%, and C had 10%, then A would actually win over the majority of voters because 10% + 10% only equals 20%.
DeleteI didn't know Canada had a queen either. From the sounds of it, she doesn't really serve a vital role in decision making other than appointing someone to decide things for her. I'm curious if there is ever a discrepancy in how the House of Commons seats are elected if the Senate, Queen, or Prime Minister can have any say in how it's handled.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOkay, just double checked, but the Queen of Canada is the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. Makes sense in a way, since Canada was under British rule for much longer then the US and was always much closer to Britain as well(minus Quebec, but that's a whole different story with them). I believe her role is (as mentioned) only ceremonial and, unlike in England, has 100% no power to decide things.
ReplyDeleteAs for my earlier post, that was me placing my comment in the wrong area, so just ignore it.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading about how Canada can go about using apportionment in their Country. It is pretty similar to our way of doing it. This was very interesting to read about, good info!
ReplyDeleteO, Canada! Didn't realize they had anything interesting other then Terrence and Phillip from South Park or French fries with gravy but still I'm not surprised how close our Governments along with England are similar since our constitution was based off the English Bill of Rights and Magna Carta.
ReplyDeleteI was interested to see that Canada refers to it as the House of Commons and not Representatives. I don't know, I just kind of like the sound of that.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that Canada also uses a plurality method, but they still have a queen? Also she mainly does ceremonial events.. hmm
ReplyDeleteThe Queen is Elizabeth II of England. Elizabeth II also holds the title of “Queen of Canada”, the only British monarch to do so. Canada began to achieve independence from Great Britain in 1867 via legislation passed in the British parliament. The British North America Act, which started the independence process, stated that “supreme political authority rests with the Queen and her British Government”. Victoria was the Queen when this act was made, but she did not have the title of “Queen of Canada” like Elizabeth II. Over time, Canada became more and more independent of Britain. The Queen is still kept on, however, because of the British North America act, though “the Queen and her British Government” have much less power in Canada now than they did in 1867.
DeleteHere's the sites where I got my info for my earlier reply:
Deletehttp://www.filibustercartoons.com/timeline.htm
http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensoftheunitedkingdom/thehanoverians/victoria.aspx
I think that this is a very fair voting method. It will help ensure that each area of the nation is divided fairly based on the amount of its consitutents and the type that need to be represented. This system seems to be a bit similar to our current system of government but, less reliant on the electoral process.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Andrew, the U.S. is certainly not the only country to use plurality as a voting method. Apportionment can get complicated in a multi-party system, though - many places apportion their legislatures based on the percentage of the popular vote won by different parties, rather than electing individual representatives by district the way we do. And some places do a combination of those things. The mathematical issues in all of these systems are basically the same, though - who gets the extra seat(s), and why?
ReplyDelete