Canada: Democracy and Increase Political Participation Essay

Submitted By JInthavong1
Words: 940
Pages: 4

The Canadian government has lead the country to many situations such as sending armies to Iraq or letting in immigrants from other countries to find new jobs and homes to help Canada with its reputation. The Government of Canada is envied upon many countries because we don’t fight like what’s happened in Egypt. Though the government of Canada may be envied outside of Canada, inside of the country many people have many issues about the government we have. I have also came upon many issues while studying about the government of Canada, the government has many flaws to it even if it may not look like it. In this essay I’ll be writing about the Senate, the voting and Election System and The Senate may be like a good thing to have, but creating the senate and its job has some major mistakes to it. The Senate is being payed too much, The senate is payed $106,400 without doing such hard work. The senate can just work for three days a week and as long as they show up to work, about eight months a year, this allowed the senate to maintain their jobs.This much money given to a senate that nearly needs to do work is controversial, its just like getting payed to watch T.V. everyday to earn %106,400. Another reason is why does the Senate have so much power? Senator Taylor realized how powerful the senate truly is, “Too powerful” he says “It has an absolute veto.” It was also proven by when Senator Carney’s vote against, killed prime minster Brian Mulroney’s abortion bill. The strength of the Senate is just too powerful, the senate is able to stop a bill from becoming one. What if Canadians agreed to a bill that may be helpful to them and the senate just shuts them down because he/she thinks we don’t need it. A lot of Canadians believe that we should elect a Senate instead of the prime minster appointing them. It’s unfair because the Prime minster’s can appoint anyone and he could be a friend of his. Let’s say the Prime minster wanted to pass a bill that he wanted, the senate needs to pass the bill for approval and if hes a friend of the Prime minster he can just pass it because he’s close to her/him. The Senate may be good or bad, it’s really hard to abolish a Senate but instead we should vote for one among canadians instead of appointing one, and also the money he earns from just barely doing any work. The Electoral System is unfair, and not straight forward. First past the post wins means that whoever has the most votes win and i have to say its grossly undemocratic.Election results demonstrate that voters and their votes are not treated equally. The bloc gained one seat for about every 31,000 votes cast for their party; the liberals gained one seat for every 37,000 votes, the conservatives one seat for every 40,000votes while ndp gained only one for every 111,000 votes and the Greens would attract more then 500,000 votes but gained no seats at all. To me that’s ridiculous, we, as voters, want to have the party with our votes have seats and have at least some say in the house of commons. Also it matters whether the province is big or not, not all the provinces have equal ridings. So let’s say a group can just focus on getting votes at ontario and Quebec which are the biggest provinces in canada, and have more ridings then anywhere else in canada, a party can win just by focusing on one or two provinces which means each provinces doesn’t have equal ridings. Canada’s unfair voting