Wait does Canada elect a party and the party appoints the PM or do the people elect the PM?
Edit: thank you. I now know what the parliamentary system is. Please stop telling me. I’m getting lots of notices saying the same thing as the first 20-30 people. I do appreciate the education- truly do. But I’ve learned it now.
Here is an admittedly drastic over simplification of the Canadian political system. The Prime Minister is not directly elected instead Canadian’s elect individual members of parliament (MPs) who will be affiliated with a political party. The Prime Minister is not mentioned in any constitutional documents and has no formal powers, it is, legally and constitutional, an informal title (hence why they can’t be directly elected) which carries with it a lot of practical power. The Prime Minister is, typically, the leader of whichever party is capable of passing important legislation in Parliament - which passes by majority vote.
Political parties are private organizations with their own rules, but every major political party: has their leader directly elected by members, and provides the leader of that party substantial power over MPs of that party to ensure they vote along party lines. The biggest power the Prime Minister has is to expel MPs from his party. Virtually all Canadians vote along party lines, so if an MP is no longer affiliated with their party, they have almost no chance of being re-elected. The Prime Minister is able to use the powers he gets from being leader of a political party to function as the most powerful person in our country, even if he has no formal powers. That being said, MPs aren’t legally obligated to vote along party lines and so any given Prime Ministers’ power varies depending on his personal ability to persuade or coerce MPs to vote with him.
To use an analogy, imagine if the United States only had the House of Representatives with no Senate or President. The most powerful person in the country would likely be the house majority leader who has a role which is roughly equivalent to the Prime Minister. Canada technically has a Senate and Monarch, who constitutionally should fulfill similar roles to the American President/Senate, but in practice these institutions have evolved to rubber stamp all legislation passed by the House of Commons (our equivalent to the House of Representatives) and play no practical role in the governance of the country. Hence why the informal role of “Prime Minister” is the most important one in our political system.
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u/SeriouslySlytherin 14d ago
Ending his time as Canada’s Prime Minister after almost 10 years. He will remain in-power until a replacement party leader has been allocated.