Government's Influence On The Canadian Prime Minister

Words: 2004
Pages: 9

Canada's biggest concern surrounds the degree of power to which the Prime Minister is in possession of, coupled with the matter of proper implementation. Accordingly, a survey conducted by Nanos Research displayed results which state 42 percent of Canadian's believe that the PM should have less power. In addition, polls show that concerns regarding too much power within the PM are much higher than concerns within any other section of the government (Clark, 2012). In order to adequately comprehend the troublesome overabundance of power placed upon the Canadian Prime Minister, the following four components are to be understood; the influence on Supreme Court decisions, the responsibility of appointing both cabinet ministers and senators, as well …show more content…
The first of these cases is that the PM can choose to place a date on the re-elections at whatever day he wants. An example of this is when Steven Harper set a date for one of the longest campaigns in Canada, with the purpose of having enough time to regain the confidence of the people (Immigration, 2016). The additional use of this power is that the Prime Minister can choose to call re-elections earlier in his term this being useful when the Prime Minister has a high confidence of the public, an example of this is when Jean Chretien ended his time early and won the re-election (MacIntyre, …show more content…
Thus, additional analyzation of the various forms of authorities the Prime Minister possesses, further proves the untrustworthy nature of the ties within sections of government in which are supposed to be separated. Similarly, a lack of professionalism regarding choosing qualified party members is also a prevailing issue, as well as taking advantage of power to gain a certain leverage and finally an extreme form of disciplinary action implemented as a method to take away the freedom of opinion from elected members. Although it is plausible that with time this has become less of an issue, it is still relevant to the idea that the Prime Minister holds too much power. Even so, the coming of the recent years has seen a change in choices that the PM has taken, such as Prime Minister Trudeau who promised he would do his best to give the free vote to the MP's. In conclusion, the Prime Minister of Canada is granted an overabundance of power, thus resulting in its