Government of Canada

. politics: making binding decisions about who gets what, when & how

. state: political unit of an entire territory. Consists of terr., pop., and gov't

. government: consists of authoritative structures of the political system

. nation: politically conscious, mobilized group of people w/ sense territory

. sovereign: final authority rests w/ national gov't

. citizen: formal member of a state

. ethnicity: subjective characteristic of groups of people sharing customs

. federation: # of territorial units and central gov't make decisions

. unitary system: power & authority centralized in one gov't

. law: special body of rules by gov't backed with threat of state force

. authority: gov't power to make binding decisions & issue commands

. democratic political system: reconciles competing interests w/ elections

Includes: free elections, voting rights, >1 party, freedom speech, rule of law

. majority principle: policy decisions made by majority or elected body

. authoritarian political system: imposes one dominant interest on all others

. legitimacy: when citizens accept that the gov't can make decisions for them

. policies: broadly based patterns of gov't action

. rule of law: guarantee that state's actions will be governed by law

. constitutional monarchy: monarch is head of state, laws restrict the state

. parliamentary system of government: parliament w/ 2 houses, elected lower house (house of commons) & appointed upper house (senate) & gov. gen. to represent queen

. representative democracy: elected officials make decisions w/ force of law

. republic: no monarch, gov't of state done by people or elected official

. responsible government: ministers responsible to House, which answers to the people

. state institution: related to constitution, incl: exec, legis, bureau, courts, cops, prisons

. debt: accumulation of deficits since 1867

. deficit: amount by gov't spending exceeds revenues

. budget:

M.P. = Member of Parliament Ð'- federal

MNA = Member of the National Assembly -- Quebec

MPP = member of the provincial parliamentÐ'--Ontario

MLA = member of the legislative assembly Ð'- all other provinces

- The parliament of the federal government of Canada consists of two sections, known as Ð''Houses': the Senate and the House of Commons

- The parliaments of the provinces consist of only one Ð''House', which would be equivalent to the Ð''House of Commons'; except the provinces call the Houses:

Ontario Ð'- "Provincial Parliament"

Quebec Ð'- "National Assembly

Other provinces Ð'- "Legislative Assembly" or "legislature"

Canada's government system consists of three "levels" of government:

Ð'* Federal level

Ð'* Provincial and Territorial level

Ð'* Local Ð'- e.g. Ð''municipal' (city), Ð''township', Ð''village', Ð''county', Ð''regional', etc . . .

All levels are broken into: Ð''Executive branch', Ð''Legislative branch' + Judicial branch

FEDERAL

-The Legislative Branch: it consists of two parts (referred to as "Houses")

Ð'* a) The House of Commons (elected by the people) consists of "members of Parliament" (M.P's.) -- to qualify, one must be a Canadian citizen 18+

Ð'* b) The Senate (appointed by the prime minister)

- senators: are chosen by prime minister(s)Ð'-- to qualify, one must be 30 years of age or over; appointment is permanent till age 75.

-The Executive Branch

The members of the Executive are selected from the Legislative branch, mainly from the H.C., which makes these executives (called "Ministers" responsible and answerable to the legislative branch (mainly the House of Commons, which consists of the representatives of the people, namely the elected M.P's. This make the Ð''Executive' indirectly "responsible" to the people, thus we call our type of governing executive, "responsible government". The Governor General is the head of the Executive Branch, and the Prime Minister and the Ministers are collectively called the "Cabinet"

Each Minister is usually given a Department/ ministry for which he/she is held responsible. The employees working for these departments we call Civil/Public Servants. So the "Civil Service" consists of all the people working for the Executive [ in common everyday language and in the media, the executive is normally referred to as the "Government" , (as they are actually considered to be in charge/control of the running of the country). For example, today, members from Conservative Party, headed by Stephen Harper form the "Executive". This is why we say that our "Government of the day" is Conservative.

Provincial

The provincial governments are Organized the same as the federal except that its Legislative branch does not have a Senate, and the titles used to describe the elected representatives differ to some degree: e.g. MPP. MLA, "Premier" is used instead of prime minister, "Lieutenant