....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I have discovered that north of Montana is a completely different country called "Canada". It is a huge, lovely nation about which little is known in this country. But Canadians are respected world wide for their ability not to be Americans.
While it is true that Canadians speak a variety of English eerily similar to American, Canadians differ from us in three important ways. First, the average Canadian is better educated than the average American. Second, their school children are not as well armed as ours. Canadians are thus smart enough to know that Americans are dumb enough and violent enough to start shooting at them at any moment. So they tend to keep a low profile.
The third difference is that Canada has a system of democracy completely different from ours, called Parliamentary. And as we are lurching into another election in the United States I thought it might be helpful to take a look at this odd Canadian system so near and yet so different from our own.
Canada was granted their independence from England in 1867 ...and once more in 1931. The government in Canada is still referred to as "The Crown", although no one in Canada has actually worn a crown since the unfortunate 1972 Pierre Trudeau disco-government experiment.
The official head of state in Canada is the "Governor General", but this office is now almost completely ceremonial and powerless. In Canada this is known as "irony."
The Canadian Parliament has two houses, a Senate and a Commons. The Commons, just like our own House of Representatives, is filled with venal, arrogant politicians, each one willing to make a complete fool out of themselves to get re-elected. But their Senate is very different from ours. The venal, arrogant politicians in their Senate are appointed. This gives Canadians the distinct advantage of being able to blame someone else for many of the idiots holding high office.
The Canadians do not have to hold elections every November as we do. As a matter of fact they don't have to hold an election almost ever. None of their politicians above mayors have terms limits to their offices, and their governments can go on for five years or more without disrupting their television schedules with election coverage.
And if, for some inexplicable reason, Canadians should decide they wish to hold an election they do so at a moments notice. This adds a degree of excitement to Canadian life which is desperately needed. These are the people, after all, who invented the tractor-pull as a competitive sport.
The chief executive of Canada is the Prime Minister. He is not elected to this post by the citizens but because he heads whichever party wins a majority of seats in the Commons, is "asked" to accept the post by the Governor General. The new P.M. then appoints 25 or 30 of his fellow ministers to serve in the Cabinet. They run the various departments of the government and plot to stab the Prime Minister in the back and take his job, while he plots to stop them. This intrigue is a part of a brilliant design to prevent the national government from interfering too much with the life of the average Canadian.
The central issue for the Canadian confederation is what to do about the Quebec independence movement. The economy of Quebec is vital to Canada. But Quebec is also the only province that speaks French...and French spells trouble in any language.
To be fair, the "Quebec-ians" are trying to protect the integrity of their French language and heritage. They feel they are an oppressed minority, that they are being constantly cheated and insulted and that they must aggressively defend their honor and their homes. In short the entire province thinks like a Parisian waiter.
To put this in perspective for Americans, think of Quebec as if it were Texas with no guns and better food. Now suppose Texas suddenly announced they were going to form their own nation if the rest of country didn't buy all their gross production of beef jerky. We might agree to that just to avoid having such a well armed under-educated state on our southern border. But then suppose Texas announced they wanted to pick all appointees for the Supreme Court? And what if Texas then demanded that both the President and the Vice President had to be from Texas? Would we allow ourselves to be jerked around just to preserve the union?
I guess we'll know on November 8th.
See the Editors Response Kimit A.Muston is a writer living in North Hollywood. He may be contacted at www.inditer.com.
His work may be also be read in the Los Angeles Daily News