vr, Jake,
thanks, I learned a lot from your comments. very interesting. Most of what you said makes sense and seems pretty fair. So is the PM elected by you guys or the winning party (Lib in this case)?
the riding thing is just like elections here in the US for a representative in the house of representatives (congressional district is what that's called here) Of course a big difference is that there are only two parties here and I can see with having as many could be stifling etc... but I don't understand why the vote against would be non confidence. why not just keep going and putting forth other bills? you guys also said if the non confidence vote happens then you'll have to have another election. That seems a bit funky to me but hey.... wouldn't cooperation be a good thing?
so do your representatives/PM have a term? or any limitations? or are they in power as long as there is no non confidence vote?
and then what the heck is up with Gov General? I though Canada was an independent country? please explain. If any of you want to dwelve into the senate thing that'd be kool too. I don't know if you guys know or care how the gov here is the US works but there is a senate here too. There are only 2 senators per state. It's function is basically the same as the house of rep. just another check in the power structure. the number of perpresenatatives is based on population density so the districs vary in size greatly but not in the amount of constituents.
Could you guys also tell me more how Canada is subdided? I know you have provinces but nothing beyond that. Here the states are devided into counties and then into townships. in some states they have parishes instead.
we also have another type of twonship. it's more of a surveying thing (location purposes) they are 6mi by 6mi but are not necessarily politically connected.
if you guys wouldn't mind telling me more about how provincial govs work, I'd appreciate that too.
I live in Indiana and the state gov here is basicaly a replica of the federal government. counties and towns have their own but they are not always like the state or fed. many have boards of directors or the like that run them but there are other variations and many different names. I also live in Indianapolis which combined the city and county governments in the 70s which I think made a lot of sense and made this city a pretty good one. Less paperwork and less other bureaucracy... but we do have a city police, sheriff and his deputies (county) and of course the state cops that rule in differnt parts of the city. We do have airport and capital police too besides the different university police departments and the public school system has some coptoo; oh, we do have a US marshall also. this nation is definaltely in love with it's police forces...
Ok, sorry about so many questions but I do have one more: do you guys have something like the bill of rights/constitution that is supposed to be the guiding light?
thanks, hey.
