Hello Lovely Readers™, and welcome back to another blog post. As we just had an election in Canada, it makes perfect sense that we would talk about it. So here we are! Talking! Exciting! Woohoo!
Let us get to the good stuff. In the midst of a Liberal “power grab”, the political system has never been as accessible, and yet still out of reach. In this post, I hope to answer some of my own, as well as other peoples questions. How is the Canadian Government structured? Why is this the system that we use? What makes a government? And why, in my opinion, is the Liberal government not set to meet the Paris Agreement?
Wait a second. What makes a government?
According to our lovely friends at Dictionary.com, a legitimate government is a government generally acknowledged as being in control of a nation and deserving formal recognition, which is symbolized by the exchange of diplomats between that government and the governments of other countries.
How, exactly, is the Canadian Government structured?
And why is this the system that we use?
The Canadian election system has been somewhat in place since 1867, when Canada was founded. It has obviously evolved over time, whether that be lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1970, or giving women the right to vote. Canada is also special in the way that we operate as a constitutional monarchy. As you may know, we have a Queen, although she is not in charge of the constitution. She is on our coins though!
A few countries have had election reform, and we have tried for it to happen in BC in 2005, 2009, and 2018.
Alright, so now you are possibly craving some cupcakes, and hopefully have a clearer understanding of the Canadian Government System.
Speaking of the Canadian Government system, we did just have an election. Despite a promise for change, the election results stayed almost the exact same. Now, in my local riding, Jonathan Wilkinson was elected for the third time. Jonathan has always been an interesting person to me because he is the Liberal-appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change. I was curious to see what he had to say about the Liberal climate plan, especially since the Liberal government seems to have a habit of setting goals and missing them, as we saw when one of the main points of the 2015 campaign was that that election would be the last run under the first-past-the-post system.
“What I would say about our plan is it is far more comprehensive and way more detailed than any of the other climate plans, it’s great to be aspirational, but aspiration only takes you so far. You have to actually then put that in concrete terms.”
The so called “comprehensive” plan was not what a climate plan should be. When your plan for climate favors economy or jobs over everything, it is not a plan for climate. It is a plan for growing the economy while using the label of “long term sustainability benefits”. What this plan, and the Liberal government, fail to realize, is that the “long term benefits” will not matter when the planet dies. The “long term benefits” do not matter to the community of Lytton, who lost everything due to forest fire. The “long terms benefits” do not matter to the friends and family of the 800 people who died in the Lower Mainland heat dome. The “long term benefits” do not matter to the family owned farms struggling with drought. The “long term benefits” do not matter to the Indigenous people being forced out of their homes. It is embarrassing that we, as a first world country with the potential to be a climate leader, are falling behind.
If we continue down the same path that we are on, we will not meet the Paris Agreement. That is a fact. I do think that even though climate change is obviously not Justin Trudeau’s fault, he has the power to greatly improve not only our country but the world, and the fact that he has not done that is disappointing, to say the least. I think that if the government structure was adapted as our technical world advances, we could have a better chance of getting to where we want to be.