know thy (neighbours') government

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

An interesting bit on what the Canadian government is like

OK.
The first thing you need to know is that Canada has a parliamentary democracy, and that we are a Constitutional Monarchy. This is a very, very different system than the US uses, and it allows for a lot of interesting political variation. The most significant to the majority of my readers will likely be that our head of Government (The Prime Minister) is not the same person as the head of state (The Governor General). The Governor General is the Queen's representative in Canada, and plays an important role. (She's also the Commander-in-Cheif of the Canadian Forces.) In addition, we vote for parties not individuals. (Edited to add: There's been some debate about this in the comments, and as usual, the commentors are right and I was unclear. When I say this, I mean that we do NOT vote for a Prime Minister in an election. We vote for the person at our local level, they represent a party, and then the party's leader becomes Prime Minister. Clearer?) We vote at the local level and elect a Member of Parliament, and the party that gets the most MPs wins, and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister.MORE