Tag: House of Commons

News Politics

How Would You Change The Senate?

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What would you do with the Canadian Senate? Change the way Senators are chosen? Get rid of it? Keep it as-is?

The Senate is a legislative body of the government that has almost the same powers as the House of Commons.

However, members to the House of Commons are elected; the prime minister appoints Senators.

And these tend to be people from his own party, who have done good things for his party.

Once they are in the Senate, they almost always vote as their party does in the House of Commons.

The Senate was started this way in 1867 when Canada was formed.

It was supposed to be a place for “sober second thought”—thinking carefully about the laws sent to it by the House of Commons and sometimes improving them.

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News Politics

Dalton McGuinty’s Sudden And Shocking Retirement As Ontario’s Premier

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On Monday night, the Premier of Ontario did something surprising. He quit his job.

It was shocking, because most people didn’t see it coming.

Dalton McGuinty has been the Premier for nine years.

He is also the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, a position he has held for 16 years.

At the same time as he resigned, he also “prorogued” the legislature. That means he stopped all business taking place in the Ontario House of Commons.

Most of the work MPPs were working on has been cancelled until a new session is called.

No one knows exactly why McGuinty quit, and so suddenly.

Some people say he intends to run for leader of the federal Liberal party—in other words, take over the national Liberals so he can run for Prime Minister in the future.

Other people say he quit because his provincial government is in the middle of many difficulties including contract negotiations with some unions.

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Breaking News News Politics

Giant Slumber Party In The House Of Commons

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The government of Canada had a sleepover, and all of the MPs were invited.

In fact, attendance was mandatory.

What’s really happened is that the Members of Parliament stayed up all night working.

They were voting on a bill, but the way they did it was very unusual—and very interesting.

It all started when Stephen Harper’s Conservative government introduced Bill C-38.

Bill C-38 is an enormous 425-page bill covering all kinds of things including budget items.

The opposition party (the NDP) wanted to protest the fact that the government bundled all of those extra items into the bill.

They say that when too many items are bundled that way, none of the items can be looked over and properly discussed.

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