Renaissance College

RCLP 2014: Public Policy Forum I

Fall Term 2014
Reading Assignments
Week Three September 18
Topic: Government-Form
Reading: Malcolmson & Myers Chapters 3, 4, 6, 7
Question
Canada has adopted a system known as responsible government which includes a number of
conventions and rules on which this form of governance is grounded. What purposes do these
conventions and rules serve? Do you think Canadians are well served by them? Why?
The purpose that these conventions and rules serve is that the executive power is held
responsible to the House of Commons, which is elected by the people instead of appointed by a
monarch. Five convections that show that executive power is responsible for its actions to a
democratically elected legislative body are: The crown acts on the advice of the ministers and is
just a figurehead, the crown appoints ministers who are already Members of Parliament,
ministers work together as a team led by the prime minister, and the ministers must have the
confidence of the house and if this confidence is lost the prime minister must resign or request a
new election. I think that this system does serve Canadians well to a certain extent because
legislative and executive power are fused together in the cabinet and it is accountable to an
assembly of the peoples elected representatives. However it can be said that due to this system
MPs lose their political liberty as party discipline forces them to vote with their party whether
that is what their constituency wants or not. Although this form of government is effective it can
be exaggerated to be a called a four year dictatorship. One of the key principles of responsible
government is that a government needs the confidence of Parliament to create laws and taxation.
However there is concern for reform in some areas such as: in Prime ministers ability to abuse
the governor generals powers for partisan gain, and the frequency of elections in both minority
and majority government settings.
Question for the class:
Which system of government is more democratic: that of Canada (responsible) or the United
States (separation of powers) and is one or the other better?

Reading Assignments (10%)

Students are to upload on D2L five out of six required reading assignments (2% each). Each
assignment must provide: 1) a concise response to a question based on the content of the
assigned readings for that week (questions will be posted on D2L in advance); 2) a suggested
discussion question on the weeks topic that might be raised in class. These assignments are due
at 2:00pm of the Thursday in which the readings will be discussed in class. Each assignment
should be approx. 250 words in length.