Judging by social media comments and conversations around town, it seems a refresher about how the federal government works is due.
Some of this may seem like a review from high school, but that's on purpose since not everyone a) graduated high school or b) remembers high school.
Also, things may have changed a little over the years (the number of seats, for example).
All the information below is sourced from official government websites and is aimed at informing readers how the federal government functions and what it has control over.
Heads of government
First, the structure. While the prime minister is the top elected official in Canada, the head of state is still the Queen of England. However, as she's busy raising corgis, the Governor General operates as her representative in Canada. Currently, it's Julie Payette, a former astronaut. The position is appointed by the Queen, with the recommendation of the sitting prime minister. Terms are unlimited; however, no one has served for more than a decade. The role does have some power, but typically the Governor General acts on the advisement of the prime minister or another similar body, like the Queen's Privy Council.
While the Governor General rarely ruffles feathers, that position does a lot of appointing, like for the Senate and for the Supreme Court (both at the advisement of government, essentially). We'll dive into that later.
House of Commons
While the Governor General makes appointments for some positions, the most important and active political body is elected by the public. That's who will be elected Oct. 21: 338 members of Parliament, or MPs.
The House of Commons is the first and most important step in creating new laws for all of Canada (the changes to assisted dying and recreational cannabis both officially started there, though lobbying had been going on for years).
It's here where they're first officially tabled and debated. Details are often hashed out in House of Commons committees, where a small group of MPs works on bills covering a specific topic (like finance or electoral reform). It then goes back to the whole House of Commons to be debated and voted on. Depending on how the voting goes, the bill is sent to the Senate.
One significant difference between American and Canadian elections is in Canada the prime minister isn't directly elected by the electorate. Instead, we vote for a local MP in our riding (a.k.a. the electoral district) and, essentially, that MP will help choose who the prime minister will be and the Governor General gives approval.
While it's not formalized through law, historically and for all practical purposes, the prime minister is the leader of the political party that won the most seats in the House of Commons.
A majority government happens when more than half of the MPs are part of a single party; a minority government is when the prime minister's party has less than half the seats in the House of Commons, but is supported by his or her party and at least one other (which would get the alliance to over half of the seats), to allow the political process to proceed. A prime minister can lose the confidence of Parliament if more than half of the House of Commons decides to stop supporting the government and prime minister in power. That typically triggers an early election, but not always (if you remember the term "proroguing" from a few years ago, it had to do this).
The Cabinet
Cabinet ministers are typically made up of MPs from the party with the most seats in the House of Commons, but this is a convention, not law. They take leadership roles in broad topics the federal government oversees, like foreign relations, justice, the environment or immigration; all are sectors that impact people across the country. Currently, there are 35 cabinet ministers.
Plenty of communication between governments happens at the ministry level, including government agencies overseen by ministries. There are often misconceptions in the general public about who controls what parts of government and who's responsible for different things, and that's understandable when there are two similar agencies or ministries, like with health; there's a provincial and a federal ministry, and a regional health authority.
The Senate
The Senate, also called the upper house, is supposed to act as the sober second thought for bills passed through the House of Commons (we'll come to that soon). Its numbers are set by the Constitution Act and are difficult to change, thanks to some complex issues we won't get into. Historically, senators were appointed by the party who held the prime minister's office and were a member of that party, though that has changed somewhat with Justin Trudeau, who removed the Liberal senators from the party's caucus (a group of party officials) and appointed them independents. Other senators are and have been unaffiliated in the past as well.
Senators are appointed as representatives of provinces, as well, with six coming from B.C. They serve until they retire or when they reach the age of 75.
The Senate is often criticized for a variety of reasons, including the fact that eastern provinces are over-represented per capita (the western four provinces and the three Maritime provinces have the same number of senators despite the west having nearly 12 million people compared to 1.9 million in the Maritimes), it's unelected and it rarely alters or stops bills.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is also appointed by the Governor General, on the advisement of the Queen's Privy Council, a group of former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, governor generals and chief justices (the top judges at the Supreme Court).
The justice system is essentially separate from the political system and decisions made by it can overturn laws and policy created by the federal government. Case in point, the Trans Mountain pipeline.
How governments interact
Each level of government is responsible for different things, and while it's obvious in some areas (we all know the military is federal and the streets outside our door are municipal... usually), it's muddier in others.
That's why when Trudeau came to town and met with Mayor Ken Christian, the topics that were on the table were items like trains coming through Kamloops (the Ministry of Transportation oversees train regulations) and emergency preparedness with First Nations (an issue all levels of government work together on).
Last month was the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention; delegates from across the province converged in Vancouver for the five-day event. The convention gave elected officials a chance to talk to ministers and put forward resolutions that need addressing. (For example, in the Thompson-Nicola region, delegates put forward a resolution in favour of online voting.)
If an issue is important to you, it may not help much to bring it up at the municipal level when they don't have any power over it (which we've seen done). Vice versa, the federal government might not deal with an issue, so complaining to them wouldn't help.
Unfortunately, while it can be dull and arduous, the only way to really understand how each policy, law, scandal and department will affect you is to put real-time into educating yourself on how things work.
So while this is just a starter, if you're interested in more, you can find more information here, here and here.
