How effectively does Canada's political system govern Canada for all canadians?

Answer 1

Not particularly well. Canadian history has given us a political system that represents some Canadians extremely well and others not at all.

There are the inequities by design, such as the number of seats in the house of commons. PEI has 4 representatives for a population of less than 140,000 people and an average population per riding of 34,000. Nunavat has a seat with less than 30,000 people, The average is about 90,000 per riding.

Add to that the large number of riding's in Ontario and Quebec, and an Constitutional amending formula that gives them, and no other province veto rights and we have entrenched tyranny of the majority and over representation of select minorities.

Among the select minorities are the French and Aboriginals They are given founding peoples status which results in the Federal government giving them special access to Canadian resources and tax money. Aboriginals add special treaty status that gives them all the rights of being Canadian, Plus many more including special tax status.

All of these special rights and access to tax money comes at the expense of other Canadians, Canadians not being governed as they would wish.

This is very apparent in Western Canada. The prairie provinces were once Colonies of Canada and as such were expected to funnel their money and resources to the mother country Canada. This colonial attitude continues to this day and results in Western Canada pouring much more money into Confederation than they get out.

The good example of this is Alberta. The average Albertan pays thousands of dollars more into Confederation each year than they get back in services. Most other provinces take more from the Federal system than they pay, than they could ever pay. Most Canadians think that part is great, it is always great when someone else pays your bills for generations.

Then there is the increasing numbers of First and Second generation Canadians. Canada does not require new citizens to adopt Canadian culture, in large part because there is no such thing. Canada is a Confederation of many cultures and has welcomed in many others.

The result is a soon to be majority who find themselves supporting a system that has them paying for language and special cultural rights for a minority that in some provinces does not comprise even 5% of the population. All the while their own language or culture gets no special status even when they make up the majority in an area. The explanations by Multi-Generational Canadians are very hard to understand and appear to be outdated and discriminatory.

The lack of effective representation in Canada's political system combined with the unwillingness of those currently benefiting from the inequities and our inability to amend our Constitution does not bode well for future political stability.

But we usually muddle through.