Monarchy of Canada - Part 2
Below the national government, Canada is also a federation of subnational units called provinces. The constitution of Canada assigns certain matters to the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces such as, for example: education, healthcare, municipal government, public works, natural resources within the province, civil and property law, and court procedure in civil cases, among others. All matters not explicitly assigned to the provinces, including criminal law and court procedure in criminal cases, money and banking, the armed forces, Indian land, copyright law, weights and measures, trade, and national debt, lie then by default under the jurisdiction of the federal Parliament.
Each province has an officer called the Lieutenant Governor, who is appointed by the Governor General in Council on the advice of the Prime Minister, and represents the Queen in the province. In addition, each province also has a popularly elected unicameral legislative assembly and an executive council, whose active members are the provincial ministers, drawn from the assembly on the recommendation of the provincial premier, who is normally the leader of the largest party in the assembly and the de facto head of the provincial government. Similarly to the Prime Minister at the federal level, the premier of a province depends on the confidence of the respective provincial legislative assembly to stay in office. In other words, each province also has a parliamentary system of government under the Crown that mimics the federal goverment (minus the Senate).
Like members of the federal House of Commons, members of the provincial legislative assemblies are subject under the constitution of Canada to a maximum (renewable) term of five years, but elections to most provincial legislative assemblies are now held under provincial law on a fixed date in the fourth calendar year following the last election unless the assembly is sooner dissolved by the respective Lieutenant Governor on the advice of the premier, in which case an early snap election must be held.
The federal territories. of which there are currently 3 in Canada, differ constitutionally from the provinces in the sense that the Parliament of Canada may legislate directly for them and can overrule territorial law in any subject matter. Each territory has a Commissioner appointed by the Governor General in Council , usually on the advice of the Minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs. In the past, the Territorial Commissioners exercised alone the executive authority in the territories, but nowadays the territories also have a popularly elected legislature and a premier responsible to the legislature who serves in practice as the head of the territorial government.
Members of the House of Commons are elected by plurality vote in single-member districts with roughly an equal number of voters per district, meaning that the number of members elected per province is roughly proportional to the province’s population. One member is also additionally elected from each of the 3 territories. On the other hand, an equal number of 24 senators are appointed from each of four regional divisions, which currently may consist of one, three, or four provinces depending on the division. In addition, six senators are appointed from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and one senator is appointed from each of the 3 federal territories. In exceptional circumstances, the constitution of Canada allows the Queen to summon 4 or 8 additional senators beyond the normal number of 105 provided that they are equally drawn from each of the four regional divisions. That is actually one of the few royal powers under the constitution of Canada that are not delegated to the Governor General and can be exercised only by the Queen personally. Another such exclusive power is the power to appoint and remove the Governor General himself, which the Queen normally exercises, however, only on the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada.
In recent times, independent Senate and vice-regal appointments commitees/ boards have been used to propose to the Prime Minister nonbinding shortlists of candidates for vacant seats in the Senate and for the offices of Governor General of Canada or Lieutenant Governor of a province. Similarly to members of the House of Commons, members of the unicameral legislative assemblies are also elected in all provinces using the plurality voting system in single-member districts.
Finally, the judicial power in Canada is similar to the judicial power in the United States. As in the United States, Canada also has a Supreme Court that has the power to review the constitutionality of laws although, in Canada, the federal Parliament or the provincial legislative assemblies can temporarily shield laws that they pass from a judicial ruling of conflict with certain select constititutional provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by invoking a special mechanism known as the “notwithstanding clause”. Justices of the Supreme Court, federal judges and judges of the superior courts of the provinces are appointed by the Governor General in Council, usually on the advice of the Prime Minister or the federal Minister of Justice; they are subject to a compulsory retirement age of 75 years old, but, barring that, cannot be removed from office during their tenure except by the Governor General on an address by the House of Commons and the Senate on grounds of misbehavior.
Despite the independence of the courts of law from the executive branch, the Queen of Canada, again like the President of the United States, can grant pardons to people convicted of criminal offfenses. Pardons are granted under the royal prerogative of mercy, which is delegated to the Governor General in the Queen’s name by the Letters Patent of 1947. Under federal law, however, the prerogative of mercy is exercised only by the Governor General in Council, rather than the Governor General personally, with pardon requests processed through the National Parole Board of Canada.
