Canadian Government

I have finished "Into the Light" and am still ticked off about the misrepresentation of the relationship between Canada/the British Commonwealth and the UK. Specifically that the Canadian Government would particularly care what Whitehall would think about anything that Canada did. We share the same head of state, currently Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II whose representatives in Canada are the Governor-General for the federal government and Lieutenant-Governors for the provinces, all appointed by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Other than that, Whitehall does what it wants to do in the U.K., Ottawa does what it wants to do in Canada. And as for the Premier of Saskatchewan succeeding to the Prime Ministership of Canada, no way. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the greatest number of seats in the House of Commons in Ottawa. So until such time as a Canada-wide election can be held, there ain't no way the Premier of Saskatchewan (which has a population (1,098,352 2016) less than that of the city of Toronto (2,731,571 2016), and yes, I realize that they are probably all dead) is going to be the PM.

Keith_w wrote:I have finished "Into the Light" and am still ticked off about the misrepresentation of the relationship between Canada/the British Commonwealth and the UK. Specifically that the Canadian Government would particularly care what Whitehall would think about anything that Canada did. We share the same head of state, currently Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II whose representatives in Canada are the Governor-General for the federal government and Lieutenant-Governors for the provinces, all appointed by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Other than that, Whitehall does what it wants to do in the U.K., Ottawa does what it wants to do in Canada. And as for the Premier of Saskatchewan succeeding to the Prime Ministership of Canada, no way. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the greatest number of seats in the House of Commons in Ottawa. So until such time as a Canada-wide election can be held, there ain't no way the Premier of Saskatchewan (which has a population (1,098,352 2016) less than that of the city of Toronto (2,731,571 2016), and yes, I realize that they are probably all dead) is going to be the PM.

I realise the constitution of Canada is different from the constitution of the UK, but the PM being the leader of the majority party is convention, not law. Iron clad convention, yes, but in an emergency the Queen ( or her representative) can appoint anyone she thinks has ‘the confidence of the House’. They don’t have to be an MP.

I think Canada still has that emergency caveat as well. If the House is a smoking ruin, the Acting Governor might well decide that ‘confidence of the House’ translates as ‘elected official who has the confidence of other surviving elected officials’.

Likewise, the Acting Prime Minister is not making a decision about Canadian domestic policy - he’s considering whether Canada gives up its independence and becomes part of another country. That’s constitutional - which Weber mentions - but the procedure for doing that is wrecked. Very few of the bodies who are supposed to ratify a Constitutional change have survived. The only one that has, ironically, is the Royal Consent.

If they are to legitimise becoming part of this new Union, they need the consent of some official, legitimate authority besides a self appointed acting Governor who’s picked a non MP to be PM. It says very clearly in the chapter that they can go ahead without Royal Consent, but if they’ve got it then it’s proof both that this is considered a legitimate action in an emergency situation and that they followed all the legalities they could.

Bluesqueak wrote:
I realise the constitution of Canada is different from the constitution of the UK, but the PM being the leader of the majority party is convention, not law. Iron clad convention, yes, but in an emergency the Queen ( or her representative) can appoint anyone she thinks has ‘the confidence of the House’. They don’t have to be an MP.

I think Canada still has that emergency caveat as well. If the House is a smoking ruin, the Acting Governor might well decide that ‘confidence of the House’ translates as ‘elected official who has the confidence of other surviving elected officials’.

Likewise, the Acting Prime Minister is not making a decision about Canadian domestic policy - he’s considering whether Canada gives up its independence and becomes part of another country. That’s constitutional - which Weber mentions - but the procedure for doing that is wrecked. Very few of the bodies who are supposed to ratify a Constitutional change have survived. The only one that has, ironically, is the Royal Consent.

If they are to legitimise becoming part of this new Union, they need the consent of some official, legitimate authority besides a self appointed acting Governor who’s picked a non MP to be PM. It says very clearly in the chapter that they can go ahead without Royal Consent, but if they’ve got it then it’s proof both that this is considered a legitimate action in an emergency situation and that they followed all the legalities they could.

‘the confidence of the House’ is the entire question. There is no house to have the confidence of. One would assume that many, if not most of the residents of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island would object to a Saskatchewan politician summarily subsuming their independence into this 'Continental Union'. I left British Columbia out of the list, because if Victoria and Vancouver have been destroyed, that would only leave the interior and they are more likely to agree with Alberta and Saskatchewan than Ontario et al. Manitoba might agree with the other two prairie provinces, but they might not. So all in all, until the federal government is re-constituted, there's no way we should even be thinking of joining. and heck, half of Alberta wants to join the U.S. anyway. And the only reason I can think of that the Premier of Saskatchewan is still alive is because Regina is so small the puppies couldn't find it to hit. metro pop: 236,481 (2016)

Keith_w wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:
I realise the constitution of Canada is different from the constitution of the UK, but the PM being the leader of the majority party is convention, not law. Iron clad convention, yes, but in an emergency the Queen ( or her representative) can appoint anyone she thinks has ‘the confidence of the House’. They don’t have to be an MP.

I think Canada still has that emergency caveat as well. If the House is a smoking ruin, the Acting Governor might well decide that ‘confidence of the House’ translates as ‘elected official who has the confidence of other surviving elected officials’.

Likewise, the Acting Prime Minister is not making a decision about Canadian domestic policy - he’s considering whether Canada gives up its independence and becomes part of another country. That’s constitutional - which Weber mentions - but the procedure for doing that is wrecked. Very few of the bodies who are supposed to ratify a Constitutional change have survived. The only one that has, ironically, is the Royal Consent.

If they are to legitimise becoming part of this new Union, they need the consent of some official, legitimate authority besides a self appointed acting Governor who’s picked a non MP to be PM. It says very clearly in the chapter that they can go ahead without Royal Consent, but if they’ve got it then it’s proof both that this is considered a legitimate action in an emergency situation and that they followed all the legalities they could.

‘the confidence of the House’ is the entire question. There is no house to have the confidence of. One would assume that many, if not most of the residents of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island would object to a Saskatchewan politician summarily subsuming their independence into this 'Continental Union'. I left British Columbia out of the list, because if Victoria and Vancouver have been destroyed, that would only leave the interior and they are more likely to agree with Alberta and Saskatchewan than Ontario et al. Manitoba might agree with the other two prairie provinces, but they might not. So all in all, until the federal government is re-constituted, there's no way we should even be thinking of joining. and heck, half of Alberta wants to join the U.S. anyway. And the only reason I can think of that the Premier of Saskatchewan is still alive is because Regina is so small the puppies couldn't find it to hit. metro pop: 236,481 (2016)

Well, equally, the likelihood of real-life Britain wanting to join any Planetary Union is ... not huge. The areas which had a majority to Remain in the EU are pretty much the ones which the Puppies destroyed. Survivors are far more likely to be Leavers. At the very least, British survivors would want to wait and see if the PU was another EU.

I’m on my second read of the book and I noticed that it was mentioned that the Canadian Acting Prime Minister had come to that position by an unorthodox route; probably why they’re so keen on getting the support of the King and other Commonwealth leaders. He does seem to be in the same position as the former Governor of North Carolina (Brazil is the only country of the original three whose head of state has pre-Shongari validity). And yeah, both of them probably only survived because they were heads of areas that were too small to bother with. Regina is about half the size of Raleigh.

So I would assume that one of the book’s premises is that the Shongari attack completely reordered the current political equation and that things that pre attack populations would never have agreed to are now par for the course. If the Continental/Planetary Union helps to kick the arses of the Hegemony, they’ll join. If the Premier of Saskatchewan can keep things going, he can be Acting PM. If our wandering boy decides he’s going to come home to Britain and do his duty, we will follow him.

Etcetera.