The Federal Republic of Canada

[lily]

Do you by chance, write fortune cookies for a living? If not, I suggest that you consider making a change to that field...

haha! I've asked him the same thing!

Sometimes what he says makes sense.... other times I think he's just playing.

[g_bambino]

Sometimes what he says makes sense....

An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce... Well, you know the rest.

[benny]

haha! I've asked him the same thing!

Sometimes what he says makes sense.... other times I think he's just playing.

How can one say that his country doesn't make sense!?

Edited July 14, 2009 by benny

[ToadBrother]

One cannot even comment on something that doesn't make any sense.

You seem capable of stringing together grammatically correct sentences. The problem is that those sentences are often simply nonsensical, and when they are sensible enough to allow reasonable parsing for meaning, they are usually just pieces of idiocy. What you wrote above was an example of the first kind of post you make, the one that may in fact pass an English class as a syntactically and grammatically correct sentence, but which carries no discernible meaning.

[benny]

Chavez is using democracy, or some variant of it (after he's basically shut down most of the press that opposes him) to create what amounts to a hybrid-democracy-dictatorship where he'll allow democracy providing it doesn't get in the way of his own power. As to QEII, well, her powers are largely hypothetical, and Parliament has been supreme since 1688, so she basically does what she's told by the Prime Minister.

Chavez is using the democracy concept to legitimize a proletarian dictatorship based on slum-dwellers (whom are the majority of his population and whom have much more urgent needs than reading newspapers) and QEII is using the same democracy concept simply by refraining from resorting to the aristocratic scorn of laymen and only because she knows that she has no other option to save her face/family.

[ToadBrother]

Chavez is using the democracy concept to legitimize a proletarian dictatorship based on slum-dwellers (whom are the majority of his population and whom have much more urgent needs than reading newspapers) and QEII is using the same democracy concept simply by refraining from resorting to the aristocratic scorn of laymen and only because she knows that she has no other option to save her face/family.

Read your g******* history for f**** sake. The reigning monarch in Great Britain has essentially not had the power to defy Parliament since the Glorious Revolution when the job of monarch was offered to William III the Orange. The deal was that he and Mary could rule as co-monarchs (because they were good little Protestants) providing they abandoned any of the old Stuart claims of the Absolute Monarchy and recognized the supremacy of Parliament. That's when our modern parliamentary democracy was born. QEII ultimately has no choice in listening to Her Ministers. There are hypothetical situations in which Her reserve powers could be used in the UK and in most of the nations in the Commonwealth where she is head of state, but only in an exceedingly small number of events from 1688 onward has the reigning monarch or His or Her vice-regents actually invoked those Reserve Powers (as I recall, it's only happened three times since the beginning of the 19th century; Lord Melbourne was the last Prime Minister directly removed by a British monarch when William IV ended his ministry in 1834, there was the King-Byng Affair in 1925 and the Australian Constitutional crisis in 1975). That indicates pretty heavily that the monarch and the vice-regents don't exactly exercise a great deal of actual power, and pretty much all actual executive power is exercised by their ministers.

Edited July 14, 2009 by ToadBrother

[benny]

Read your g******* history...

Is it a sensitive word!?

[Dave_ON]

Read your g******* history for f**** sake. The reigning monarch in Great Britain has essentially not had the power to defy Parliament since the Glorious Revolution when the job of monarch was offered to William III the Orange. The deal was that he and Mary could rule as co-monarchs (because they were good little Protestants) providing they abandoned any of the old Stuart claims of the Absolute Monarchy and recognized the supremacy of Parliament. That's when our modern parliamentary democracy was born. QEII ultimately has no choice in listening to Her Ministers. There are hypothetical situations in which Her reserve powers could be used in the UK and in most of the nations in the Commonwealth where she is head of state, but only in an exceedingly small number of events from 1688 onward has the reigning monarch or His or Her vice-regents actually invoked those Reserve Powers (as I recall, it's only happened three times since the beginning of the 19th century; Lord Melbourne was the last Prime Minister directly removed by a British monarch when William IV ended his ministry in 1834, there was the King-Byng Affair in 1925 and the Australian Constitutional crisis in 1975). That indicates pretty heavily that the monarch and the vice-regents don't exactly exercise a great deal of actual power, and pretty much all actual executive power is exercised by their ministers.

I didn't realize that was the case. I thought that the reserve powers rested solely with the GG at least by convention, but I suppose in reality the GG is the vice regal only so it stands to reason the monarch could overrule her if she had sufficient reasons to do so.

[bush_cheney2004]

Is it a sensitive word!?

Only to Jesus.

[lily]

Only to Jesus.

I don't like it... but it seems silly to spell it with a bunch of asterisks. I mean, if you're going to say something, say it. If you self-censor, then use a different word.

[ToadBrother]

I didn't realize that was the case. I thought that the reserve powers rested solely with the GG at least by convention, but I suppose in reality the GG is the vice regal only so it stands to reason the monarch could overrule her if she had sufficient reasons to do so.

The Constitution makes it very clear that our head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. The vice-regal is the effective head of state, representing the Crown in its executive capacity. It's theoretically possible that the Queen could overrule or dismiss the Governor General (indeed, that was what Gough Whitlam was trying to do in Australia when it became obvious that Sir John Kerr was going to dismiss his government).

A sure sign of the Queen's position in Canada is that when she addressed the Alberta legislature in 2005, she did that from the Throne. Every parliament in Canada is ultimately Her parliament.

Edited July 14, 2009 by ToadBrother

[benny]

Only to Jesus.

troll

[jbg]

So, given your quote, has does your original comment make any sense? It would seem that if even a dictatorship is compatible with democracy, then a constitutional monarchy must also be compatible.

Few of his posts are particularly coherent. You and I agree on something. A red-letter day.

[jbg]

One cannot even comment on something that doesn't make any sense.

I think you'll find that's a common reaction to benny's posts.

Go here for my response.

[jbg]

I didn't realize that was the case. I thought that the reserve powers rested solely with the GG at least by convention, but I suppose in reality the GG is the vice regal only so it stands to reason the monarch could overrule her if she had sufficient reasons to do so.

Also when QE II is in Canada she's the head of state.

[benny]

Also when QE II is in Canada she's the head of state.

The expression "head of state" is used to imply that this head can roll off.

[Peter F]

...And wear a hat!

[benny]

...And wear a hat!

helmet

[Jerry J. Fortin]

The Queen is a figurehead, with no power or authority, read the Statute of Westminister 1931 http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/...estminster.html

[benny]

The Queen is a figurehead, with no power or authority, read the Statute of Westminister 1931 http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/...estminster.html

We don't like freeloaders in Canada.

Edited July 15, 2009 by benny

[Smallc]

The Queen is a figurehead, with no power or authority,

Now that's not true. She holds the same reserve power as the Governor General if not more.

[ToadBrother]

Now that's not true. She holds the same reserve power as the Governor General if not more.

More, because it's the Queen who dictates who becomes Governor General.

[benny]

More, because it's the Queen who dictates who becomes Governor General.

"Dictate" like in "dictatorship".

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Now that's not true. She holds the same reserve power as the Governor General if not more.

Really? Describe this so-called reserve power and its nature.

The GG and the Queen are in fact on the books but they by design do not interfere with the will of Parliament.

[Smallc]

Really? Describe this so-called reserve power and its nature.

They aren't described. They're almost limitless, even if they're rarely used. Canada doesn't have a completely written Constitution, and so it's difficult to say how everything is defined.