Despite a long common border, Minnesotans don’t pay much attention to Canadian politics. We will pay little interest to the sudden — and, by U.S. standards, very short — election campaign that will take place there over next seven weeks.
This unexpected Canadian election poses interesting contrasts with the United States, where our president won’t be replaced before 2009. What if we had a parliament instead of a president and Congress?
There is no chance of that happening. But comparing our system to others provides insights on its strengths and limitations and how these affect policies.
We are virtually alone among wealthy countries in having a presidential-congressional system. Nearly all members of the European Union plus Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have parliamentary systems in which the party or coalition that has a majority of seats in parliament automatically forms a government to carry out executive functions.
In such systems, the loss of a majority in parliament, as in Monday’s no-confidence vote in Canada, means that new national elections must be held. Whatever party or group of parties holds a majority in this newly elected parliament forms a new government. There is no popular election for prime minister. That person is the majority party’s leader.
The advantage of a parliamentary system is that it usually is impossible to have a split government in which one party holds a majority in the legislative branch while a president from a different party controls the executive. That is the situation we have had for most of the past 25 years.
All four presidents during that period have had at least one two-year period during which the opposing party controlled at least one house of Congress.
The outcome of split government can be deadlock and unclear responsibility. The president blames economic problems on Congress, while Congress blames the president. Gridlock slows effective responses to economic challenges.
In a parliamentary system, if deficits are ongoing, health care is unsatisfactory and Social Security is unsustainable, it is hard for the majority party to pass the buck.
The trade-off can be abrupt swings in policy. If a government falls, as Canada’s did in a corruption scandal, the resulting new government may introduce big changes in economic policies.
In multiparty systems like Italy’s, where two or more parties frequently must make a coalition to obtain a majority and form a government, accountability is hard to come by. Germany experienced paralysis for nearly two months while the new “grand coalition” of both major parties got hammered out. Many view this coalition as doomed to ineffectiveness. It is too broad to have any consensus for change.
Still, in the face of inaction on health care, deficit reduction and energy costs, some of us may look enviously across the 49th parallel to whatever new government takes power in Canada three years before our next inauguration.
© 2005 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.