Fail of the Canadian Parliament in Its Law-Making Function

Subject: Politics & Government
Pages: 2
Words: 341
Reading time:
2 min

The Canadian Parliament really seems to have failed its public in law-making because of the distribution of power in it. There are diverse parliamentary committees that conduct many supplementary activities in addition to the work of Parliament in law-making; there are such committees as the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (AANO) Committee in the House of Commons, and the Aboriginal Peoples Committee in the Senate, so it is hard to say that the under-representation of the First Nations in the government ensures their neglect.

However, these committees review the drafts and governmental affairs that are initiated in the legislature, so in case no drafts concerning the First Nations are initiated, these committees will remain without work. In addition, it is said that the committees, in contrast to the USA, did not factually operate until the 1960s, which also expresses the distribution of legislative power in Canada.

One more factor that witnesses the detachment of the legislative process from the Canadian public is the fact that any bill becomes a law only after it is given royal assent that can be conducted only by the British Queen. The royal assent is often delayed, influencing the political affairs in Canada negatively; in addition, one should realize that the British government is absolutely distanced from Canadian affairs and it cannot keep track of the changes that occur in the political life of Canada, thus it cannot take an adequate part in Canadian law-making.

Hence, the changes that need to be introduced to let the Canadian legislature function in a more efficient way are as follows: the Senate’s functions should be simplified to reduce its formal participation in the law-making process, the seats in the Parliament should be assigned in part to ensure the diversity of opinions and to prevent the majority from imposing their viewpoint on the whole Parliament, and finally, the process of bill endorsement by the Queen should be simplified to ensure more timeliness of legislative decisions.