Canada

Canada is a constitutional monarchy. This means that Canada’s head of state is not the Prime Minister, but the Queen of Canada (Elizabeth II), whose powers are defined and restricted by the constitution of Canada. The Queen is one of the three component parts of the Canadian Parliament (together with the Senate and the House of Commons). Among other things, she is invested with executive power and is commander in chief of the armed forces. In actual fact, however, the Queen no longer fulfils anything but highly symbolic purposes such as embodying the state beyond party politics. The Queen of Canada does not live on Canadian soil: she is represented here by the Governor General, who, under the constitution, has the same authority as the Queen and, in her absence, administers the government of Canada on her behalf. In 2004, the position of Governor General of Canada was held by a woman, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson. She was appointed in 1999 by the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien. The first woman to become Governor General was Jean Sauvé, who served from 1984-1990. Canada is not a unitary state. Like its neighbour to the south, it is a federation. The 1867 Constitution Act expressed the desire of the provinces of Canada, that is Lower and Upper Canada, (which roughly correspond to the Quebec and Ontario of today), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to enter into a federal union for the purposes of constituting a single country. Since that time, other provinces and territories have joined the ranks of the Canadian federation, the last being the Territory of Nunavut, which was officially constituted on 1 April 1999. According to the principle of federalism, there is a division of powers between the federal parliament and provincial legislatures. Under the Constitution Act, 1867, the Parliament of Canada wields exclusive legislative authority in matters pertaining to postal service, census and statistics, currency and coinage, marriage and divorce, and criminal law, to mention a few. The provincial legislatures have complete authority to make laws applying within their borders regulating, among other things, education, municipal institutions, the celebration of marriage, property and civil rights in the province and the exploitation, preservation and management of non-renewable natural resources and forest resources of the province. Certain jurisdictions, such as agriculture and immigration, are also shared between the federal government and the provinces. Over the years, Canadian federalism has become increasingly centralized (Pelletier, 2000).