Canadians dont even get to vote for their Prime Minister. They vote for their area MP only. By voting for him, you are voting for whomever it is in that party who is running for Prime Minister.
So you can like the area MP you voted for but hate the guy who is running from PM.
I'd rather have our system than be subject to one where the population votes for the guy they'd like to have a beer with even though they know he'd suck at running the country. Then you're stuck with the moronic nimrod for 4 years.
For those of you who perhaps might be interested in how our Canadian Parliamentary system works:We Canadians
DO vote for our Prime Minister (1st minister). MP stands for Minister of Parliament (colloquially termed 'Member of Parliament'). Each area riding (aka district) gets a seat in Parliament (House of Commons). This ensures that every riding (region) has a seat in Parliament and the same goes for MPP's (ministers of provincial parliaments). These ridings are dispersed similarly to your electoral college, in that ridings are determined by regions, population dispersal, economics etc.,. The Leader of the party that gets the most seats or ministers elected to Parliament is called the Prime Minister (or the 1st minister, the big guy, the PM), and on the provincial level, s/he is known as the Premiere, and is elected by the party members. The political party with the 2nd most seats elected to parliament, forms the Official Opposition, and all other party seats elected to parliament form the opposition. Each MP, at the Federal level or MPP at the provincial level has the ability to draft legislation (bills) and vote on proposed legislation that influences government policy, with certain MP's selected by the Prime Minister (usually from his/her own party) to form a cabinet (Secretary) in charge of certain government depts, with opposition MP's acting as critics or watchdogs to ensure that sound policies for progressing the country are in fact being implemented within their respective departments.
Our system of leadership at the federal level is not based on a popularity contest or upon whom we'd rather have a beer with. It is based upon collective political ideologies within a party, and it's from within the party itself that the party's agenda is shaped for progressing the country, not from the dictatorial whims of one individual, or his/her ability to court big money donations for 2 years. Party members vying for leadership, present their plans, ideas, goals and strategies for progressing the country, and party members vote for the one they want. This process can involve a number of ballots and run off elections until a clear agenda is adopted and a party leader emerges. Each party leader then presents their agenda for progressing the nation, and Canadians vote on each agenda by electing a local representative (a minister) to occupy a seat in parliament to implement the chosen leader's plan. Since the PM cannot be in every riding at once, the minister is basically the surrogate PM for that local riding.
Our Canadian parliament is made up of 308 seats. Obviously, not all those seats will be occupied by members of the same party, as a result, political parties MUST work together co-operatively, in the interests of the nation as a whole in order to get anything done. This ensures that good policies are put forth in the interests of ALL Canadians, because in the case of a minority government, opposition members have the ability to declare no-confidence, topple parliament and dissolve any Prime Minister's mandate to govern.
We saw this happen in the late 80's here in Ontario when the conservatives won a squeaker of a minority government in provincial parliament by only 4 seats. The Liberals under David Petersen came in 2nd as the official opposition, and
Bob Rae then of the NDP came in 3rd as opposition. Bob Rae didn't like what the Conservatives were doing to working families in Ontario, nobody did, ...so opposition leader Bob Rae threw his party's support behind official opposition leader David Petersen and together, the Liberals and the NDP through their new accord, toppled the Conservative government and made official opposition leader David Petersen the new Premiere of Ontario (Governor) without Ontario voters having to go back to the polls at great tax-payers expense.
This obscure little opposition leader Bob Rae, who had previously brought down Joe Clarke's Conservative government at the federal level after only 8 months, became known as 'The KingMaker', who also ended a 40 yr Conservative stranglehold on Ontario provincial politics. As a result of that co-operative partnership across the floor, and ability to get things done in provincial parliament, ...by the time David Petersen called a snap election, (in an attempt to secure a majority government to last him through an imminent North American recession ...just like Harper just attempted) Bob Rae was sooo popular and respected among all Ontarions, Petersen was pushed out and Bob Rae won a resounding majority mandate to govern. Every single riding across Toronto went to the NDP. My boyfriend at the time who was a staunch Tory supporter, almost had a heart attack when he heard the election results. Even though Rae was a member of the NDP, he had very strong Liberal ties, and his politics were so centrist, that with the exception of a few social issues of extreme importance to the left, it was difficult to tell him apart from the Liberals. That's probably why his Liberal-NDP accord worked so well.
The electoral system we use is called "First past the post". It is the same system used by the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Interestingly enough, Canada, US, Great Britain, and Australia, are the only western nations to still use
'First pass the post'. Basically 'winner takes all'.
In our previous provincial election, a referendum was held to see if we should change our system to one of proportional representation, where we select a Minister and a party, but we overwhelmingly rejected it in favour of our current system. Israeli or Italian parliamentary coalition goverments have proven to be highly unproductive, if not abysmal failures, and our parliamentary style was far too familiar to us to suddenly reject for something new. That and the fact that it was thrust upon us with very little time to fully examine and understand the mechanism by which our governments would now be formed destined the proposal to failure.
The challenge Liberals faced this federal election is that Dion has a real image problem, especially in English Canada.
While being extremely skilled, intelligent, and having an excellent track record of getting things done, both domestically and on the foreign stage, especially his outstanding job as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Crétien government, where he pretty much laid the issue of Quebec sovereignty to rest, to his achievements as Environment Minister under Paul Martin's government, and his chairing of a deadlocked UN Conference on Climate Change, ...despite all this, his awkward command of the english language and his nerdy appearance made him come across as a temperamental, pouty, wimp, ...especially in English Canada, ...and especially in contrast to Jack Layton's in your face chest strutting bravado, and Stephen Harper's image of a reflective, thoughtful, strong but silent family man in a blue sweater.
Despite being the most intelligent, most experienced and most capable leader vying for PM, he'd never really been in a dogfight in or outside of Quebec. His, was reputed to be one of the safest Liberal ridings in Quebec, and for much of English Canada which hadn't quite been able to digest his green shift platform, he just came off as a wimp, a goofy, nerdy, academician with an extremely awkward command of the english language and inability to clearly articulate his platform without getting tongue-tied.
Harper knew the economy was about to tank, and tried to secure a majority before it became a liability. He lined his ducks all up in a row, had his campaign of style over substance all set and ready to go, then he announced a federal election to take place in 37 days, leaving everyone else to scramble to put a campaign together.
Just take a look for yourself, ...just based on a glance, who imparts the most confidence in their ability to lead.
Stephen Harper (Conservatives) Stéphane Dion (The Liberals) 
Jack Layton (New Democratic Party) Elizabeth May (The Green Party) 
Gilles DuCeppe (Le Bloc Quebecois)And then we had Gilles DuCeppe, leader of the Quebec Secessionist party Le Bloc Quebecois.
Canadians did NOT want another election again, and many protested by simply not voting. It was the worst voter turn out in Canadian history, and instead of the usual 3 way race between the left (NDP), the centre (The Liberals), and the right (The Conservatives), this election had 5 major candidates, and 4 main candidates in the rest of Canada since the Bloc only runs candidates in Quebec. In addition to Dion's image problem, the right fielded only one candidate, while the left and centre vote was mainly split 4 ways among the other major candidates, along with a bunch of fringe party candidates spread throughout the rest of the country such as:
Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada
Canadian Action Party
Christian Heritage Party of Canada
Communist Party of Canada
First Peoples National Party of Canada
Libertarian Party of Canada
Marijuana Party of Canada
Marxist Leninist Party of Canada
Neorhino
Newfoundland and Labrador First Party
People's Political Power Party of Canada
Progressive Canadian Party
Western Block Party
Work Less Party
Yep, each one of those parties had candidates at the federal level, thankfully not in each riding.
One vote is all Canadians get, and the name of the potential PM is not on the ballot. Not much say in the government.
btw Tapper, that's how a democracy works;
one person, one vote, as opposed to
some countries where ballots aren't even counted, voters disenfranchised by being illegally purged from voter lists, leaders sElected to rule by partisan supreme court decisions, rigged electronic voting devices, and unconstitutional abdications of congressional oversight achieved through rubber stamps and threats of martial law. {spit}
We don't need the potential PM's name on the ballot, ...unlike partisan convention speakers in
some countries, who don't even know their candidates names, ...introducing Joe Biden as John McCain, and Sarah Palin as Sarah Pawlenty, or voters who refer to their chosen candidate as Osama bin Bama, ...our ordinary citizens know who our leaders are, which potential PM we are voting for when we cast a ballot, as well as what they stand for, ...and instead of being stuck for 4 years with an unwanted lying treasonous prick who immediately upon sElection, sets about betraying the few people who were foolish enough to vote for him, and the population as a whole by pooping on the Constitution and running the country into the ground for the next 4-8 yrs, any minister can topple the government at any time if the population wishes it. The ability to topple parliament is a pretty big say.
