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How is Canada's government similar to and different from the U.S. government?

User FelixCQ
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Answer:

There you go! Hope it helps :)

Step-by-step explanation:

The only real similarities are that both have three branches:

Executive (Prime Minister and Cabinet in Canada and the President in the US)

Legislative (House of Commons and Senate in Canada and the House of Representative senate in the United States)

Judicial (Supreme Court of Canada and lower courts in Canada and the US Supreme Court and lower courts in the US)

Both have bicameral (two house) legislatures.

That is about where the similarities end. Canada’s is a constitutional monarchy with a representative parliamentary system and the United States is a republic. Perhaps the most significant difference is that Canada employs a system of responsible government in which the executive (PM and cabinet) are responsible to parliament and serve only for as long as the Prime Minister retains the confidence of the house. Typically in a majority government situation where the PM’s party controls at least 170 of the 338 seats (majority government), the PM retains confidence for a full 4 to 5 year term before the next election is called. The upshot is that as long as the party in power has a majority of the seats, the PM has very few limits on his or her power and government legislation is virtually assured passage. If a government has a plurality of the seats but less than an outright majority (minority government) the party in power needs the cooperation of other parties to retain power and pass legislation. The situation that exists now in the US where the president belongs to one party and Congress is controlled by the other party is far less common and in such a scenario, governments tend to be defeated after only about 18 months on average.

User Tim Merrifield
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