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There are legitimate checks on government power, and there are illegitimate ones. Because Canada has so few legitimate checks on government, illegitimate ones have proliferated in their place.

The legitimate check on government power in our system is supposed to be the House of Commons, the legislative branch in which the executive is embedded and to which it is responsible. The government has legitimacy to rule only so long as it enjoys the confidence of a majority of the members of the House, as the representatives of the people; it cannot pass a bill, likewise, without persuading a majority of its merits.

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But that, as everyone knows, is not how our system works. The responsibility of the government to the Commons is by now a formality at best. The votes are whipped. The debates are routine. Question Period is a joke. There is no serious question whether a government with a majority can get its legislation passed, because the prime minister holds all the cards. He decides what bills are brought before the House, and when; he can declare any bill a confidence vote, dissolve or prorogue the House at his pleasure, cut off debate when it bores him; to say nothing of his vast powers over individual members of caucus, not only through the prime ministerial powers of appointment, to cabinet and a hundred other offices, but also the power of any party leader to decide whether a member may remain in caucus, or even run at the next election. The MPs who nominally decide the fate of his legislation are in fact, a majority of them, his creatures — they owe their nominations to his signature, their seats to his popularity and their careers to his continued favour.