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A Passage of a Bill Through the American and Canadian Governments

Continued from: Passage of a Bill Through American and Canadian Governments: Part 3

Differences Between the USA and Canadian Legislatures

As comparing the American and Canadian legislation systems, we might notice several distinctions. First, the bill-child in United States can be introduced by any member of either House of the Congress, while in Canada it can be originated only in the House of Commons. Admitting that technically it is any Canadian MP who can introduce a bill before the Assembly, only the bills proposed by Prime Minister and his Cabinet Ministers will actually pass. Second, a report of House of Commons (if not liked by the Minister who introduced the bill) may be waived. The investigations of the Congress committees, however, are considered important, and cannot be simply ignored.

As Guy notes, in Canada a third reading is merely pro forma, because the sentiments of the House have been expressed in the Committee of the Whole, where the entire legislative body sits as one large committee. As a distinct from Canada, in United States the third reading concludes the final vote and is the decisive one.

But the main difference between Canadian and U.S. legislatures is that in United States members of Congress actually have a certain impact on the passage of a bill, while in Canada every bill will be passed as long as the government votes together. Since in the Parliamentary system, the party caucus is expected to behave as a block, the MP's have no individual impact.

The House of Commons (especially the Cabinet) in Canada turned out to be much more influential than the House of Representatives in U.S. It has the power to lead its bill through the elected body of Parliament without almost any changes made to it. Even if it gets rejected by the Senate, the House of Commons can simply neglect it, and let the bill pass the next time disregarding the opinion of the appointed legislative body. The House of Representatives, though, does not have such an authority. Once a bill is introduced, the congressman who proposed it has no power over it.

The Senate can reject the bill and send it back to the House of Representatives to overlook. It will have to make certain changes to it and sent it back to the Senate, which can either approve it or reject and send the bill back. This may last for months and even years, which never occurs to the Canadian legislative process, while in Canada it never takes that long to reach an agreement on a bill and pass it. The agreement is usually reached at the very beginning when the bill is introduced to an assembly. The same people who proposed the bill will have the main impact on the subject of making changes and passing it. This is why the final version of a law is more likely to please the original drafter of the measure in Canada than in U.S.

The Presidential system, however, will be more likely to please publicity, since it gives its members more power to decide issues on their own. On the other hand, people may not really care about which system is better as long as it is democratic and there is no dictatorship and totalitarianism involved. Ordinary people are not too concerned about giving their government the real power to be free to make decisions. Moreover, that they don't usually know that some of the politicians are missing this power.