Canadian Senate Analysis

Canadian Senate Analysis The current government of Canada has remained in place since the British North America Act, 1867, which established the Parliament for Canada to be comprised of three parts: the Crown, the Senate, and the House of Commons. [1] Unique to Canada’s government, which is based on the Westminster Parliamentary System, is that the upper house of parliament, or the Senate, is comprised of unelected officials. For a large portion of Canada’s history there has been a debate concerning the Senate, largely concerning its unelected officials. While there has consistently been a discussion on if the Senate should be changed, Canada’s political parties cannot agree on if this change should be a reform of the Senate or its abolishment. In recent years this debate has been revitalized due to scandals concerning senators, Stephen Harper’s commitment to reform the Senate, and the Supreme Court ruling on what would need to be done to reform the Senate. While it is understan dable that some may want to push for the Senate to be abolished, this is much too drastic of a step for Canada to take and should not be taken just for simplicity’s sake. Democracies function and exist on mechanisms that help balance the power of the governing bodies to ensure that no one body or official has too much power and abolishing the Senate before attempting to reform it would give the House of Commons too much power. Prime Minister John MacDonald’s words are often used in explaining what the Senate does when he said that they are â€Å"the sober second thought.† [2] The reasoning for this is that by having politicians that are concerned for the long term stability and integrity of Canada and its laws and not concern themselves about being reelected and the perpetual campaign or about politics. Essentially they can give their full attention to being the check on the House of Commons. In addition, section 54 of the Canadian Constitution states that bill s which deal with any aspect of money, including appropriating revenue or creating or removing a tax, must originate from the House of Commons. [3] What this then causes, because most bills deal with issues of revenue or taxes in some manner, the vast majority of bills come from the House of Commons, which creates a unique dynamic between the two houses. [4] The dynamic that is crated is an uneven balance between the two in terms of the amount of work that is done. The House of Commons is the primary body that creates legislation and the Senate largely provides review and second thought on the issues addressed in legislation. While this may be the original thought, there are flaws to it. Many ideas on how to change the Senate have been proposed over the years, but to understand the current debate the most it is best to look at what each major political party current proposes. Currently the common discourse about the Senate is divided into three areas: main the status quo; keep the Senate, but reform it; or abolish the Senate in its entirety. Political parties of Canada have often differed on how the Senate should be approached and dealt with along the three lines. The New Democratic Party (NDP), especially in recent years, has been vocal proponents of abolishing the senate. The NDP has even gone as far as creating a website to promote the idea of abolishing the Senate, citing its unelected nature and high costs as reasons for it to be abolished. [5] The Conservative Party, on the other hand, has taken a different route and has attempted to reform it. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party attempted to create a system whereby senators would be elected by the provinces for nine years. [6] The legislation that proposed this came in 2011, but the constitutionality of this effort immediately came into question and went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court responded in 2014 when it ruled that any Senate reform must go be approved by at least seven provinces and half of the population. [7] The Liberal Party has not been as loud as the others, but did eject the senators that were part of the Liberal Caucus and released a statement declaring their support for reform of the Senate and the ejection of the senators from the caucus is the first step. [8] Each of the major political is in favor of some change to the Senate, which is a reflection of the opinion of Canadians.

Eyck, Jan van The Arnolfini Portrait 1434; oil on oak Essay

Eyck, Jan van The Arnolfini Portrait 1434; oil on oak - Essay Example For such a function, an aim is essential, and thus agency – the artist and this has been richly applied in the artwork as it will be seen in the subsequent discussions. The formalist theory of art states that one is supposed to focus only on the formal properties of art--the "form" not the "content". Those formal properties may take account of, the visual arts, color, form, and line, and, for the musical arts, beat and synchronization. Artist who use this theory in their artwork do not deny that works of art might have content, representation, or narrative-rather, they refute that those things are appropriate in one’s ability to be thankful for or be aware of art (Frank, Patrick, and Preble, 5). Finally, Preble’s discussed the historical theories of art which asserts that for something to be art, it must bear some relationship to existing works of art. The accurate extension of ‘art’ at time t (the present) take account of all the works at time t-1 and in addition any works produced in the gone time. In order for these extra works to be ‘art’ they must put up with a likeness or relation to those formerly recognized artworks. Such a description appear to beg the question of where this hereditary status came from, and that is why historical descriptions of art are obliged to also take account of a disjunctive for first art: Something is art if it contains a historical relation to earlier artworks or it is first art. The Arnolfini Portrait is a painting made on oak panel using oil and its history is though to be in the year 1434 by the Early Netherlands painter Jan van Eyck. People have coined their own different words to identify and name the paining. It has been called The Arnolfini Wedding, or Marriage or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, along with other titles. The size of the painting is approximated to be a little full-length double portrait. History has it

Legal Research on the Preclusion by the Federal Law of the United Article

Legal Research on the Preclusion by the Federal Law of the United States of Formation of Legal Systems affecting Individuals - Article Example While mostly all the laws are embedded with the inherent responsibility of the protection of the rights of the individuals who are the citizens of the countries concerned, they are framed in such a way that they take as their matter of concern only a group of individuals. This also gives rise to thoughts about the role of the states in providing the legal frame work. Even from the ancient times of civilization, the role of the state has always been primary when designing and applying a specific legal framework and there had been no instances where the law makers had framed legal provisions that apply only to specific persons or the individuals involved. But it cannot be denied that the subsequent interpretations of the legal provisions had made various legal provisions favorable or unfavorable to individuals depending on the circumstances of the individual cases. But those situations could only be attributed to the lacunae in the legislations or the clever and efficient interpretations of the provisions put forth by the lawyers and the opinions of the judges formed on the basis of such interpretations and arguments. But still the world had witnessed intensive debates over the intervention of the state in the formulation of the legal framework that affected individuals voluntarily or involuntarily. A classic example of such an instance can be cited in the case of Schiavo1 in which all the academics, scholars, journalists, columnists and whoever can write or say something irrespective of their depth of knowledge vehemently debated the changes made by the Federal Laws only to affect the life of an individual in Schiavo. With this background I intend to present this paper on the ability of a country like United States to handle the Bills of Attainder or the legal framework made to control the acts or deeds, commissions or omissions of an individual. I also present though a series of researched materials, whether the Country was effective in doing so. I intend further to present to the readers a comprehensive theory on the same issue, as being handled in other developed nations like United Kingdom and Japan. The paper also makes known to the reader the impact of the legal framework on the lives of the individuals in a country like Russia where the State till recently had backed communist views that concern more about the individuals and the community more. Though many similarities can be found between the legislative frameworks of United States and the United Kingdom, I chose these two countries for comparison to show the differences in the approaches of the countries' legal systems in the protection of the individual citizens. In a similar way I presumed that the legislations in Russia once being a communist country should deal differently with the issue of the laws affecting individuals and hence the research on Russian legal