Academic literature on the topic 'Elections – Quebec (Province) – Quebec (County)'

AbstractA leader from Quebec boosts the fortunes of the Liberal party in that province. This, in turn, has helped make Quebec the veto player in twentieth-century Canadian elections and the Liberals the “natural” governing party. Although Quebec is no longer as critical as before, a leader from the province still makes a big difference. Full impact from the pattern requires more than one election to unfold. Patterns outside Quebec are similar, if fainter: the Liberal party is not punished for choosing a Quebecker and may even be helped. The early success of the pattern moved the Liberals to alternate between Quebec and non-Quebec leaders, such that the party is now led by a Quebecker more often than not. Maintaining alternation has never been easy and is only getting harder.

Between 1968 and 1975, the Province of Quebec instituted several laws to combat violence and corruption in its construction industry. Among them were a requirement that all construction workers belong to a union, and all contractors to the sole employers' association; province-wide coverage of construction workers and employers by a single collective agreement at any given time; the presumption of guilt of anyone charged with criminal activities in the industry; mandated multiple sources of manpower, to prevent monopolies in manpower allocation; mandatory elections of union stewards, to prevent abuses by appointed stewards; the barring from union office of those with criminal records; and government trusteeship of several union locals. The author credits these measures with dramatically reducing violence and corruption, but cautions that they might not be readily transferable to labor relations systems outside Quebec.

Abstract.The Canadian party system exhibits both “stable dealignment,” defined as directionless volatility and relative stability. But the boundary between the system's orderly and disorderly parts is not that clear in conventional wisdom, which contrasts big, inclusive parties with small parties representing ideas or interests. In fact, the relatively stable parties have been the NDP and the Liberals, in contrast to the Conservatives and a rotating cast of province- or region-specific insurgents. Volatility is a feature mainly of Quebec and the West and is greater in federal than in provincial elections. But geographic divergence is greater in provincial elections. The paper proposes a research program to account for Canada's coexistence of opposites.Résumé.Le système de partis politiques canadien présente à la fois un «désalignement stable», défini comme une volatilité sans direction, et une relative stabilité. Cependant, la frontière entre les parties ordonnées et désordonnées du système n'est pas stylisée comme le veut la sagesse populaire qui contraste grands partis inclusifs et petits partis représentant des idées ou des intérêts particuliers. En fait, ce sont le NPD et les libéraux qui représentent les partis relativement stables du système en opposition au Parti conservateur et à une série de partis « insurgés » spécifiques à une province ou à une région. La volatilité est quant à elle principalement une caractéristique du Québec et des provinces de l'Ouest tout en étant plus présente sur le plan fédéral que provincial. La divergence géographique est toutefois plus grande aux élections provinciales. Cet article propose donc un programme de recherche afin de mieux expliquer la coexistence de ces contraires au Canada.

In the Province of Quebec, the Provincial Court constitutes one of the most important benches after the Court of Appeal and the Superior Court. At its beginning in 1869, the Provincial Court was termed the Magistrate's Court and its juridiction was very circumscribed. The constitutional problem arising from the existence of such a court was not obvious as it is today. In 1867, when the B.N.A. Act was drafted, the powers concerning the administration of justice in the Province, including the constitution, maintenance and organisation of provincial courts, both civil and criminal, and including procedure in civil matters, were conferred on the provinces by section 92(14). But by section 96, it was provided that the Governor General should appoint the judges of the Superior, District and County courts in each province. These provisions of the B.N.A. Act are extremely confused, so that more than 130 published cases have not succeeded in clarifying definitively the interpretation of sections 96 and 92(14), and such a situation imperils the stability of the judiciary in the Canadian provinces. For the analysis of section 96 of the B.N.A. Act, we must refer to some concepts in English Law about Superior Courts and Inferior Courts. The Magistrate's Court, now the Provincial Court in Quebec, has in fact replaced the Circuit Court whose competence was exercised by judges of the Superior Court appointed by the Federal Government. It is not obvious that in 1867 the Circuit Court was an inferior bench in the mind of the drafters of the B.N.A. Act. At that time the inferior courts in the Province of Quebec were the Commissary Courts and the Justices of the Peace. In 1869 when the Magistrate's Court was established, nobody was wandering about the constitutional question because the jurisdiction of the Court was limited to the collection of municipal and school taxes and to suits actions in which the amount was less than $ 25.00. But in 1888 and 1889 when the Provincial Legislature attempted to replace the Circuit Court in the District of Montreal with the Magistrate's Court, the Federal Government disallowed the laws because judges appointed by the Provincial Government were invested with powers which were up to that time exercised by judges appointed by virtue of section 96 of the B.N.A. Act. The Federal Government was then invited to appoint judges especially affected to the Circuit Court of Montreal, but the Magistrate's Court continued to exist in other judicial districts without extent of jurisdiction. In 1922, the Provincial Legislature tried agin to raise the powers of the Magistrate's Court by transferring to it all the functions exercised by Superior Court judges in the Circuit Court. But at this moment, the Federal Government did not intervene with it's disallowance power. So, once the delay for disallowance had expired, the Provincial Government continued to raise the competence of the Magistrate's court until the abolition of the Circuit Court in 1952. Since 1952, the powers of the Magistrate's Court have not ceased to grow. In 1965, with the adoption of the new Code of Civil Procedure, the name of Magistrate's Court was changed to become the Provincial Court. In spite of it's importance, the constitutional question is not yet settled, and whatever method we use, we cannot justify the constitutionality of the Provincial Court. Several methods have been elaborated by judges to interpret section 96 of the B.N.A. Act. The particularist method consists in appreciating if a board or a bench is invested with powers which, in 1867, were exercised by judges appointed by the Federal Government. If so, the bench is considered inconstitutional. Another method is the functionalist method by which it is presumed that the judicial function should be exercised only by judges appointed by virtue of section 96. This method is not very often used. Finally, there is the globalist method which is more comprehensive but also more abstract, which consists in the recognition of the fact by the growth of its jurisdiction the Provincial Court has become a superior, district or county Court. Whatever method is used, it is very difficult to establish the constitutionality of the Provincial Court in the Province of Quebec. This situation incites a reflexion about the opportunity of section 96 of the B.N.A. ACT which restrains the Province from adopting judicial reforms that are very necessary. If after 110 years, we are not clear about the interpretation that should be given to section 96, we shall never be. In the actual context, the arguments presented by the Fathers of the Confederation for the drafting of section 96 are not very pertinent. If we examine other federal constitutions in foreign countries, it appears that in every case the drafters of such constitutions carefully avoid the situation in which we are placed by section 96 of the B.N. A. Act. Perhaps the better solution for us is the abrogation of section 96 of the B.N.A. act.

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter describes the UK’s main constitutional bodies or offices and their roles. The state’s institutions and offices are linked to the three main powers at work within it: executive power, legislative power, and judicial power. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and heads the three branches of the state, although she is a constitutional monarch and her power is subject to constitutional limits. The executive is an umbrella term that describes two different entities: the political executive and the wider machinery of the government. The political executive contains the Prime Minister and government ministers. The wider machinery of government involves the collection of people who keep the country running, which includes the civil service, the police, the armed forces, members of executive agencies such as the Prison Service and the welfare benefits system. Parliament is the body tasked with law-making, the scrutiny of Bills, and holding the executive accountable. The courts oversee the operation of the rule of law by reviewing actions, omissions, and decisions taken by the executive to ensure that they are legal, rational, and procedurally proper, and comply with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The chapter concludes with a discussion of elections to the Westminster Parliament—the mechanism through which MPs are elected and other ways in which those elections could be run.

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter describes the UK’s main constitutional bodies or offices and their roles. The state’s institutions and offices are linked to the three main powers at work within it: executive power, legislative power, and judicial power. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and heads the three branches of the state, although she is a constitutional monarch and her power is subject to constitutional limits. The executive is an umbrella term that describes two different entities: the political executive and the wider machinery of the government. The political executive contains the Prime Minister and government ministers. The wider machinery of government involves the collection of people who keep the country running, which includes the civil service, the police, the armed forces, members of executive agencies such as the Prison Service, and the welfare benefits system. Parliament is the body tasked with law-making, the scrutiny of Bills, and holding the executive accountable. The courts oversee the operation of the rule of law by reviewing actions, omissions, and decisions taken by the executive to ensure that they are legal, rational, and procedurally proper and that they comply with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The chapter concludes with a discussion of elections to the Westminster Parliament—the mechanism through which MPs are elected and other ways in which those elections could be run.