In Canada, some Canadian jurisdictions have passed legislation fixing election dates, so that elections occur on a more regular cycle (usually every four years) and the date of a forthcoming election is publicly known. However, the Governor General of Canada, on the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada, the provincial lieutenant governors, on the advice of the relevant premier, and the territorial commissioners, on the advice of the relevant premier, do still have the power to call a general election, as is traditional in Westminster-style parliamentary governments, at any point before the fixed date. By-elections, used to fill vacancies in a legislature, are also not affected by fixed election dates.
Famous quotes containing the words fixed, election, dates and/or canada:
“Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, “Where is the best place to go to?” He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its advantages—heaven for climate, and hell for society.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)