Relationship With The Executive
Unlike the House of Commons, the Senate has no effect in the decision to end the term of the prime minister or of the government. Only the Commons may force the prime minister to tender his resignation, or to recommend the dissolution of Parliament and issue of election writs, by passing a motion of no-confidence or by withdrawing supply. Thus, the Senate's oversight of the government is limited.
Most Cabinet ministers are from the House of Commons, rather than the Senate. In particular, every prime minister has been a member of the House of Commons since 1896, with the exception of John Turner, who became prime minister when his party elected him leader, but whose government was defeated in the subsequent election. (Turner was outside Parliament altogether at the time, and was never a Senator.) Typically, the Cabinet includes only one senator: the leader of the government in the Senate. Occasionally, when the governing party does not include any members from a particular region, Senators are appointed to ministerial positions in order to maintain regional balance in the Cabinet. The most recent example of this was on February 6, 2006, when Stephen Harper appointed Michael Fortier to serve as both a senator representing the Montreal region, where the minority government had no elected representation, and the Cabinet position of minister of public works and government services. Michael Fortier resigned his Senate seat to run (unsuccessfully) for a House of Commons seat in the 2008 general election.
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Famous quotes containing the words relationship with, relationship and/or executive:
“Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn’t brotherly—who lived mostly under his parents’ roof ... who advocated one day’s work and six days “off” as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown ... is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy.”
—Francine Du Plesssix Gray (20th century)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)