Welcome to Longform North -- a longform interview podcast featuring Canadian voices and stories about Canada.

Canada is a federal country, which means power is divided between two levels of government - the federal government and the provinces.

And even though it's all one country, the provinces are very different from each other. They have different economies, different cultures, different politics, different languages, and different interests.

And sure, diversity is our strength and all that, but trying to balance all those interests isn't always easy. At least one province has tried to separate a couple times, while similar threats from other provinces have bubbled up, too.

So how do all these governments work together? And what, if anything, keeps the country from falling apart?

Joining me again to help out with these questions is Dr. Tom Bateman. He is a professor of political science at St Thomas University, and he is one of the co-authors of a book called The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Why did Canada choose to have a federal system back in 1867?
• How John A. MacDonald was originally against federalism and aimed to create a strong central government.
• How are the different powers divided up between the federal government and the provinces?
• How the impact of health and education gave the provinces much more influence and power than what was originally planned.
• How the lines get blurred as to who has jurisdiction over what. For example the environment, where natural resources is provincial, but climate change and environmental sustainability is federal.
• Equalization payments and how they work.
• The separatist movements in both Alberta and Quebec, and what is behind them?
• Could Canada fall apart? What is it that's keeping it together?

Links:

• The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy
• Dr. Tom MJ Bateman

*Note: This episode was recorded on March 15th, 2025.

For more about the podcast, check out the website: longformnorth.com

Sign up for the Longform North Newsletter: longformnorth.com/newsletter/

Music by Aaron Barth

Hosted and produced by Ian Van Harten

Welcome to Longform North -- a longform interview podcast featuring Canadian voices and stories about Canada.

In Canada, we pick our leaders through elections, where the person who gets the most votes wins.

But it's actually a little bit more complicated than that. And some people think that the way we do elections should actually be changed.

So what are the rules for how someone wins an election?

What does it mean to represent, or act on behalf of, the people that voted you in?

And what do you do when the voter participation rate gets as low as 45%? Less than half of the total amount of people who are eligible to vote.

Dr. Tom Bateman is back to help us out with these questions and more. He is a professor of political science at St Thomas University, and he is one of the co-authors of a book called The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• How we think about the role of a political representative in Canada
• Representation and diversity - the idea that the government should be representative of certain identity groups, as well as some of the problems that can arise from that
• How the country gets divided up into different voting districts
• How and when elections are called (and why fixed election dates don’t work in our system)
• Campaign spending limits and limits on 3rd party advertising during elections
• Should we lower the voting age?
• The reasons why the voter turnout rate among younger people is low
• What does the low voter turnout rate indicate more broadly about the voting public?
• Should we bring in online voting?
• How do we pick the “right” electoral system?
• How the First-Past-the-Post system works, and how it impacts the way our elections work?
• How would a Proportional Representation system work? What are its advantages and disadvantages compared with our current system?
• What happened with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to bring in electoral reform back in 2015?
• Is there any hope of changing our electoral system, or are we stuck with what we have?

Links:

• The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy
• Dr. Tom MJ Bateman

*Note: This episode was recorded on January 25th, 2025, a day after Premier Doug Ford called a snap election in Ontario, and a few weeks before Mark Carney won the leadership race for the Liberal Party of Canada.

For more about the podcast, check out the website: longformnorth.com

Sign up for the Longform North Newsletter: longformnorth.com/newsletter/

Music by Aaron Barth

Hosted and produced by Ian Van Harten

Welcome to Longform North -- a longform interview podcast featuring Canadian voices and stories about Canada.

The word parliament comes from a French word that means to talk or have a conversation. Though I think the impression a lot of people have about Canadian parliament is that there isn't much conversation going on there beyond prepared talking points.

But you might be surprised to hear that the parliamentary system, as far as systems of government go, is actually a pretty good one, and it organizes things in a way that kind of makes sense. Though that's not to say there aren't any ways it couldn't be improved.

So on this episode we're talking about the important things you should know about how Canadian parliament works, and some ideas about how it could be made better.

Joining me again to help out with this is Dr. Tom Bateman. He is a professor of political science at St Thomas University, and he is one of the co-authors of a book called _The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy,_ which is the main source and inspiration for this series of podcasts on Canadian democracy.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• What 'responsible government' means in a parliamentary democracy and how it's different from the idea of the separation of powers
• How party discipline and whipped voting helps contribute to stability and predictability in government
• What happens when the government falls, or loses the confidence of the house
• Prorogation — looking at both Justin Trudeau's prorogation of the government in 2025, and the time Stephen Harper prorogued in 2008 when the opposition parties tried forming a coalition to defeat him
• The role of the opposition and how parliament is designed to be adversarial
• Why the decision to put video cameras in the House of Commons to record Question Period was a really stupid one
• How the office of the Prime Minister has accumulated too much power, and one simple way that could be reformed without having to pass any legislation

Links:

• Parliament: a definition
• The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Canada's Parliamentary Democracy
• Dr. Tom MJ Bateman

*Note: This episode was recorded on January 6th, 2025, which happened to be the same day that Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and prorogued parliament.

For more about the podcast, check out the website: longformnorth.com

Sign up for the Longform North Newsletter: longformnorth.com/newsletter/

Music by Aaron Barth

Hosted and produced by Ian Van Harten