Canada has managed to get itself in the world's (at least the U.S.'s) spotlight recently with the discussion and now legalization of same sex marriages. Something that has become painfully clear from comments and analysis is how few people recognise or understand the differences between the Canadian and American styles of government. Most distressing are the number of Canadians who are unfamiliar with their own country's means of governance.

Since the majority of the misconceptions seem to centre around the role of The Supreme Court of Canada in the delivery of government it will be necessary to explain the history of our Constitution and The Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since one must also understand the basic differences in the two styles of government a brief explanation of Canada's structure is in order.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy. This means that the Queen of England, through her representative the Governor General, is the titular head of the country. But instead of being ruled by the monarch we are ruled by our constitution. The Queen is thus a figurehead only.

Like the U. S. Canada has two levels of government, federal and local, which is called Provincial instead of State. The constitution delineates which powers the province controls and any limitations that may be placed on those powers. The easiest way to look on it would to be to think of it as the provinces having day to day control, while the federal government sets the overall rules.

The federal and provincial legislations are both elected following the British system of federalism. Political parties compete for seats in the House of Commons. Any party gaining a majority of seats forms the government. The leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister and selects his cabinet from elected member of his party.

The number of seats in the House are determined by population and area. Some seats, like those in urban centres such as Toronto, have a disproportionately large number of voters, while some rural areas are the reverse. A party could therefore garner substantial amounts of the popular vote but fail to see it translate into real power.

Canada is geographically huge but population starved. With only about a tenth of the population of the United States a representative by population style of government was deemed to not provide adequate regional representation. As it is Ontario and Quebec still provide the majority of the seats in the House, leading to a certain amount of regional resentment.

At first glance ignoring popular vote seems undemocratic, but it actually enables accurate representation. This style ensures adequate representation from lightly populated areas and doesn't concentrate the power of choosing the government in the hands of the urban centres.