Talk:Canadian House of Commons

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
FA	This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as high-importance for this Project's importance scale.
	This article is part of the Government of Canada WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the Government of Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you should visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Canadian House of Commons article.
Please sign and date your posts using four tildes (~~~~). New discussion topics go at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Frequently asked questions. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Talk page guidelines Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Don't bite the newcomers!

Canadian House of Commons is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.

Canadian House of Commons appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 16, 2005.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Socsci article has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale.

quick fix for someone, Duceppe was not the last non-incumbent to be elected as an independent, in the most recent election a former radio dj from quebec got elected

Updated party standing. -1 Liberal, +1 vacant. Mr. Richardson (Liberal, Perth-Middlesex, Ont.), resigned 11 Oct. 2002. On second look I see that a few more members have resigned and changed affiliation than I knew about - a full update is coming as soon as I get back from Thanksgiving. - Montrealais 19:12 Oct 13, 2002 (UTC)

---

Removed reference to being like the US House of Representatives. The US and Canadian systems are so very different that that comparison is very misleading.

Roadrunner

I removed the following:

Under the Westminster system, the House of Commons appoints the Prime Minister of Canada who is the leader of the largest party or coalition of parties. Utterly wrong. Under the Westminster system a prime minister is appointed by the head of state or representative of the head of state from the HofC. He/she is NEVER elected. Indeed very few parliamentary democracies allow parliament to elect a pm. Most give to the head of state the role of commissioning someone to form a government. This is a basic error in this article. FearÉIREANN 01:24 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

---

Um... the PC party and Canadian Alliance haven't fused their caucuses yet. - Montréalais 06:49, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)-----

Contents 1 colours 2 Committees 3 Province Links 4 Chuck Cadman 5 Procedure 6 Sword lengths 7 Dual Mandates 8 Bill C-1

[edit] colours

we need to come to agreement on colours. here are my thoughts. we need colours that both A- represent the parties and B- are different and distinct enough to see

the major problem is that both the Bloc and Conservatives claim blue as their colour. we cannot, therefore, have 2 parties with the same shade of blue. it would also not make sence, IMHO, to have a light blue tory party (AKA royal blue) light blue BQ, light orange NDP, and a dark red liberal party. this is why I changed the tories to be blue (regular ole blue) if you go with a variant of blue for the tories you need a variant of red for the grits IMHO.

here are some suggestions: Blue:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Red:

*

*

*

*

Orange:

*

*

*

*

Others:

*

*

*

*

*

thx for the new bloc colour, I couldent find a good one Pellaken 02:11, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

---

I have/will edit(ed) the seat distribution. in the table with colours. its a real ...annoyance... to have to fiddle with those seats, and change row after row just to get one seat moved from one party to another, etc. Therefore, like in the real parliament, the backbenches will have indepednents, etc. I will place them where parties meet. so you will end up with things like this

*	*	*	*
*	*	*	*

I would use the real seat distribution, but I cant find it. either way, this makes it easier to edit. I will still stack vacancies on the right as much as I can. Pellaken 05:15, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

- I'd like some feedback?? I dont wanna do this if its not going to be popular. who made the table, anyone know? Pellaken 06:52, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Committees

The article needs a list of House of Commons committees (which should, in turn, have their own articles).Homey 03:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone might want to repair the article, it seems it has been spammed.

[edit] Province Links

The article is locked right now, otherwise I would wiki-link-ify all of the entries in the first table under "Province or Territory".

• Unprotected. Sorry, I didn't realize it was on the mainpage! *.* - Mailer Diablo 18:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chuck Cadman

In the article, in section "Members and Elections" it says that Chuck Cadman was re-elected in 2000 as a member of Conservative Party. This is factually inaccurate though, because Conservative party did not exist then yet, and he was actually a member of the Canadian Alliance party. Ikh 17:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Fixed.--Anchoress 22:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Procedure

I will made the following changes:

• the seating in the House of Commons (HoC) is not benches, but assigned seats.
• The sides of the HoC are not two sword-lengths apart. This is a myth of unknown origin.
• Ministers are not referred to as 'front-benchers'.
• I have also inserted a reference to the Official Opposition and the shadow cabinet.
• I have also added a reference to the varying schedule of the HoC.

aathorp 20:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

They may be assigned seats but they are refered to as Benches ie: "Back Bench" "Front Bench" "Opposition Benches" and ministers are indeed refered to as front benchers, because they sit in the front bench, in the same way that Private members are refered to as "Back Benchers" --68.144.211.103 00:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Can you cite a source saying the two sword-lengths is a myth? It is mentioned frequently on the House of Commons internet site. HistoryBA 00:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

As for the two sword-lenghts, it was part of an internal training document for Parliamentary guides.

I respectfully disagree on the point regarding Benches. I have never heard of ministers being referred to as front benchers. Is there a reference for that? aathorp 14:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is a reference to "front bench" from a major Canadian newspaper today [1] - Jord 17:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sword lengths

someone may wish to include that part of the duties of the party whips include rounding up enough members to make quorum (this is, in fact, their main duty). also, i realize an anonymous comment is hardly concrete proof; but having been in the House on several occasions, i can attest that the distance between the two sides is certainly more than any two normally-sized swords. 69.199.42.108 09:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The distance between benches (which the article used to claim was two sword lengths) has now inflated to 2.5. The story I've always heard was 2 lengths, but pictures of the chamber show them to be much farther than that. I wonder if the traditional story of "two sword lengths" was transferred from Westminster to Ottawa without the actual distance being transferred as well. Indefatigable 04:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I have visited various provincial legislatures where the 2 to 2 1/2 sword lengths measurement is referred to. I think it is fair to say that the distance is "traditionally said to be two sword-lengths apart". Even the literature provided by the British House of Commons Information Office refers this to this as a traditional belief rather than a fact. Fluit 03:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Just out of Curiosity, which Legislatures? Keeperoftheseal 22:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Just to point out, the requirement was that the distance between the front two rows of seats be at LEAST two sword lengths apart. This comes from the days in the British Parliament when members would actually sit with swords, and so having them at least two lengths apart ment that they couldn't actually fight each other from where they were sitting. It is not a requirement that they be exactly two lengths apart. Grizzwald 04:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dual Mandates

Gentlemen, are inter-Commonwealth dual mandates permitted, provided that candidates possess the qualifications of citizenship?--Anglius 00:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bill C-1

I just landed on Bill C-1 when clicking on a random article. I thought it was interesting and would like to know more, also nothing links to it yet. I imagine this page could link to it fairly naturaly, but I couldn't think of where 141.151.90.148 20:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)