The Canadian parliamentary system is said to honour the idea of responsible government as one of its key principles. This means that the government is responsible to the people, but also that the politicians who run the government are responsible to the entire House of Commons — even the opposition parties. If the House of Commons votes that it has “lost confidence” in the government, then that government is said to have lost its democratic right to remain in office… and the government must call an emergency parliamentary election, and win it, in order to remain in office.
Canadian Government website
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Two Saturdays ago, the Transparency Institute Guyana Inc. (TIGI) held its annual fundraising dinner. The guest speaker was Suriname’s former Minister of Justice and the Police, Mr. Chandrikapersaud Santokhi who is the leader of the Progressive Reform Party. In his presentation, Mr. Santokhi stated that citizens should reap the benefits of wealth generated from the extraction of Guyana’s oil and gas resources in order to impact positively on their lives; the money earned belongs to the people and not any political party; and the funds garnered should be managed in an effective, transparent, accountable manner in collaboration with government and independent institutions. Mr. Santokhi asserted that ‘[t]he most fundamental determining factor for progress, therefore, lies not in minerals but in the quality of governance, regardless of the natural resources available’.
