Canada.... president?

Question

government or president?

Answer 1

we have a primeminister (presidant)

Answer 2

Canada has a Prime Minister, not president.

But the head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who appoints a governor general to represent her and exercise most of her powers (currently Michaëlle Jean).

The Prime Minister though is the head of the government (Stephen Harper currently).

Yes, Canada is a constitutional monarchy with a federal system of parliamentary government.   (I.e. Canada has a parliament, not a congress).

Answer 3

Canada has the so-called "parliamentary system."

The leader of the party with a majority or plurality of representatives in parliament gets to form the committee ("Cabinet") to formally preside over the permanent bureaucracy that actually IS the government.

This leader is called the "prime minister."

The U.S., on the other hand, has the so-called "presidential system" with a separation between parliament (Congress) and the executive (President and Cabinet), and the president is selected separately from the Congressional makeup.

The French have a kind of a cross between the parliamentary and presidential systems, with a powerful president who is both formal head of state and PARTIALLY in power governmentally, while still having a prime minister who runs other governmental functions, and having a parliament.

All of these systems, based on elections by residential districts, are less democratic than direct workplace elections to councils organized by industry, trade, and housing.  During the period of 1917-1924, before the Stalinist bureaucracy hardened into a new form of dictatorial governmental system, the USSR had such a "soviet democracy."

That almost ideal system, however, did not survive the consolidation of the new bureaucracy.