Question about Canada's government

I am reading about Canada and don't understand the role that the UK represents. It says that the Chief of State of Canada is Queen Elizabeth II, so is Canada then some kind of British territory or province?

Just confused about this, so any Canadians please hop in and help me out

 

Yes and No, Queen Elizabeth is a figure head with no power. Canada seperated from England long ago, but being the sentimental people we are, we adopted her as our queen. She is on all our coins. The UK has absolutely no role in the Canadian government.

Personally, I'd like to oust the Canadian government in exchange of the Queen, or for that matter Bob & Doug McKenzie or Red Green.

 

Wow, it seems like just a mess... the queen on one side... France on the other one... this is complicated!

BTW, I found this CIA fact book and it is really cool, just quick facts of any country you are interested in
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

 

Want to see what a mess it is? Read this: http://www.slipups.com/items/6376.html

 

The same with Australia, New Zealand, they are all subjects (not humans) to the queen which doesn't realy matter at this time. That lady is just a puppet on the string.

 

Look at CommonWealth, it is a group of 53 countries.

CommonWealth

 

Or, more to the point, Wikipedia's article gives a good overview, as always:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

 

Wow! Thanks for that brief yet immediate reponse. Honestly, I never knew that Canada still have that tie with the British up to this days. Even if Queen Elizabeth is just their ceremonial head, that still shows that Canada's relationship with Britain is strong.

 

Canada was originally two colonies: a French colony and an British colony. The French and the British fought it out and as usual the French lost. Being British, the winners let the French stay and gave them rights in the new combined British colony.

Unlike the US, Canada didn't go nuts with a pro-dumping anti-tea campaign followed by shooting and looting. We just peacefully went about our business and got invaded by the US but kicked their asses. later, Britain said, "What ho, chaps! Would you like your own country?". Canada thought about it for a month or two and then shot back with, "Yeah, why not, eh?". After that we were a Dominion and part of the Commonwealth for a while. We have a Governor-General who was Canada's representative to the Queen. But every time we had a political squabble or wanted to chnage something in the constitution, we'd have to send the G-G to the Queen and say, "Can you change this? Can you authorize that? Did you pay this bill yet?".

After a while, the Queen got royally pissed off. She sent a snotty letter to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau saying, "Who the hell ARE you people? Stop spamming me or I'll complain to the USA and have them invade you".

Then Canadian elected Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister. Being Irish, he hated the British. So he made a deal with Quebec where they get to do whatever they want to the English Quebeckers and to the rest of Canada, including outlawing English, and all the other provinces send them money which they spend on poutine, Mae West cakes, Pepsi, and separatist literature. Now the G-G is a figurehead who is appointed by the government of the day to serve as a liaison to the UK and an ambassador for when we need to throw a good party or waste tax money.

To get back at them, the current Prime Minister, Whats-His-Name, just appointed a separatist couple as the G-G. She is a woman originally born in Haiti who is a citizen of France amd whose husband is a separatist film maker. The rest of the country is understandably confused because they are now wondering if we have become a French or Haitian colony again.

Incidentally, whatever it says on paper, the Queen still considers Canada to be a colony. I am a Canadian citizen but I was born in England and when I travel to the UK they don't even stamp my passport because as far as they're concerned I'm still a British citizen, apparently on holiday in Canada for the last few decades.

 

Here's another cool site:

http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

 

If only we had more history writers like minstrel...

The world would be a much happier place!

 

LOL, I was going to give him a green for that, but I have to spread it around first.

 

Good idea- i will too!

 

Minstrel, Have you considered adding your excellent summary to the wikipedia? I feel like I know more about Canadian history now than about my own country.

 

Why, thank you, history fans!

 

You know, I've never really understood this wiki and wikipedia stuff... what is it and what's the difference?

 

Wiki: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...lla:en-US:official_s&oi=defmore&q=define:Wiki

Wikipedia: http://wikipedia.org/, an encyclopedia with edit rights given to everyone. From what I understand, they have editors who can decide to drop certain additions/edits if the info given is not useful, contains profanity, etc

 

Ahhh... thanks, devbistro. The Google link even tells me what "Wiki" stands for: "What i know is..."

 

It is an open network shared by the community in an effort to be continuosly improving. You know, kinda like DMOZ

 

I have the same "problem" (as in, have green-repped minstrel too recently), so I'll have to settle for: thanks for a good read