The Canadian political system iceberg explained 

Learned quite a few things JJ! That was well done!

25:46 This reminds me of when my country, Hungary, had a queen called Mary, whose official title was King Mary because the Hungarians were not familiar with the term "queen" at the time.

If I ever met JJ in person I'd tell him I appreciate how he uses 80's midi audio files in his videos.

I love the prevalence of newspaper clippings in this photo, because I think it’s a medium which shows the way in which most Canadians, for most of Canadian history, interacted with politics. Newspapers are effectively a dead and long-lost medium now, but for many people around the world they formed the centre of how people interfaced with an often far-away capital, only ever seeing the names and faces of cabinet ministers in print. I think it’s great that this video, in a medium through which I certainly get most of my Canadian politics news, harkens back to its old equivalent and keeps that alive for a new generation.

48:09 - To note, Technically Quebec's Population is not "in decline", it is growing in population, it's just growing at a much slower rate than the rest of Canada, which has lead to their *share* of the total population to decline.

I am very convinced the "Canadian Supreme Court" is in fact the "Santa Clause Impersonation Committee"

28:55 I was surprised to see NFKRZ in this video. Nice easter egg JJ!

Kurtis Conner and JJ dropping hour-long videos at the same time? I'm truly in for a Canadian evening.

J.J. I want to thank you personally because I actually just aced my Citizenship exam, and although the little booklet was nice your chanel has taught me more about Canadian history and politics than anything else. Thank you!

43:34 - To note, the "lost interest"" part is because during the prorogation the Liberal Party sacked and replaced their party leader. With the new leader dumping the scheme and agreeing to allow Harper to stay in office when parliament returned.

I really needed a comfortable JJ video for Sunday evening night (its 9pm in Croatia) to chill after a hard week

that nfkrz bit was so random but i love it

Honestly, the fact that Canada has only been a fully independent country since 1982 is the biggest shock I've had today

This feels like an A.P. Canadian Government and Politics class...

Ok the privy council bit is almost hilarious in how esoterically complex it is, especially in comparison to its reality in the government

This might be too fringe, but you doing a dive into the history of the territories (why they exist, and perhaps why they persist as a category) would be interesting

One of your best so far, JJ! I'm a Montrealer, and it took until about level 4 before I started learning new things, but after that, I learned a bunch of new things!

The statement at 48:13 that Quebec's population is in decline is incorrect, or at least misleading. Maybe you meant that it's growing at a slower rate than Canada's population, resulting in a declining percentage.

I like the NFKRZ picture in the id!

"The King has no power.". I've talked to some Canadians and they all told me they would 100% don't mind if protocol was ignored and the King dismissed Trudeau and called for elections. They are actually for it.

I have to admit I've always had a fascination with Quebec. The culture, the dialect of French, even everyday material items from there. It's so interesting

Perhaps the real Westminster system, was the friends we made along the way.

Well, this made me a bit depressed about the Canadian political system. It doesn't seem to be designed to attract anyone who actually wants to get things done.

16:29 A video on Canadian provincial political parties would be nice. Like, how different they are from their national counterparts, what differences they exists between provincial parties in different parts of the country, do separate local parties that don't exist on a national level have a lot of influence,and what they stand for? I don't know If it would be interesting, just throwing an idea.

This provides a great overview on how Canada’s political machinery operates. I thought I was reasonably knowledgeable on the subject. I was wrong.

This is amazing, truly the best source to learn about Canadian politics!

"something deeply unprecedented will happen" yeah we already tried that just south of you with number 45, would not recommend, codify things into law, don't just rely on precedent.

JJ in one of your award winning videos one of these days could you please talk about how pretty much all the islands in the Hudson Bay are part of Nunavut

Great vid! I like how things can get very esoteric towards the bottom, but in some ways it doesn't matter when things are working fine enough for everyday people. There are a lot of analogues to the Australian political system, but the major difference is just how messy things are under the surface in Canadian politics, with the number of seemingly contradictory principles and laws locking things into place in roundabout ways (e.g. that unilateral ammendment that makes the minimum number of seats the amount each province had in 2019). It's like when you can't fit everything you want in the fridge so you just close the door to avoid the mess from falling all over the floor.

I found this channel some years ago by looking on google how the Canadian elections work. I found a video of you explaining the system to immigrants and learnt a lot from it. All I can say now is that I got here just by curiosity for the politics and ended up subscribing because of the great content you produce!

I'm curious why the Senate in Canada wasn't set up like the Senate of these United States originally (until the adoption of the 17th Amendment) as representing the Provincial governments? As for King Charles III, I thought he opted to use "Defender of Faith" rather than Anglican title?

Thank you JJ! I can see your background in teaching LINC/Citizenship class coming through and I really appreciate this!

Also, proportional representation is not even remotely unconstitutional JJ. It is the norm around the world for proportional representation to be organized by region, so that if say in Czechia if there is a region with say 12 seats and one party has 25% of the vote in that region, they get 3 seats in that region. This can easily be done with provinces in Canada. The overrepresentation of some provinces is a technical headache but is small enough to not be very significant. Especially if Canada had a bigger Commons to begin with, Poland with a similar population has 460 members of the Sejm, their lower house. What is 4 seats for PEI in a house that big?

This was pretty cool. Thanks J.J. I now know about as much of the Canadian system as I do about the USA system. Almost. The Turtle Island bit was fascinating. And the originators of your constitution not realizing the queen could become a king is hilarious. You know what, politics is utter bollocks no matter the Country.

Love your videos JJ including this one. But I wish you would be a bit more impartial about French language in canada. If your goal is to educate foreign and domestic audiences, there is no need to impose your personal views about French language. It was subtly done, but it was very perceptible. This is a high stakes sensitive topic in Canadian identity and people should form their own views.

This was fantastic. I enjoyed all of it but the way that parts 8 and 9 expanded on/complicated earlier parts was my absolute favorite. Thank you!

The governor general seems almost exactly equivalent to a president in my country (except it is elected by the parliament). It's weird for me it is not a well-known figure in Canada.

Have you ever considered becoming a guest lecturer at political science departments around Canada? I wish I had known about your RU-vid channel when I was polisci in university. I think my grades would have been better and I would probably be in grad school (or done by now).

Yes let's go jj is making a iceberg list video

I challenge you JJ: You want a suggestion on which video to make about a Canadian political topic, then make a positive video about the advantages of Québec secession for both Canada and Québec! Given some of your views it would make for a very interesting and balanced opinion point. You can aknowledge in the video it is a challenge thrown at you. Should you succeed I'm offering to take you out for dinner on your next visit to Montréal to a very decent venue, as a prize to win (mind you I believe that the discussion around said dinner would be exquisitely fascinating given that I am appreciative of your work, even if we do not agree on the matter).

28:57 is that NFKRZ?? 😂😂

This has answered several questions i’ve been thinking about lately with Alberta’s anti federalism posturing, super informative

Most I've ever learned about Canada's senate

Having relatively recently gone over the foundations of the American political system and its early history, the extreme contrast to the haphazard and un-future-proofed Canadian system with all its vestigial appendages and effectively useless clauses is a bit shocking given which came first. Americans had their failed systems you don't really hear about that got replaced pretty quickly, but it's like we've been coasting on one of those early American experiments for 150 years without addressing the elephants in the room because we've not really had a crisis on the level of the US's internal wars since confederation.

God, it just gets more horrifying with each level. I have a _lot_ of grievances with my own country, but I'll never take the U.S. Constitution for granted ever again.

It would be interesting to hear more about the "mafias" of Canada, such as the milk, syrup or telephone mafia. Love your stuff!

I'm a Canadian Monarchist, I know you dont always agree that this is the best system for Canada; nevertheless i think you did a superb Job covering the Crown in Canada without any bias. Great Stuff!

Great treat for Sunday afternoon. Thanks for the content!

27:42 appreciate the tongue-in-cheek humour. Helps keep the attention span in an hour long video.

Hoping to visit Ottawa and the Canadian Parliament this fall. As a JJ fan it’s a must-go, even though I’m American.

Sometimes I learn things about other countries and think "Wow, that's crazy." Then I remember that I live in a country where the ruling party can totally redraw district maps any way they please in order to make it even harder for the other party to win the next time, where there are several reasonably well known political parties but good luck actually electing anyone who doesn't belong to the top two, and where the head of state is technically elected by a few hundred people who were hand-picked by their parties. And that's barely scratching the surface. Very little should seem weird to me at this point.

J.J. I have been a Canadian political junkie all my life. I have lived in 5 provinces and 2 territories so think I have some knowledge of this country based on experience. Your commentary and analysis has rocked my world and brought a smile to my day. The only thing I can offer is I would love to shift your awareness towards the role the North plays in shaping Canadian mythology and identity.

As for the Charter and Courts, Canada has long since had the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. The UK had it first, and the idea was that if Parliament including the King signed off on anything, there was no other authority which could second guess them. Why should a court, who was appointed by the king anyway and whose removal could be ordered by Parliament, have that power? Canada differs because of the federal structure and so some powers had to be out of their reach due to federalism but other than the different subjects that were in each level's jurisdiction, it was all up to the legislative body to decide what was going to happen, and judges were also named by the governor general and removal could be done by parliament to begin with (which is still true). At the time, it was seen as a pro democratic thing, especially given that the rules for naming a judge and how many judges there are anyway do not exist in the constitution, nothing to assure their independence, and so you don't want the ability of someone to just name a bunch of judges who will oppose whatever their successor does arbitrarily. The Charter does have that section 1 but it is more refined in application, the oakes test is now used to figure out what is unconstitutional. The impairment of rights must be authorized by legislation, not by anything else, and it must be the minimum necessary to achieve a substantial public objective, and the impairment of rights can't be disproportionate to the gains intended to be won via the impairment of the right. You can't just hang a bunch of people in order to win a drug war for instance. It isn't as easy for the legislation to survive this kind of scrutiny as you imply, although it is far from never. I also add that the notwithstanding clause does have some other limits. It must be done by the legislature and renewed at least once every 5 years, and so at least one general election will elapse. If Canada had proportional elections, more inclusive and transparent nominations within the political parties and perhaps more public interest in those votes, and if the MPs were rather more autonomous than today, the leader of the party is more responsible to their MPs as in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and with no real threat of the prime minister that they can actually dissolve parliament just on a whim but only really when facing a lack of confidence, using such a clause would probably be much less a tool of a premier to get their way.

A video on Indigenous law would be interesting

6:33 the King appoints the Governor General on advice of the PM

I Hope this video does well. It’s heartbreaking to see JJ put so much work into his videos lately, only for them to perform poorly. I regrettably accept that it won’t do that well since it’s a bit tough to market: but I really hope I’m wrong

Informative. I will share with my children. Especially considering the challenges the country is facing now.

I thought JJ’s testimony protecting RU-vidrs was the best. The whole Canada/Explained sub genre is monopolized by JJ’s & this may be his MBDTF G.O.A.T moment

This is more just something I personally would enjoy a nice well put together video about, but if you're looking at video ideas to make about Canada perhaps a video on the culture of tourism and surrounding tourism in Canada. I recently had a friend from Japan come to visit Canada and I really had no idea what I should even suggest they do here as the very concept of "tourism" is a rather vague construct in my mind. It could be fitting given that the best way most people who don't live in Canada can experience Canada is via tourism.

Awesome video J.J. I really enjoyed watching it and helped me learn more about my neighbors to the north! I never realized that Canada's constitutional system was so convoluted. lol

Canadian political system is like a "BANANA REPUBLIC" where the government of the day is the boss without cheques and balances, and that includes the judiciary from the top down.

Wow, this video is excellent. Editing plus the animations are superb!

Can you talk about the differences between provincial and federal parties?

Contrary to what you said, bilingualism is wuite common in jurisdiction around the globe. It's not common in the anglo-sphere, hence perhaps the clash with Canada's francophones. But bilingualismt is NOT special. It just seems like a difficult thing for anglophones to deal with for some reason lol

This is a super educational, entertaining and useful video. Awesome work JJ! This should be shown in schools. I learned a bunch, the largest thing being that the Canadian political system is even more convoluted and random than I thought.

Jj I love your videos. In one of my discords there is a person I play video games with fairly often that is from British Columbia. I recently watched your video about sir Wilfred Laurier and wanted to impress him. So I asked him “so what do you think about the legacy of Wilfred Laurier? Is a he still a Canadian hero or has legacy been soured?” And his response was literally “who?” So I explained it a bit to him and he was like “oh yeah that guy, we didn’t touch on him much in history class, we mostly learned about the British colonization and the Hudson Bay company. All I remember is we did a lot of fur trading” I was kind of gutted by this but oh well, I still enjoyed your video on the man 😁

This video really does deserve to win an award.

The deeper we go the more this video becomes a roast of the constitution lol. Also RIP Mulroney.

JJ, I just wanted to let you know I think your videos are very useful! Also, you’ve helped me to learn more about Canadian politics. Have a wonderful day.

Great video! Apologies if I missed it but: did J.J. mention that Quebec did not sign/endorse the Charter/Canada Act in 1982? I believe that was a huge motivator for the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords.

Terrific overview. Thank you! What happens to a society with living according to the rules of a vague, outdated and biased constitution?

A video about the october crisis or the Yukon goldrush could be great

JJ is the 2nd person i get my Canadian politics from.

The Simpsons did mention the Charlottetown referendum once vaguely as "the Canadian referendum" I remember, given when the episode in question came out that's probably what inspired it.

The 1867 constitution speaks to the Westminster system in alluding to us having a parliament “similar to that of the UK”

15:17 I would love to see Canada adopt a rank choice voting system (instant runoff)

JJ - i’m only half done, and I have to stop to do something else real quick but hope to come back real soon, but as an American this has been the most helpful explanation of Canadian politics ever. Thanks.

This essentially summarized my university Canadian politics class. Surprisingly, we spent a quarter of the course only on the King-Byng affair

Didn't the Austro-Hungarian compromise also happen in 1867?

Sensational video! My top 1 Canadian RU-vidr. Thank you!

I was born here and most of my Canadian political knowledge comes from watching your videos.

Another JJ iceberg since 2022 !

I met you on Elgin st. when you came to Ottawa.... told you Ottawa sucks lol

King Chuck dropping "Defender of the Faith" is such a massive letdown, The dude is a descendant of Charlemagne.

This video really inspires me to find odd legal terms. While listening to government positions that were supposed to perform a specific thing but no longer do, I was remembering how in the United States, the Vice President might just be the oddest in the Federal government: The only position that exist in 2 branches of government although it just breaks ties and certifies electoral votes from which he is elected as no one votes for him but chosen by the President in advance so long as 269 electors don't disagree otherwise he would be elected by members of the Senate to be part of the Presidential Cabinet.

another great JJ Video! I'm an American who is fascinated more by the politics of foreign countries than by his own country. Not passing judgment on your country's choices, but your prime minister seems to have such a scope to his authority to make a Richard Nixon drool with envy. Not saying it's better or worse, though.

One thing about the Bloc. I have found it fascinating that although there isnt any talk or rumblings of real Quebec separation recently, the Bloc (and the Quebec Premier) love to refer to Quebec as a 'nation'. An actual 'nation' ... although Quebec is within the borders of an other country ... and is integrated financially in that larger countries economy ... still, politically the noise is accepted to reference Quebec as being 'a nation'. The good people of Quebec aren't THAT dumb are they?

The term 'Westminster system' is kind of like if we called every country that directly elects a president the 'Washington system' even though there are clear differences between the United States and, say, France.

40:10; my Dad’s old boss Roger was from Corwall, Ontario. He used to claim that he both spoke French and Joual. It took me until a trip to Montreal in 2012 to really understand what he meant.

That was a tough one J.J., a job well done! Thinking along the lines of your last foray into the iceberg theme, can you comment on the very strange side of Canada's more mysterious places like the Nahanni Valley, it's legends, cryptids and history.

What are "colors?" Did you mean "colours." (5:23) Sorry, I guess that was a little smart-alecky. I was a broadcast television character generator operator, so . . . my (personal) rule, based on context, went something like this: "Colours of the Canadian flag" vs Colors of the American flag" regardless of audience. Cheers. By the way, your channel is awesomely awesome! This is by far the best explanation of the "Canadian political iceberg" I have ever seen. Much appreciated. Keep them coming. Thank you for your contribution to our amazing country.

Real JJ fans know that the canadian politics videos are his best videos

On 49:50 It's worth noting that unprecedented constitutional crises are possible in any constitutional system. However airtight it superficially appears, loopholes and vagaries _will_ exist that an actor in the right circumstances could exploit. It's not possible to create a political system at once functional and completely impervious to abuse. The trade off is that a constitution (in the broadest sense of 'rules of governance') has to enable effective governing, including when there is disagreement and national crises and be to reformed sometimes and still have safeguards. IDK, I think people sometimes like to hide behind pieces of paper because written law feels more tangible than "we all collectively agree that democracy is good and there shouldn't be a dictator", but the latter is actually what makes the crucial difference. That's why parachuting into a country and say "be a democracy" will always almost certainly fail - even if on paper the constitution might be fine, but if a critical mass of people within the country are corrupt and/or willing to bend to the demands of the glorious leader, then all the constitution amounts to is a speedbump.

I love you JJ you give a very nuanced and well researched perspective on Canadian politics.

One thing that you and I share is a desire for Canada and the United States to unify. I would be curious as to how you would like to see that unification come about? Would you want the US to absorb Canada; Canada to absorb the US, a mutual mix and match scenario, or a whole new system develop from scratch?

Great vid. Reminds me on my college and university days. With updates!

1. Major aspect you missed is how the Supreme Court of Canada is formed and selected and the fact that Quebec is given a minimum representation in the Court. I also think you should have focused a bit more on the requirement of MP's to be in Ottawa and FR being are requirement to run (which you touched on) and how that plays a part in the outcome of governance - which puts in question representation.

Amazing how much of this video is also completely accurate to Australian politics as well.

41:27 I found your mention of our super protected constitutional rights regarding entering, leaving, or moving freely around Canada really intriguing. I'd love if you could make a video diving deeper into the argument that COVID lockdowns and travel restrictions might be illegal, especially considering our fundamental rights. Could you also explore whether there are exceptions, particularly when the Emergencies Act is invoked? It's a bit murky for me, and I think many others would benefit from a clear explanation. Looking forward to your insights!

Thanks. I never appreciated how much more powerful the prime minister is in Canada than the US president. He gets to appoint so many people. The US founding fathers were much more concerned about checks and balances. How much of the Canadian constitution do think is just "we don't want to do it the American way "?