No. We have responsible government in a full democracy, and all of our adult citizens have the vote, unlike the USA which is a flawed democracy where its Constitution’s articles I and II prevent this. The Honourable Eugene Forsey put together an excellent explanation of how our democracy works at the federal level: How Canadians Govern Themselves. I encourage you to take the time to read it.
The Members of the House of Commons are responsible to the voters in their riding. Our Prime Minister is chosen by the Members of the House of Commons (technically, by the Crown following constitutional convention). The Prime Minister is a first among equals, in that if the Prime Minister no longer holds the confidence of the House, the Prime Minister will no longer be Prime Minister.
There are many other checks and balances (such as a the House, the Senate and the Crown together forming Parliament, and our Judiciary being guided by and growing our living tree Constitution), but the foundation is that the Prime Minister is directly responsible to the the Members of Parliament who in turn are responsible to their respective riding voters. So no, the Prime Minister does not outrank us. The Prime Minister is a first among equals, and is responsible to us via our directly elected Members of Parliament. If the Prime Minister falls down, he or she gets dumped rather than serve out the term, and another Member of Parliament takes over the reins subject to the same constraints.
Note that the USA is not a full democracy. It is a flawed democracy. The USA is lower on the civil liberty index than all of the the full democracies (of which Canada is tied for first), and is behind the full democracies in each other category as well, so all this talk one hears from Americans of “That is the price of freedom!” is really really no more than propaganda used to divert attention away from the need to make substantive changes.
Note that the President of the USA is not responsible to the electorate, courtesy of the Electoral College. Although there are mechanisms for Congress to remove a president, namely the Constitution’s s. 2 (impeachment) or s. 25 (coup, death or mentally incompetency), these powers are only very rarely used, and only in truly extreme circumstances, rather than in the regular course of business when a Canadian Prime Minister just isn’t up to snuff. I encourage you to do a bit of research to compare how many Canadian Prime Ministers have been replaced mid-term or have had their government fall mid-term against how many USA Presidents have been replaced mid-term.
Note that the USA is constrained severely by tending to take a textualist approach to it’s constitution rather than a living tree approach as Canada does. This has led to the USA being considered by first world nations to be developmentally delayed, vis a vis racism, religiosity, guns, health care, social equality, economic equality and civil liberties. The USA was in early in the democracy game, with a sudden break from Parliamentary democracy that made great leaps forward for its white people, but since then, the field has passed it by, in large part due to the USA constitutional interpretation being hamstrung by far too much textualism, originalism, strict constructionism and the like by the judiciary, and the populous rabid right of legislative branch having run off the rails. If the USA’s branches of government were more responsive and responsible to the electorate, it would not find itself slipping further and further away from democracy.
Unfortunately, this has led the the USA electing a fascist as its President, who now has through his press secretary noted that the necessity of his proactive banning of Muslims is proven by the Quebec attack on Muslims, who is blocking the dissemination of information on the critical problem of climate change, and who has taken a scorched earth approach to working with his own federal government, other USA state governments, and other countries.
In the first world, ideas and opinions, particularly those pertaining to morality and human rights, are not confined to geographic or jurisdictional boundaries. External pressure via the dissemination of ideas and opinions can have very significant effect. Have a look at how democracy advanced in England and its colonies (including the soon to be USA) and France in late 18th century; have a look at how slavery was reduced and then abolished in 1833 in the British Empire, only to be followed in the USA less than three decades later. Look at how Canada’s development of responsible government was greatly aided by philosophic underpinnings of the new USA republic, particularly once their refugees started flooding across our boarders (about 50,000 refugees followed later by about 30,000 late refugees).
Every voice makes a difference when enough voices speak together, even if the effect is neither direct nor immediate. Specifically, the various gatherings and protests in Canada will have an effect on our Members of Parliament and our Prime Minister. Note that our Prime Minister will be meeting with the President shortly to discuss, et alia, border security and international trade. These issues are affected by the massive economic power of the USA, and the soft persuasive power of the full democracies, including Canada. Will Trudeau and he team change Trump? Of course not, but their efforts at protecting Canada from Trump while pushing against unbridled bigotry are all grist for the mill when added to other countries’ efforts, such that there will be some influence, albeit minimal, on the behaviour of the USA come the next election, in a country in which federal elections are often cliff-hangers.
More importantly from a Canadian perspective, Canada and the USA are inextricably intertwined. We inter-marry, we live, work and vacation each other’s countries, we have medical exchanges, some communities share municipal services, we watch the same television in border areas, and receive American television in most of Canada, we attend each other’s business and academic conferences, we are the USA’s largest export partner in a world in which the USA has a massive export deficit, and we are the USA’s third largest import partner, behind China and the EU. The Canadian and USA economies are significantly integrated, such that a sudden move from free trade to major trade barriers would wreak havoc on both countries (albeit far worse for Canada). In short, the close economic, cultural and personal bonds between Canadians and many Americans mean that we want Americans to do well rather than to flush themselves down the drain, which is what they are doing with their rabid right in Congress and fascist Trump and his cronies in the presidency.
Many Canadians are Muslim, or have relatives, friends and co-workers who are Muslim. When they are harmed, it harms us, so when Trump and the brown-shirts act against innocent Muslims, it upsets us and we want to address the problem, even if individually none of us has any significant influence.
In the matter at hand, a fascist is living in the White House. After many months of denigrating Muslims, one of his first acts as President was to strike a hateful and needless blow to innocent Muslims by way of a travel ban, which further promoted hatred of them by vilifying them. The day after Trump’s Muslim ban, a French-Canadian nationalist murdered six Muslims at prayer, and severely injured many more, which Trump used as excuse for justifying his Muslim travel ban, further promoting hatred against perfectly innocent Muslims, and empowering acts of hatred against them, as tragically evinced by a Quebecois troll turned terrorist. Trump is a stochastic terrorist with blood on his tiny hands and his brown-shirt sleeves. We are not willing to stand by blythely, despite not having much influence. I trust that you are familiar with Niemoller’s “First they came for . . .” poem that is memorialized in stone in the United States Holocaust Museum:
We Canadians, through our individual efforts, our Prime Minister’s efforts and government’s efforts, are speaking out. As current internet meme states" “[del]First they came for the Muslims[/del] Not this time, Motherfucker!”
I encourage you to do a bit of research and to stop making utterly unfounded assertions in your very hostile questions and demands. The poster to whom you have been speaking so rudely is registered on the SDMB as a Canadian for all to see, but despite this, you have chosen to question his nationality just as Trump questioned Obama’s birth nationality, trying to cause obfuscation rather than using actual facts. and making rude demands that have absolutely not basis in fact.
As far as “Lead by example. Capiche?” goes, you really should do some research before making such demands. Please try to remember the ratio 24:1. It is important, for it is the per capita ratio of Syrian refugees taken in by Canada and the USA in 2016.
On top of our regular compliment of immigrants and refugees, we took in an additional 25,000 Syrian refugees last year – not temporarily, but to become permanent residents and eventually citizens if that is what they chose. By comparison, the USA, which has ten times the population of Canada, only took in 10,000 Syrian refugees. I encourage you to do the math, for on a per capita basis, we took in 96% of the combined total of Syrian refugees taken in by Canada and the USA in 2016. On a per capita basis, the USA only took in 4% of the combined total, resulting in a per capita ration of 24:1. And that was in 2016, under the Muslim friendly (and in Trump’s opinion, a Muslim not born in the USA) Obama. our Prime Minister is welcoming Muslims. This is Canada’s Prime Minister’s and Ontario’s Premier’s example. We care, and the first of equals, our Prime Minister cares.
Now Trump is aggressively moving against Muslims. That is how your President is leading by example, and it is a heinous, hateful, bigoted and facist example. When Trump started his travel ban, Prime Minister Trudeau immediately and directly reached out to Muslims and welcomed them, and two days later following the Quebec terrorist attack, he spoke to Canada on what Muslims mean to Canada.
You and I have very different beliefs in what is or is not a good example. Quite simply, your facts are no more than alternative facts, with all that phrase connotes, and the conclusions that you derive from your alternate facts are entirely unsupported.