In Canada, most of the executive power is centred in the office of the prime minister. The Canadian PM, particularly in a majority government situation, holds all the cards. Prime ministers appoint Cabinet ministers, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, senior civil servants, set the public policy and legislative agenda, and determine where billions of our tax dollars will be allocated. Individual members of Parliament, the people you elect to represent you in Parliament, have very little role to play in the weighty decisions affecting our country. Therefore, your voice, in effect, is also diminished.

Patrick Boyer, who served as a member of Parliament from 1984 to 1993, knows first-hand of the frustrations and feelings of uselessness as an individual MP. In these clips from Does Your Vote Count? and A Question of Honour, he describes what is expected of MPs in today’s Parliament: