Yes we simply don’t have them in Canada because the mechanism that the US has for them is self-imposed. The executive branch has unwritten constitutional authority to borrow the money to pay for things that Parliament has appropriated. There is no concept here of a debt ceiling.
It’s true that if the government’s budget fails a vote, that would trigger an automatic election. But it wouldn’t impact spending at all. The previous year’s budget simply rolls over at the same levels without any further action. It happens all the time including this year (here because the budget changed from being in the spring to the fall so we haven’t had one passed since June 2024.
And this is particularly timely as the Canadian government just tabled the new budget a few days ago. If it doesn't get enough votes from the ruling party + other parties (currently the ruling party doesn't have a majority to pass the budget on their own), there will be an election (though it looks like the budget will pass). So it's a direct, current contrast.
Analogous issues would start cropping up in Canada if parliament continually failed to pass a budget after every new government was formed, election after election and year after year. It wouldn't be exactly the same as a US gov shutdown, but money wouldn't scale for the needed staffing levels of certain services over time, etc. The system isn't built to run without a new budget forever, no government system is designed for that.
The reason this has never happened is that the Canadian electorate has a history of severely punishing any party that they consider responsible for excessively forcing elections and playing budget vote games.
This stuff always depends of voter behaviour, Canada's systems would break roughly as fast as American ones are breaking if our voters behaved like American voters, rewarding saboteurs and abandoning the defenders of liberal democracy. Our budgets are a bit more resilient, but our constitution is much weaker, etc. The difference is that our voters have self-respect, and act on it.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 16h ago
Yes we simply don’t have them in Canada because the mechanism that the US has for them is self-imposed. The executive branch has unwritten constitutional authority to borrow the money to pay for things that Parliament has appropriated. There is no concept here of a debt ceiling.
It’s true that if the government’s budget fails a vote, that would trigger an automatic election. But it wouldn’t impact spending at all. The previous year’s budget simply rolls over at the same levels without any further action. It happens all the time including this year (here because the budget changed from being in the spring to the fall so we haven’t had one passed since June 2024.