Yeah, we're different in that our Prime Minister is indirectly elected.  However, card carrying members of political parties are able to nominate candidates to be party leaders after someone's ousted or steps down from the position.  The party members get together and vote on who becomes the leader of the party.  That's a somewhat similar process to the primary elections in the States.  The big difference I guess is that not many people consider themselves members of political parties here and don't bother attending the leadership rallies.  And the leaders of the different parties aren't all elected at the same time.

But the systems are completely different.  The American system seems complicated to me (because I haven't studied it) but ours is quite simple.  We have one big general election where we elect Members of Parliament.  Parliament members then elect one of the members to be the next Prime Minister.  Therefore, the leader of the party with the most seats is generally appointed Prime Minister.  So it's an indirect election as the Prime Minister is elected by our elected representatives.

A prime minister does not hold as much power as a president, so they don't have to be directly elected.  The Prime Minister appoints a lot of different positions and holds cabinet meetings and everything, but the position itself isn't all that powerful.  Technically, our highest representative is the Governor General, a representative of the Queen, who is appointed by the Prime Minister.  The Governor General can overthrow the government and call an election whenever she wants.  Basically, our Prime Minister can't do dick without the approval of the Governor General.

And there's the Canadian political science lecture for tonight.

Family Day?  That's a new one.  I call it midterm break.  Good thing it's in Alberta too, for future references.  I had no idea the holiday even existed.

Done.