Does our [canadian] prime minister have too much power?

[rcv]

This has always bothered me. Do our Prime Ministers yield too much power? Rather than having a presidential executive authority, our PMs are more like our country's previous monarchs. We don't have a King/Queen ruling over us anymore, but they have left their prerogative crown powers up to the governer general. So many of our PMs have exploited and used this power to their advantage. The prime minister seems to have the unchecked power to decide when the House should be in session, when elections should occur, and even, in some circumstances, when their governments do or do not have the confidence of the House. Oh and the power to call elections. Any PM that has access to these sort of powers has a HUGE advantage, weather or not his government is a minority or a majority.
Other things the PM can do:

• Commands the loyalty of his MPs, otherwise known as the carrot and stick approach. Any MPs who support and cooperate with the PM's office will usually be rewarded with lucrative positions (cabinet, committee, etc..). Conversely, if a MP decides to go against his PM he will be removed from caucus and even forbidden to run under the party. Seriously thats fucked up, these guys can't even disagree with the PM without having to fear their jobs. The f*ck kind of fear mongering is this. You need to ask yourself: does your MP represent you and your riding or the PM and his job.
• If you go way back in Canadian history, Parliament was primarily created to manage our budget/finances. It's bar non one of the most important issues that our government has to address every single year. Here's the fun part...the MPs we elect have no say in entire process It's basically all entirely up to the PM on how he will manage the country's budget, it's his personal wallet.
• He can basically appoint almost any position in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branch of government. Here's a recent example in history: John Chretien had appointed the governor and the entire board of the Bank of Canada, the head of the CBC, its board of directors and their counterparts in dozens of crown corporations and agencies, the chief justice, associate chief justice, and numerous trial and appeal justices of the Federal Court of Canada, along with the chief justices of the top courts in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia. And I only probably named around half of his appointments lol. How can so many members of government be appointed without some sort of public consultation. We know nothing about their morals and history until they are appointed.

So when is this system going to change?