No, indeed. They are chief executives, but they do not have the extraordinary powers and untouchability of an American president. They are there to make the hard decisions in an emergency...which decisions must, of course, be ratified at some point by the sitting parliament.

Here's the difference. If our prime minister screws up really badly on a major policy issue, and the public loses confidence really badly in his government, he is simply going to be forced by parliament itself within a reasonable amount of time to call an election over it. He doesn't get to wait till a 4-year interval passes. He has to face the music then and there.

He can't veto legislation that has been legally passed by the parliament, he can only use his (considerable) persuasion to influence that vote before it is cast...and he gets, like any other member of parliament, one vote on the bill...but he undoubtedly influences the other members of his party by persuasion, because that's how a party works in concert with its party leaders.

When we do have an election in Canada, it doesn't last a solid year! It lasts 6 weeks. That's plenty enough time for the politicians to harangue the public, get their message out, and bombard the airwaves, and generally put the government and society in a state of confusion. Who the hell needs more than 6 weeks to have an election campaign???

Look at what happens in the USA in comparison. An election there basically throws your whole society into a frenzy that lasts almost a year. That isn't good for running your government efficiently. But it's great for professional people who get highly paid to do all the promo stuff they do during an election, isn't it?

No Canadian prime minister's government could possibly have survived the idiocies in foreign policy perpetrated by George Bush in the last 7 years. He'd have been thrown out a long, long time ago. But the imperial presidency is almost unassailable if your president decides he just won't give in. Nothing short of impeachment can stop him then, and impeachment is a national trauma almost equivalent to civil war. The odds against it ever being carried through are astronomical, and if it is carried through it gives the country a nervous breakdown. (that's because your president is like a god, in effect...or a symbolic father figure for the whole nation...and that's just out of proportion)

In comparison, kicking an unpopular Canadian prime minister out of office is a very moderate and accessible exercise, as it well should be, and it has been done many times, I can tell you. Just normal political stuff. No national nervous breakdown.

This means our prime ministers have to keep in mind that they are not unaccountable for their actions. They are public employees with a job to do, and they can get fired! They have to remain just a tad humble...or pay the price. ;-) All to the better, if you want good government.