member_of_political_party alice wong
The ___MASK8___ , colloquially known as the Tories , is a political party in Canada . It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum . The party ' s leader from 2004 to 2015 was Stephen Harper , who served as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2015 . A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch . The United States , for instance , has a presidential system . The executive is elected and often titled " president " and is not responsible to the legislature and which cannot , in normal circumstances , dismiss it . The legislature may have ___MASK54___ , in extreme cases , to dismiss the executive , often through impeachment . However , such dismissals are seen as so rare as not to contradict a central tenet of presidentialism , that in " normal circumstances using normal means " the legislature cannot dismiss the executive . A head of state ( or chief of state ) is the public persona that officially represents the national ___MASK58___ and legitimacy of a sovereign state . In developing the current Constitution of France ( 1958 ), former French president Charles de Gaulle said the head of state should embody " the spirit of the nation " (""). In some countries , typically those with parliamentary governments , the head of state is a ceremonial figurehead that does not actually guide day - to - day government activities and may not even be empowered to exercise any kind of political authority ( e . g ., Queen Elizabeth II in the United Kingdom ). In other countries , the head of state is also the head of government , such as in the U . S ., where the president is both a public figurehead and the actual highest ranking political leader who , in practice , oversees the executive branch . A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government , often in a parliamentary or semi - presidential system . In many systems , the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet , and allocates posts to members within the government . In most systems , the prime minister is the presiding member and chairman of the cabinet . In a minority of systems , notably in semi - presidential systems of government , a prime minister is the official who is appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives of the head of state . In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system , the prime minister is the presiding and actual head of government and head of the executive branch . In such systems , the head of state or the head of state ' s official representative ( i . e . the monarch , president , or governor - general ) usually holds a largely ceremonial position , although often with reserve powers . A semi - presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet , with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state . It differs from a parliamentary ___MASK96___ in that it has a popularly elected head of state , who is more than a purely ceremonial figurehead , and from the presidential system in that the cabinet , although named by the president , is responsible to the legislature , which may force the cabinet to resign through a motion of no confidence . Alice Siu - Ping Chan Wong PC MP ( traditional Chinese :  ; simplified Chinese :  ; Jyutping : Wong4 Can4 Siu2 Ping4 , born June 30 , 1948 ) is a Canadian politician , who was elected to represent the electoral district of Richmond . She is a member of the ___MASK13___ and formerly served as the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism . In 2011 , Wong was appointed as the Minister of State for Seniors by Prime Minister Stephen Harper , becoming the first Chinese - Canadian woman to serve in Cabinet . She was reelected in the 2015 election . Stephen Joseph Harper ( born April 30 , 1959 ) is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada , from February 6 , 2006 to November 4 , 2015 . He was the first prime minister to come from the modern ___MASK8___ , which was formed by a merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance . A president is the leader of a country or a division or part of a country , typically a ___MASK96___ , a democracy , or a dictatorship . The title " president " is sometimes used by extension for leaders of other groups , including corporate entities and social groups . The ___MASK95___ , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a conservative and right - wing populist federal political party in Canada that existed from 2000 to 2003 . The party was the successor to the ___MASK2___ and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held it throughout its existence . The party supported policies that were both fiscally and socially conservative , seeking reduced government spending on social programs and reductions in taxation .