New Democratic Party
CANADA
· Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II (1952)
· Governor-General: David Lloyd Johnston (2010)
· Prime Minister: Justin Trudeau (2015)
· Land area: 3,511,003 sq mi (9,093,507 sq km);
· Total area: 3,855,102 sq mi (9,984,670 sq km)
· Population (2014 est.): 34,834,841 (growth rate: 0.76%); birth rate: 10.29/1000; infant mortality rate: 4.71/1000; life expectancy: 81.67
· Capital (2011 est.): Ottawa, Ontario, 1.208 million
· Largest cities (metropolitan areas) (2011 est.): Toronto 5.573 million; Montreal 3.856 million; Vancouver 2.267 million; Calgary 1.216 million; OTTAWA (capital) 1.208 million; Edmonton 1.142 million
· Monetary unit: Canadian dollar
Canada is a country in North America, located to the north of the United States. Its land reaches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Arctic Ocean to the north, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's second-largest country by total area and the fourth-largest country by land area. It has the world's longest coastline and is the only one to touch three oceans.
Canada is divided into ten provinces and three territories. Most parts of the country have a cold or severely cold winter climate, but areas to the south are warm in summer. Much of the land contains forests or tundra, with the Rocky Mountains towards the west. About four fifths of Canada's 36 million people live in urban areas near the southern border with the U.S, the longest between any two countries in the world. The national capital is Ottawa, and the largest city is Toronto; other large cities include Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Hamilton.
The places that are now Canada have long been home to many Aboriginal people. In 1537 the French started a colony and the British empire soon followed. The two empires fought several wars and in the late 18th century only British North America remained with what is more or less Canada today. The country was formed with the British North America Act on July 1, 1867, when several colonies joined together to make a semi-federal Dominion. Over time, more provinces and territories became part of Canada. In 1931, Canada achieved near total independence from the United Kingdom with the Statute of Westminster 1931, and became completely independent when the Canada Act 1982 removed the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as its head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level, meaning that citizenshave the right to communicate with the government in either English or French. Immigration to Canada has made it one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations. Its economy is the eleventh largest in the world, and relies mainly on natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada's relationship with its neighbor and biggest trading partner, the U.S., has had a big impact on its economy and culture.
Canada is a developed country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. Canada is a Commonwealth realm member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie, and part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G8, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Government
Canada is a federation of ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) and three territories (Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut). Formally considered a constitutional monarchy, Canada is governed by its own House of Commons. While the governor-general is officially the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, in reality the governor-general acts only on the advice of the Canadian prime minister.
Canada has a government called a constitutional monarchy. It has a monarch (meaning a king or queen is the head of that country), and is a democracy (meaning the people of that country rule it). The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who is officially the Queen of Canada. She appoints a Governor General to represent her in the country, however, the choice of Governor General is made by the prime minister.
The Queen's powers are mostly exercised by the Governor General, currently David Johnston. The Governor General, like the Canadian sovereign (King/Queen of Canada), is not political and remains above politics, and because of that they do not usually use their powers without the advice of the Prime Minister or other ministers.
The head of government is the Prime Minister. The current prime minister is Justin Trudeau,[17] who replaced Stephen Harper in October 2015. Each province and territory has a premier to lead its government. The day-to-day operations of the government are run by the cabinet. The cabinet is usually formed from the largest party in Parliament.
The Parliament of Canada passes the laws of the country. The governor general, acting on behalf of the monarch, has the right to veto a law (meaning the law cannot go into effect) but this right has not been used for some time. There are five main parties in the Canadian Parliament: the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party. In addition to the five parties with MPs in Parliament, there are fourteen other smaller parties registered with Elections Canada and several MPs who sit as Independents.
Monarchy
As per the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982, Canada is a constitutional monarchy, wherein the role of the reigning sovereign is both legal and practical, but not political. The Crown is regarded as a corporation sole, with the monarch, vested as she is with all powers of state,[13] at the centre of a construct in which the power of the whole is shared by multiple institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority. The executive is thus formally called the Queen-in-Council, the legislature the Queen-in-Parliament, and the courts as the Queen on the Bench. Royal Assent is required to enact laws and, as part of the Royal Prerogative, the royal sign-manual gives authority to letters patent and orders in council, though the authority for these acts stems from the Canadian populace and,[17][18] within the conventional stipulations of constitutional monarchy, the sovereign's direct participation in any of these areas of governance is limited. The Royal Prerogative also includes summoning, proroguing, and dissolving parliament in order to call an election, and extends to foreign affairs: the negotiation and ratification of treaties, alliances, international agreements, and declarations of war the accreditation of Canadian, and receipt of foreign, diplomats; and the issuance of passports.
The person who is monarch of Canada (currently Queen Elizabeth II) is also the monarch of 15 other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, though, he or she reigns separately as King or Queen of Canada, an office that is "truly Canadian" and "totally independent from that of the Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms". On the advice of the Canadian Prime Minister, the sovereign appoints a federal viceregal representative—the Governor General of Canada (currently Julie Payette)—who, since 1947, is permitted to exercise almost all of the monarch's Royal Prerogative, though there are some duties which must be specifically performed by, or bills that require assent by, the king or queen.
Executive power
The government is defined by the constitution as the Queen acting on the advice of her privy council. However, the Privy Council—consisting mostly of former members of parliament, chief justices of the supreme court, and other elder statesmen—rarely meets in full. As the stipulations of responsible government require that those who directly advise the monarch and governor general on how to exercise the Royal Prerogative be accountable to the elected House of Commons, the day-to-day operation of government is guided only by a sub-group of the Privy Council made up of individuals who hold seats in parliament. This body of ministers of the Crown is the Cabinet.
One of the main duties of the Crown is to ensure that a democratic government is always in place, which means appointing a prime minister (at present Justin Trudeau) to thereafter head the Cabinet. Thus, the governor general must appoint as prime minister the person who holds the confidence of the House of Commons; in practice, this is typically the leader of the political party that holds more seats than any other party in that chamber, currently the Liberal Party. Should no party hold a majority in the commons, the leader of one party—either the one with the most seats or one supported by other parties—will be called by the governor general to form a minority government. Once sworn in by the viceroy, the prime minister holds office until he or she resigns or is removed by the governor general, after either a motion of no confidence or his party's defeat in a general election.
The monarch and governor general typically follow the near-binding advice of their ministers. It is important to note, however, that the Royal Prerogative belongs to the Crown and not to any of the ministers, who rule "in trust" for the monarch and, upon losing the confidence of the commons, must relinquish the Crown's power back to it, whereupon a new government, which can hold the lower chamber's confidence, is installed by the governor general. The royal and viceroyal figures may unilaterally use these powers in exceptional constitutional crisis situations. Politicians can sometimes try to use to their favour the complexity of the relationship between the monarch, viceroy, ministers, and parliament, and the public's general unfamiliarity with it.
Legislative power
The Parliament of Canada, the bicameral national legislature located on Parliament Hill in the national capital of Ottawa, consists of the Queen (represented by the governor general), the appointed Senate (upper house), and the elected House of Commons (lower house). The governor general summons and appoints each of the 105 senators on the advice of the prime minister, while the 338 members of the House of Commons (Members of Parliament) are directly elected by eligible voters in the Canadian populace, with each member representing a single electoral district for a period mandated by law of not more than four years; the constitution mandates a maximum of five years. Per democratic tradition, the House of Commons is the dominant branch of parliament; the Senate and Crown rarely oppose its will. The Senate, thus, reviews legislation from a less partisan standpoint.
The Constitution Act, 1867, outlines that the governor general is responsible for summoning parliament in the Queen's name. A parliamentary session lasts until a prorogation, after which, without ceremony, both chambers of the legislature cease all legislative business until the governor general issues another royal proclamation calling for a new session to begin. After a number of such sessions, each parliament comes to an end via dissolution. As a general election typically follows, the timing of a dissolution is usually politically motivated, with the prime minister selecting a moment most advantageous to his or her political party. The end of a parliament may also be necessary, however, if the majority of Members of Parliament revoke their confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to govern, or the legally mandated (as per the Canada Elections Act) four-year maximum is reached; no parliament has been allowed to expire in such a fashion.
Judicial power
The sovereign is responsible for rendering justice for all her subjects, and is thus traditionally deemed the fount of justice. However, she does not personally rule in judicial cases; instead the judicial functions of the Royal Prerogative are performed in trust and in the Queen's name by officers of Her Majesty's courts.
The Supreme Court of Canada—the country's court of last resort—has nine justices appointed by the governor general on recommendation by the prime minister and led by the Chief Justice of Canada, and hears appeals from decisions rendered by the various appellate courts from the provinces and territories. Below this is the Federal Court, which hears cases arising under certain areas of federal law. It works in conjunction with the Federal Court of Appeal and Tax Court of Canada.
Federalism
The powers of the parliaments in Canada are limited by the constitution, which divides legislative abilities between the federal and provincial governments; in general, the legislatures of the provinces may only pass laws relating to topics explicitly reserved for them by the constitution, such as education, provincial officers, municipal government, charitable institutions, and "matters of a merely local or private nature," while any matter not under the exclusive authority of the provincial legislatures is within the scope of the federal parliament's power. Thus, the parliament at Ottawa alone can pass laws relating to, amongst other things, the postal service, the census, the military, criminal law, navigation and shipping, fishing, currency, banking, weights and measures, bankruptcy, copyrights, patents, First Nations, and naturalization. In some cases, however, the jurisdictions of the federal and provincial parliaments may be more vague. For instance, the federal parliament regulates marriage and divorce in general, but the solemnization of marriage is regulated only by the provincial legislatures. Other examples include the powers of both the federal and provincial parliaments to impose taxes, borrow money, punish crimes, and regulate agriculture.
Public understanding
Polls have suggested Canadians generally do not have a solid understanding of civics, which has been theorised to be a result of less attention being given to the subject in provincial education curricula, beginning in the 1960s. By 2008, a poll showed only 24% of respondents could name the Queen as head of state; Senator Lowell Murray wrote five years earlier: "The Crown has become irrelevant to most Canadian's understanding of our system of Government." John Robson opined in 2015: "intellectually, voters and commentators succumb to the mistaken notion that we elect 'governments' of prime ministers and cabinets with untrammelled authority, that indeed ideal 'democracy' consists precisely in this kind of plebiscitary autocracy." Politicians have, on occasion, taken advantage of such misunderstandings, as when then members of the Cabinet, headed by Stephen Harper, suggested in 2008 a change of government by way of a non-confidence vote by a coalition of opposition parties was undemocratic and tantamount to a coup d'état and Harper in 2015 stated Canadian voters elect governments.
Party System
Political parties are organizations that seek to control government and participate in public affairs by nominating candidates for elections. Since there are typically multiple groups that wish to do this, political parties are best thought of as part of a party system, which is the way political parties conduct themselves in order to structure political competition.
Political parties are organizations that seek to control government and participate in public affairs by nominating candidates for elections. Since there are typically multiple groups that wish to do this, political parties are best thought of as part of a party system, which is the way political parties conduct themselves in order to structure political competition.
Political Parties
Conservatives
At the time of Confederation, Canada's politics were modelled on Britain’s system of parliamentary democracy, which meant that two broad-based political parties would compete for power. In the Conservative Party, Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier brought together a broad ruling coalition that comprised a diverse collection of ideological, regional, religious and economic interests. At the political level, they allied the Tories of Canada Westwith the French-speaking bleus (see Parti bleu) of Canada East and business interests from the Maritimes. With the exception of the 1874 election, when Macdonald's government was driven from office by the Pacific Scandal, the Conservative Party dominated Canadian politics until 1896.
The alliances between the Ontario and Québec wings of the Conservative Party were seriously weakened when Macdonald allowed Métis leader Louis Riel to be hanged in 1885 in the face of fierce Catholic opposition. The Conservatives further alienated French Catholic voters with its implementation of conscription during the First World War (see also Election of 1917; Union Government).
The Conservatives’ inability to win support in Québec made it difficult for the party to compete nationally after the First World War. The Liberals dominated national politics from 1921 through 1957, with the Conservatives only winning one election, partly aided by voter dissatisfaction in the wake of the Great Depression. In 1942, after Progressive Party member John Bracken won the Conservative leadership, the party’s name was changed to the Progressive Conservative Party (PC). Several members of the Progressive Party moved to the PC, however others abandoned the Progressives for the CCF and the Liberals.
In 1957, John Diefenbaker led the party to a minority government and then to a landslide victory in 1958. Diefenbaker won significant support in Québec, but was unable to manage this coalition, and the Liberals came back to power in 1963. Western Canadian provinces — which had previously supported minor parties such as the Progressives and Social Credit — remained in the PC camp even after the Conservatives’ defeat.
As in the period before Diefenbaker, the PC had difficulty competing with the Liberals’ ability to bridge Québec and the other provinces. This changed in 1984 when PC leader Brian Mulroney led the party to a landslide victory. Mulroney managed to bring Québec into the PC fold and wedded that province’s support with the Conservatives’ traditional western support base. Mulroney’s pursuit of constitutional reform exposed the disagreements between western Canada and Québec over Canadian identity. The western wing of the party largely left to form the Reform Party in 1987, while the Québec wing of the party left to form the Bloc Québécois in 1990. In the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservative party was ruined, reduced to two seats in the House of Commons.
The Progressive Conservative party languished throughout most of the 1990s, slowly increasing its support to a handful of seats scattered across the country. Meanwhile, the Reform Party (reformed as the Canadian Alliance in 2000) had difficulty expanding beyond its western support base. In 2003, the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives merged to form the Conservative Party of Canada and chose Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper as leader in 2004. Harper led the Conservative Party of Canada to two minority governments in 2006 and 2008 and to a majority government in 2011. Harper’s careful, incremental pursuit of neo-conservative public policy led to a slow increase in support, but the party continued to struggle with gaining support in Québec.
Liberals
At its inception, the Liberal Party rested on a much narrower base. The Clear Grits of Canada West joined the anticlerical rouges of what is now Québec and the reform element in the Maritimes led by Joseph Howe. Little united these factions except for a common dislike of John A. Macdonald.
The ascension of Wilfrid Laurier to the leadership in 1887 transformed the party. Elegantly bilingual and a politician of genius, Laurier neutralized the hostility of the Roman Catholic Church in Québec toward the concept of political liberalism. His election victory in 1896 set the stage for the subsequent Liberal domination of Québec and for the party's predominance in the next century. Laurier lost office, however, when he again proposed free trade with the United States in 1911 (see Reciprocity). Robert Borden, who succeeded him and led the country through the First World War, solidified the deep anti-Conservative sentiment in Québec by imposing conscription in 1917 for what many Québécois considered an English, not a Canadian, war (see Election of 1917).
When Laurier died in 1919, his successor was William Lyon Mackenzie King. King's political philosophy prepared Canada, slowly but surely, for the welfare state, and his cautious statesmanship led the country through the Great Depression and the Second World War. From the time that King became leader, it would be fair to describe Canada as a single-party dominant state. For example, since 1921, the Conservatives have won 5 majority governments; the Liberals have won 12.
Louis St-Laurent (1948–58), a stolid lawyer, succeeded King. St-Laurent’s successor, Lester B. Pearson (1958–68), laid the plan for medicare, the Canada Pension Plan and Canada’s bilingualism and biculturalism policies. When Pierre Trudeau first took office in 1968, his government seemed radical, but practised a cautious management style. When he returned to office in 1980, he introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In 1984, the Liberals lost much of their Québec support base to the Conservatives and the party was swept from office. Aided partly by a divided opposition, the Liberals came back to power in 1993 under Jean Chrétien. The Liberals dominated the party system with three consecutive majority governments, and their parliamentary domination rested on a steady and relatively high share of the popular vote. After the Sponsorship Scandal came to light, the Liberals were reduced to a minority government in 2004 under Paul Martin. In 2006, the Liberals lost power, went through a succession of leaders and faced a decline in voter support. In 2011, the party was reduced to third place in the House of Commons.
New Democratic Party
Other parties were formed during the 20th century to challenge the dominance of the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) grew from the Progressive Party, a farm-based party led by Thomas Crerar from Manitoba and Henry Wise Wood in Alberta, radical populists who fought against the influence of the large financial interests such as banks and railways. As a national party, it survived for about 15 years, until some Progressive and United Farmers of Alberta MPs helped found the CCF in 1932.
The CCF's Regina Manifesto of 1933 defined the party as social democratic. Tommy Douglas led the party to power in Saskatchewan in 1944, where it became the first democratically elected social democratic government in North America (see Tommy Douglas: “Greatest Canadian”). It remained the leading party of the left until it faced near electoral annihilation in 1958. It then decided to ally with the recently formed Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) to form a new party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in 1961. The NDP provided Canada with a "two-and-a-half-party" system until the 1990s, a system in which the two large parties — the Liberals and Conservatives — were joined by a smaller party. Then a combination of weak leadership, scandal at the provincial level, competition from other protest parties and trade union dissatisfaction seriously weakened the party to the point where some, including its own members, questioned its survival.
The NDP experienced a revival under the leadership of Jack Layton, who became party leader in 2003. Layton’s likeable image, combined with his efforts to professionalize the party’s electoral machinery, helped to restore the NDP’s place in the party system. In 2011, Layton led the NDP to its best ever election result, as the NDP finished second and became the Official Opposition. Much of the NDP’s breakthrough came from Québec.
Bloc Québécois
The Bloc Québécois was founded as a parliamentary movement composed of Members of Parliament from Québec ridings who left the Conservative and Liberal parties after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. The parliamentary bloc was led by Lucien Bouchard, a Conservative Cabinet minister who resigned his seat and soon after formed the Bloc Québécois political party.
The Bloc runs candidates solely in the province of Québec and its principal policy is to promote Québec's interests and Québec sovereignty in the House of Commons. In the 1993 election, the Bloc received 54 seats, the second-largest number, and became the Official Opposition. The party slowly declined in support and was almost obliterated in the 2011 election when it lost all but four seats.
Green Party
The Green Party of Canada was founded in 1983 to promote environmental concerns. The party ran small numbers of candidates with little voter support until 2004. Changes to Canada’s party finance laws meant that a party that earned 2 per cent of the vote nationally would receive public funding. Under leader Jim Harris, the Greens nominated a full slate of candidates for the 2004 election and qualified for the funding. The combination of increased party resources and growing environmental consciousness among voters led to growth of the party, which received 7 per cent of the vote in 2008. Elizabeth May, who became leader of the party in 2006, won the Greens’ first ever seat in the House of Commons in 2011.
Fringe Parties
Besides the larger parties, Canada has seen a number of very small parties that meet the criteria for registration but earn small shares of the vote and do not win seats in the House of Commons (see Electoral Systems). Some of these parties, such as the Communist, Christian Heritage or Canadian Action parties, have lasted for a long period of time, while others might only contest one or two elections before fading away. Although these parties have little success electorally, they do allow their supporters to participate in the debate over the direction of the country.