Politics of Canada

Canada's governmental structure was originally established by the British Parliament through the British North America Act (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867),[16] but the federal model and division of powers were devised by Canadian politicians. Particularly after World War I, citizens of the self-governing Dominions, such as Canada, began to develop a strong sense of identity, and, in the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the British government expressed its intent to grant full autonomy to these regions.

Thus in 1931, the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, giving legal recognition to the autonomy of Canada and other Dominions. Following this, Canadian politicians were unable to obtain consensus on a process for amending the constitution until 1982, meaning amendments to Canada's constitution continued to require the approval of the British parliament until that date. Similarly, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britain continued to make the final decision on criminal appeals until 1933 and on civil appeals until 1949.[17]

A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Canada's egalitarian approach to governance has emphasized social welfare, economic freedom, and multiculturalism, which is based on selective economic migrants, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, that has wide public and political support.[18][19] Its broad range of constituent nationalities and policies that promote a "just society" are constitutionally protected.[20][21] Individual rights, equality and inclusiveness (social equality) have risen to the forefront of political and legal importance for most Canadians, as demonstrated through support for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a relatively free economy, and social liberal attitudes toward women's rights (like pregnancy termination), homosexuality, euthanasia or cannabis use.[22][20][21][14][23] There is also a sense of collective responsibility in Canadian political culture, as is demonstrated in general support for universal health care, multiculturalism, gun control, foreign aid, and other social programs.[24][25][26][27]

At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively centrist parties practicing "brokerage politics[lower-alpha 1]",[30][31][32] the centre-left Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right Conservative Party of Canada.[33] "The traditional brokerage model of Canadian politics leaves little room for ideology" [34] - as the Canadian catch-all party system requires support from a broad spectrum of voters.[28][31][32][30] The historically predominant Liberals position themselves at the centre of the political scale,[35] with the Conservatives sitting on the right and the New Democratic Party occupying the left.[36][37][38] Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2019 election: the Liberal Party who currently form the government, the Conservative Party who are the Official Opposition, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party of Canada.[39]

Type of government

Westminster style federal parliamentary democracy within a constitutional monarchy.

Administrative divisions

Ten provinces and three territories*: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories*, Nova Scotia, Nunavut*, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Yukon*.

Constitution

Westminster system, based on unwritten conventions and written legislation.

Legal system

English common law for all matters within federal jurisdiction and in all provinces and territories except Quebec, which is based on the civil law, based on the Custom of Paris in pre-revolutionary France as set out in the Civil Code of Quebec; accepts compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction, with reservations.

Suffrage

Citizens aged 18 years or older. Only two adult citizens in Canada cannot vote: the Chief Electoral Officer, and the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer. The Governor General is eligible to vote, but abstains due to constitutional convention.

Executive power

Canada's Prime Ministers from 1867 to 1963. The Prime Minister of Canada serves as the head of government.

Head of government

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada (since November 4, 2015).

Cabinet

Ministers (usually around thirty) chosen by the prime minister and appointed by the governor general to lead various ministries and agencies, generally with regional representation. Traditionally most, if not all, cabinet ministers will be members of the leader's own party in the House of Commons or Senate (see Cabinet of Canada); however this is not legally or constitutionally mandated, and occasionally, the prime minister will appoint a cabinet minister from another party.

Elections

The monarchy is hereditary. The governor general is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister for a non-specific term, though it is traditionally approximately five years. Following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons is usually designated by the governor general to become Prime Minister.

Further information: Monarchy of Canada, Monarchy in the Canadian provinces, Lieutenant-Governor (Canada), Premier (Canada), and Elections in Canada

Legislative power

The bicameral Parliament of Canada consists of three parts: the monarch, the Senate, and the House of Commons.

Currently, the Senate, which is frequently described as providing "regional" representation, has 105 members appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister to serve until age 75. It was created with equal representation from each of Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime region and the Western Provinces. However, it is currently the product of various specific exceptions, additions and compromises, meaning that regional equality is not observed, nor is representation-by-population. The normal number of senators can be exceeded by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, as long as the additional senators are distributed equally with regard to region (up to a total of eight additional Senators). This power of additional appointment has only been used once, when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney petitioned Queen Elizabeth II to add eight seats to the Senate so as to ensure the passage of the Goods and Services Tax legislation.

A democratically elected body, the House of Commons of Canada is one of three components of the Parliament of Canada.

The House of Commons currently has 338 members elected in single-member districts in a plurality voting system (first past the post), meaning that members must attain only a plurality (the most votes of any candidate) rather than a majority (50 percent plus one). The electoral districts are also known as ridings.

Mandates cannot exceed five years; an election must occur by the end of this time. This fixed mandate has been exceeded only once, when Prime Minister Robert Borden perceived the need to do so during World War I. The size of the House and apportionment of seats to each province is revised after every census, conducted every five years, and is based on population changes and approximately on representation-by-population.

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A map of Canada's provinces and territories

William Lyon Mackenzie King (centre), Prime minister of Canada, between Howard Ferguson (left), Premier of Ontario, and Louis-Alexandre Taschereau(right), Premier of Quebec, at the Dominion-Provincial Conference, 1927.

In Canada, the provinces are considered co-sovereign; sovereignty of the provinces is passed on, not by the Governor General or the Canadian parliament, but through the Crown itself. This means that the Crown is "divided" into 11 legal jurisdictions or 11 "Crowns" – one federal (the Crown in right of Canada), and ten provincial (an example being the Crown in right of British Columbia).

Federal-provincial (or intergovernmental, formerly Dominion-provincial) relations is a regular issue in Canadian politics: Quebec wishes to preserve and strengthen its distinctive nature, western provinces desire more control over their abundant natural resources, especially energy reserves; industrialized Central Canada is concerned with its manufacturing base, and the Atlantic provinces strive to escape from being less affluent than the rest of the country.

In order to ensure that social programs such as health care and education are funded consistently throughout Canada, the "have-not" (poorer) provinces receive a proportionately greater share of federal "transfer (equalization) payments" than the richer, or "have", provinces do; this has been somewhat controversial. The richer provinces often favour freezing transfer payments, or rebalancing the system in their favour, based on the claim that they already pay more in taxes than they receive in federal government services, and the poorer provinces often favour an increase on the basis that the amount of money they receive is not sufficient for their existing needs.

Particularly in the past decade, some scholars have argued that the federal government's exercise of its unlimited constitutional spending power has contributed to strained federal-provincial relations. This power, which allows the federal government to spend the revenue it raises in any way that it pleases, allows it to overstep the constitutional division of powers by creating programs that encroach on areas of provincial jurisdiction. The federal spending power is not expressly set out in the Constitution Act, 1867; however, in the words of the Court of Appeal for Ontario the power "can be inferred" from s. 91(1A), "the public debt and property".[41]

A prime example of an exercise of the spending power is the Canada Health Act, which is a conditional grant of money to the provinces. Regulation of health services is, under the Constitution, a provincial responsibility. However, by making the funding available to the provinces under the Canada Health Act contingent upon delivery of services according to federal standards, the federal government has the ability to influence health care delivery. This spending power, coupled with Supreme Court rulings—such as Reference re Canada Assistance Plan (B.C.)—that have held that funding delivered under the spending power can be reduced unilaterally at any time, has contributed to strained federal-provincial relations.

Canada has a long and storied history of secessionist movements (see Secessionist movements of Canada). National unity has been a major issue in Canada since the forced union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1840.

The predominant and lingering issue concerning Canadian national unity has been the ongoing conflict between the French-speaking majority in Quebec and the English-speaking majority in the rest of Canada. Quebec's continued demands for recognition of its "distinct society" through special political status has led to attempts for constitutional reform, most notably with the failed attempts to amend the constitution through the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord (the latter of which was rejected through a national referendum).

Since the Quiet Revolution, sovereigntist sentiments in Quebec have been variably stoked by the patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982 (without Quebec's consent) and by the failed attempts at constitutional reform. Two provincial referenda, in 1980 and 1995, rejected proposals for sovereignty with majorities of 60% and 50.6% respectively. Given the narrow federalist victory in 1995, a reference was made by the Chrétien government to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 regarding the legality of unilateral provincial secession. The court decided that a unilateral declaration of secession would be unconstitutional. This resulted in the passage of the Clarity Act in 2000.

The Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party which runs candidates exclusively in Quebec, was started by a group of MPs who left the Progressive Conservative (PC) party (along with several disaffected Liberal MPs), and first put forward candidates in the 1993 federal election. With the collapse of the PCs in that election, the Bloc and Liberals were seen as the only two viable parties in Quebec. Thus, prior to the 2006 election, any gain by one party came at the expense of the other, regardless of whether national unity was really at issue. The Bloc, then, benefited (with a significant increase in seat total) from the impressions of corruption that surrounded the Liberal Party in the lead-up to the 2004 election. However, the newly unified Conservative party re-emerged as a viable party in Quebec by winning 10 seats in the 2006 election. In the 2011 election, the New Democratic Party succeeded in winning 59 of Quebec's 75 seats, successfully reducing the number of seats of every other party substantially. The NDP surge nearly destroyed the Bloc, reducing them to 4 seats, far below the minimum requirement of 12 seats for Official party status.

Newfoundland and Labrador is also a problem regarding national unity. As the Dominion of Newfoundland was a self-governing country equal to Canada until 1949, there are large, though unco-ordinated, feelings of Newfoundland nationalism and anti-Canadian sentiment among much of the population. This is due in part to the perception of chronic federal mismanagement of the fisheries, forced resettlement away from isolated settlements in the 1960s, the government of Quebec still drawing inaccurate political maps whereby they take parts of Labrador, and to the perception that mainland Canadians look down upon Newfoundlanders. In 2004, the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party contested provincial elections and in 2008 in federal ridings within the province. In 2004, then-premier Danny Williams ordered all federal flags removed from government buildings as a result of lost offshore revenues to equalization clawbacks.[43] On December 23, 2004, premier Williams made this statement to reporters in St. John's,

"They basically slighted us, they are not treating us as a proper partner in Confederation. It's intolerable and it's insufferable and these flags will be taken down indefinitely. It's also quite apparent to me that we were dragged to Manitoba in order to punish us, quite frankly, to try to embarrass us, to bring us out there to get no deal and send us back with our tail between our legs."

— Premier Danny Williams[43]

Western alienation is another national-unity-related concept that enters into Canadian politics. Residents of the four western provinces, particularly Alberta, have often been unhappy with a lack of influence and a perceived lack of understanding when residents of Central Canada consider "national" issues. While this is seen to play itself out through many avenues (media, commerce, and so on.), in politics, it has given rise to a number of political parties whose base constituency is in western Canada. These include the United Farmers of Alberta, who first won federal seats in 1917, the Progressives (1921), the Social Credit Party (1935), the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (1935), the Reconstruction Party (1935), New Democracy (1940) and most recently the Reform Party (1989).

The Reform Party's slogan "The West Wants In" was echoed by commentators when, after a successful merger with the PCs, the successor party to both parties, the Conservative Party won the 2006 election. Led by Stephen Harper, who is an MP from Alberta, the electoral victory was said to have made "The West IS In" a reality. However, regardless of specific electoral successes or failures, the concept of western alienation continues to be important in Canadian politics, particularly on a provincial level, where opposing the federal government is a common tactic for provincial politicians. For example, in 2001, a group of prominent Albertans produced the Alberta Agenda, urging Alberta to take steps to make full use of its constitutional powers, much as Quebec has done.

Canada is considered by most sources to be a very stable democracy. In 2006, The Economist ranked Canada the third-most democratic nation in its Democracy Index, ahead of all other nations in the Americas and ahead of every nation more populous than itself. In 2008, Canada was ranked World No. 11 and again ahead of all countries more populous and ahead of other states in the Americas. (In 2008, the United States was ranked World No. 18, Uruguay World No. 23, and Costa Rica World No. 27.)

The Liberal Party of Canada, under the leadership of Paul Martin,[44] won a minority victory in the June 2004 general elections. In December 2003, Martin had succeeded fellow Liberal Jean Chrétien, who had, in 2000, become the first prime minister to lead three consecutive majority governments since 1945. However, in 2004 the Liberals lost seats in Parliament, going from 172 of 301 parliamentary seats to 135 of 308, and from 40.9% to 36.7% in the popular vote. The Canadian Alliance, which did well in western Canada in the 2000 election but was unable to make significant inroads in the East, merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the Conservative Party of Canada in late 2003.

They proved to be moderately successful in the 2004 campaign, gaining seats from a combined Alliance-PC total of 78 in 2000 to 99 in 2004. However, the new Conservatives lost in popular vote, going from 37.7% in 2000 down to 29.6%. In 2006, the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, won a minority government with 124 seats. They improved their percentage from 2004, garnering 36.3% of the vote. During this election, the Conservatives also made major breakthroughs in Quebec. They gained 10 seats here, whereas in 2004 they had no seats.

At the 2011 federal election, the Conservatives won a majority government with 167 seats. For the first time, the NDP became the Official Opposition, with 102 seats; the Liberals finished in third place with 34 seats. This was the first election in which the Green Party won a seat, that of leader Elizabeth May; the Bloc won 4 seats, losing official party status.

Realignment: Conservatives in power

See also: Political realignment § Canada

Political shift in Canada from 2004 to 2011

The governing political party(s) in each Canadian province. Multicolored provinces are governed by a coalition or minority government consisting of more than one party.

The Liberal Party, after dominating Canadian politics since the 1920s, was in decline in early years of the 21st century. As Lang (2010) concluded, they lost their majority in Parliament in the 2004 election, were defeated in 2006, and in 2008 became little more than a "rump", falling to their lowest seat count in decades and a mere 26% of the popular vote. Furthermore, said Lang (a Liberal himself), its prospects "are as bleak as they have ever been."[45] In the 2011 election, the Liberals suffered a crushing defeat, managing to secure only 18.9% of the vote share and only 34 seats. As a result, the Liberals lost their status as official opposition to the NDP.

In explaining those trends, Behiels (2010) synthesized major studies and reported that "a great many journalists, political advisors, and politicians argue that a new political party paradigm is emerging"[46] She claimed they saw a new power configuration based on a right-wing political party capable of sharply changing the traditional role of the state (federal and provincial) in the twenty-first-century. Behiels said that, unlike Brian Mulroney who tried but failed to challenge the long-term dominance of the Liberals, Harper's attempt had proven to be more determined, systematic and successful.[47]

Many commentators thought it signalled a major realignment. The Economist said, "the election represents the biggest realignment of Canadian politics since 1993."[48] Lawrence Martin, commentator for the Globe and Mail said, "Harper has completed a remarkable reconstruction of a Canadian political landscape that endured for more than a century. The realignment saw both old parties of the moderate middle, the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals, either eliminated or marginalized."[49] Maclean's said, the election marked "an unprecedented realignment of Canadian politics" as "the Conservatives are now in a position to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party in Canada."[50]

Despite the grim outlook and poor early poll numbers, when the 2015 election was held, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau had an unprecedented comeback and the realignment was proved only temporary. Gaining 148 seats, they won a majority government for the first time since 2000.[51] The Toronto Star claimed the comeback was "headed straight for the history books" and that Harper's name would "forever be joined with that of his Liberal nemesis in Canada’s electoral annals".[52] Spencer McKay for the National Post suggested that "maybe we’ve witnessed a revival of Canada’s 'natural governing party'".[53]

The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the Canadian justice system.

The highest court in Canada is the Supreme Court of Canada and is the final court of appeal in the Canadian justice system. The court is composed of nine judges: eight Puisne Justices and the Chief Justice of Canada. Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada are appointed by the Governor-in-Council. The Supreme Court Act limits eligibility for appointment to persons who have been judges of a superior court, or members of the bar for ten or more years. Members of the bar or superior judge of Quebec, by law, must hold three of the nine positions on the Supreme Court of Canada.[60]

The Canadian government operates the public service using departments, smaller agencies (for example, commissions, tribunals, and boards), and crown corporations. There are two types of departments: central agencies such as Finance, Privy Council Office, and Treasury Board Secretariat have an organizing and oversight role for the entire public service; line departments are departments that perform tasks in a specific area or field, such as the departments of Agriculture, Environment, or Defence.

• Significant departments include Finance, Revenue, Human Resources and Skills Development, National Defence, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and Foreign Affairs/International Trade.

Scholar Peter Aucoin, writing about the Canadian Westminster system, raised concerns in the early 2000s about the centralization of power; an increased number, role and influence of partisan-political staff; personal-politicization of appointments to the senior public service; and the assumption that the public service is promiscuously partisan for the government of the day.[61]

In 1967, Canada established a point-based system to determine if immigrants should be eligible to enter the country, using meritorious qualities such as the applicant's ability to speak both French and English, their level of education, and other details that may be expected of someone raised in Canada. This system was considered ground-breaking at the time since prior systems were slanted on the basis of ethnicity. However, many foreign nationals still found it challenging to secure work after emigrating, resulting in a higher unemployment rate amongst the immigrant population. After winning power at the 2006 federal election, the Conservative Party sought to curb this issue by placing weight on whether or not the applicant has a standing job offer in Canada. The change has been a source of some contention as opponents argue that businesses use this change to suppress wages, with corporate owners leveraging the knowledge that an immigrant should hold a job to successfully complete the immigration process.[62]

• Elections
  • House of Commons: direct plurality representation (last election held October 21, 2019)
  • Senate: appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister
• Election results

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Politics by provinces

•  Canada portal
•  Politics portal
• Conservatism in Canada
• Federal political financing in Canada
• Liberalism in Canada
• List of Canadian federal general elections
• List of Canadian federal electoral districts
• List of Canadian political scandals
• List of political parties in Canada
• Republicanism in Canada

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Politics of Canada.

• Canada Newsnet (formerly PoliWonk) - Extensive Canadian Politics news and resources
• Canadian-Politics.com Comprehensive overview of politics in Canada
• CBC Digital Archives – Scandals, Boondoggles and White Elephants
• CBC Digital Archives – Campaigning for Canada
• Canadian Governments Compared
• Canadian Politics Online Digital Textbook