How Canada's Parliament Works

Because Canada is a constitutional monarchy, our system of government operates under the Parliamentary System.

Canada's Parliament is divided into the following two chambers:

The Parliament of Canada's job is to pass bills to make laws. All laws originate in the House of Commons, pass through the Senate, and are signed by the figurehead represenative of the Queen, the Governor General. You can find more information on the three specific branches on either the House, Senate, or Monarchy pages.

Canada has no set term limits or election dates for members of parliament. The Prime Minister is allowed to call elections whenever he pleases, usually once every three or four years. There is a limit, however, and he cannot call an election any later than five years of the last one.

The fact the PM can decide the date of his own election is often widely criticized. It more or less ensures that the PM will always call an election when his approval rating is highest, in an attempt to ride that wave of public support to reelection. However, waiting too long to call an election can have its consequences, too. The people expect elections fairly regularly, and if a PM overstays his welcome, he is likely to suffer the consequences at the ballot box.

When he decides the time is right, the PM goes to visit the Governor General and asks him or her to close the parliament so the country can elect a new one. The Prime Minister announces that a Federal Election will be held, and everyone campaigns for 38 days, then Canadians go to the polls and vote.

The last four elections have been in: June of 2004, November of 2000, June of 1997, and October of 1993.

In a Federal Election, people all over Canada go out and cast their ballots for the person they want to represent them as their Member of Parliament (MP). Each Member of Parliament represents a different riding, usually a city or town. The Province of Ontario, for example, has 103 ridings.

It is important to understand that under the Canadian parliamentary system,"you elect the party, not the person." Thus, the Prime Minister of Canada is not directly elected by the people, but rather appointed based on party status.

A ballot in a Canadian Federal election looks like this:

then you put an X in the circle beside the person whom you want to be your Member of Parliament. The votes are tallied, and the person who gets a plurality of the votes is sent to Ottawa. Since Canada has so many political parties, the plurality system sometimes seems a little flawed. It is not unusual, for example, for an MP to be elected with only 30% of the vote.

Following an election, the Governor General asks the leader of the party with the most MPs in the House to form a Government and become Prime Minister. In this case, the largest party in the House is the Liberal Party, so the Prime Minister is currently Liberal Party leader Paul Martin.

There are no elections for the Senate, since that body is appointed by the Prime Minister. Elections for other political offices in Canada, such as mayors and provincial parliaments are all held on different time tables.

There are a bunch of different important people in Parliament, along with the Prime Minister. Here are the main ones:

For starters, there are the party leaders I mentioned. Party leaders, as the name suggests, are the heads of Canada's political parties. They lead their MPs, and generally tell them how to vote and what to do. They also hold press conferences and denounce the current government. Except of course, for the Party Leader who is currently serving as Prime Minister.

The Leaders of the different political parties are usually sitting Members of Parliament. For example, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper is the MP for Calgary, Alberta.

There are two speakers in Canada, the Speaker of the House, who is the guy who mediates the House of Commons, and the Speaker of the Senate, who mediates the Senate. The Prime Minister choses both people, but the house speaker must be ratified by a vote of approval by the MPs.

The Speakers sits on a big thrones at the end of their respective chambers and wear long black robes like a judge. When Parliament is debating, he tells the individual MPs and the PM and the Party Leaders and the cabinet ministers and everyone else when it is their time to speak. When Members of Parliament and Senators debate with each other, they never call each other by name, which is taboo for some reason. Instead, they pretend like they are talking to the speaker.

INCORRECT: "Hey Joe Blow, when is your screwed-up party going to pass some welfare reform?"

CORRECT: "Mr. Speaker, when is your screwed-up party going to pass some welfare reform?"

Cabinet

After he takes office, the Prime Minister is required to appoint his cabinet. Cabinet members must be chosen from the ranks of sitting MPs from the Prime Minister's party. In Canada, Cabinets are quite large. Currently, Mr. Martin's cabinet has 35 members, which means that about 17% of Liberal Party MPs are also Cabinet Ministers.

Each member of the cabinet is called a minister. There is a minister of finance, a minister of health, a minister of foreign affairs, a minister of defense, etc.

The Loyal Opposition

The Conservative Party of Canada is the second-largest party in Parliament. Thus, the leader of the Conservatives, Stephen Harper, is known as "Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition". He gets to live in a special house and gets a fancy oil portrait and everything. As Leader of the Loyal Opposition, it is Mr. Harper's job to form an Opposition Cabinet of Conservative Party MPs. For every minister Mr. Martin appoints, Mr. Harper must appoint an Opposition Minister. The purpose of Opposition Ministers, or critics is to criticize the actions of the government in a carefully targeted fashion.

Basically, Opposition Ministers are supposed to hold the government accountable, and raise questions about the specific actions of cabinet ministers.

The Opposition Cabinet has one other purpose, and that is to serve as the Government-in-Waiting. In the old days, there were only two political parties in Canada, and they always split the House of Commons fairly equally. In those days, if the Prime Minister resigned, the Governor General would appoint the Leader of the Loyal Opposition to replace him. The new Prime Minister would be able to start working immediately, as he would already have a full, functioning cabinet. Today, with three other powerful opposition parties, and increasingly large majority governments, it is very difficult for the Opposition Cabinet to seriously claim to be a functional Government-in-waiting.