Canadian Politics: Difference between revisions

Canada is divided into ten provinces - from east to west: Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island ("PEI"), New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia ("BC") - and three territories - Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ("NWT"), and the Yukon.<ref>Territories differ from provinces in that the power of a territory is conferred by the federal government with an Act of Parliament in the name of the Sovereign (like all legislation), while the power of a province is granted directly from the Sovereign by the province's constitution. In other words, it's ''exactly'' like the difference between a US state and a US territory, except for the obvious difference that the US, being a republic, doesn't have an individual Sovereign to confer legitimacy, and relies on "The People" to act as a mass Sovereign.</ref> Each province elects a Legislative Assembly, whose members are normally named Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), though Ontario calls them Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs), Quebec calls them Members of the National Assembly (MNAs), and [[Insistent Terminology|Newfoundland and Labrador]] calls them Members of the House of Legislature (MHLs). All provinces and the Yukon territory use a similar election system to the federal House of Commons, though generally the ridings are different. (Ontario has legislated that its provincial ridings have the same boundaries as the federal ridings in the province.) The leader of the party with the most members generally becomes the Premier, though there are occasional exceptions when two smaller parties form a coalition to create a majority (as happened in Ontario in 1985). The Northwest Territories and Nunavut operate using a non-partisan consensus government model, unique to the territories (though similar theoretically to Nebraska's non-executive legislature and most municipalities in Canada); the premier and speaker are then chosen from the elected MLAs, who are all officially independent of political parties. This model is supposedly based on the traditions of the Inuit and other peoples indigenous to the territories. MLAs in the NWT and Nunavut may be affiliated with federal parties privately, however, and should they pursue federal politics, align with a federal party (the two territories are represented by Liberal, NDP and Conservative politicians in parliament and the senate). Each province also has a Lieutenant Governor (or a Commissioner in the three territories), the Sovereign's representative, appointed on recommendation from the Governor General.

Municipal politics are pretty much the same all over: the people of each city elect a mayor and around some number (ranging from a handful in small towns to 44 in [[Toronto]]) councilors depending on population. <!-- While party politics tend to be absent of smaller towns, bigger cities tend to have parties, though they are generally unrelated to the provincial and federal parties. CITATION NEEDED --> Party politics is legally completely absent in municipal politics in Ontario (including in the country's most populous city, [[Toronto]]). In Quebec, even small towns have multiple municipal political parties.

''A note for American readers: the Canadian political centre (as used to describeddescribe parties here) is to the left of [[American Political System|the American center]]. Canadian conservatives might be right-leaning "Blue Dog Democrats" or moderate "Rockefeller Republicans" in the USA, while the Liberals' politics are closer to those of the left wing of the Democrats (e.g. Nancy Pelosi). The NDP are to the left of anything mainstream in the USA -- a few prominent names on the American version of the "extreme left", such as Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich, would probably be considered moderate progressives within the NDP.''