Browse "Government"

A minority government exists when the governing party does not hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons (or provincial legislature) but is still able to command the confidence of the House. Minority governments also exist at the provincial level and in Yukon, but not in Northwest Territories or Nunavut, which do not have political parties and are governed by consensus governments.

The activities of locally elected municipal councils are administered by officials and employees organized into municipal public-service departments (see MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT).

Municipal finance is concerned with the revenues and expenditures of municipalities. Revenues are secured from local taxes (see TAXATION) and other local revenues and from provincial and federal grants.

Municipal governments are local authorities created by the provinces and territories to provide services that are best managed under local control.

Municipalities in Canada are similar to provincial governments in a number of important respects.

Nationalization is the takeover of ownership and control of a privately owned enterprise by the STATE.

Founded in 1961, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is a social democratic political party that has formed the government in several provinces but never nationally. Its current leader is Jagmeet Singh. In 2011, it enjoyed an historic electoral breakthrough, becoming the Official Opposition in Parliament for the first time. Four years later, despite hopes of winning a federal election, the NDP was returned to a third-place position in the House of Commons. It slipped to fourth place in the 2019 federal election, after a resurgence from the Bloc Québécois.

Confirmed as British by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the peninsula of Nova Scotia was neglected until 1749 - a period of "phantom rule" and "counterfeit suzerainty.

An ombudsman is an independent officer of the legislature who investigates complaints from the public against administrative action and, if finding the action unfair, recommends a remedy.

The opening of Parliament may refer either to the beginning of the first session of PARLIAMENT after a general election or to the beginning of a subsequent session.

Opting-Out originated as a device by which one or more provinces choose not to participate in a federal-provincial shared cost program; instead the province receives direct payment (in cash or tax room) of funds which would have been spent there.

Order-in-council, at the federal level, is an order of the GOVERNOR GENERAL by and with the advice and consent of the Queen's PRIVY COUNCIL for Canada. In fact, it is formulated by CABINET or a committee of Cabinet and formally approved by the governor general. Some orders simply make appointments.

RECENT DISCLOSURES OF MORE mad cows in our midst raise the nagging question of why Canada is not doing far more to screen the nation's cattle herds for the dreaded bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease.

The new federal law on reproductive technology tabled last week was a long time coming. A royal commission studied the subject exhaustively from 1989 to 1993.

IT WASN'T QUITE what Paul MARTIN had promised. Instead of an uplifting exercise in televised democracy, his summit with the premiers lapsed into behind-closed-doors horse trading.

On a day when Premier Jacques Parizeau and more than 1,000 of his closest sovereigntist friends were meeting for an occasion they deemed "historic," the man most of them consider Quebec's constitutional devil incarnate was less than 25 km away, doing his best to ignore them.

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.

“Peace, order and good government” are the words used in section 91 of the British North America Act of 1867 (now Constitution Act, 1867) to define the Canadian Parliament’s lawmaking authority in relation to provincial authority. The phrase’s vague and broad definition of Parliament’s authority over provincial matters has caused tensions between federal and provincial governments over the scope of powers since Confederation. It has come to be considered the Canadian counterpart to the United States’ “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Canadians participate in the political system any time they voluntarily try to influence the outcome of an election, or a government or party policy.