Canadian Legislatures: Overview

•Canada has a total of 14 legislatures

•Parliament, most recognized, is in Ottawa
•Each province and territory has a legislature, located in its capital city
-Practices generally follow those of the federal House of Commons

The Structure of Legislatures

•Canada operates on the principles of a responsible government – this

requires executives to maintain the confidence of their respective
assemblies in order to continue ruling
•Lord Durham

•Constitution grants Canadians the opportunity to elect members of each legislature at

least once every five years

The Structure of Legislatures

•Fixed-date election law – prescribes that general elections be held on a particular date,
typically every four years

•By-election – district-level election held between general elections

•Confidence convention – practice under which a government must relinquish power

when it loses a critical legislative vote

The House of Commons

•House of Commons
-Represents the “common people”
-Supervising and holding to account the executive
-Passing laws and resolutions to govern the country
-Representing Canadians when debating pressing political issues of the day
The Composition of Legislatures

•Manufactured majorities – governing party’s share of the popular vote is less than 50%
(have a democratic society, but doesn’t seem fair to the ones who lose)

•Hung parliament – no single party controls at least half the seats

-Minority government – cabinet consists of members from only one political party

-Coalition government – cabinet consists of members from more than one

political party (only one in Canada at the federal level)

Controlling Legislative Behaviour

Party Discipline:

-Party whip – individual member responsible for ensuring caucus members toe the party
line

-Party leader controls:

-What partisans can speak about publicly
-Which parliamentarians may ask questions in legislature
-Appointment to legislative committees
-Deployment of party resources
-Sanctions, demotions, and ejections of caucus members

The Life of the Legislature

•Each session begins with throne speech, includes presentation of the budget and
budget estimates, and ends with prorogation or dissolution

•Each parliament consists of individual sessions, which consist of sittings separated by

periods of recess

•Parliament usually lasts 4 years and contains hundreds of individual sittings

Daily Business

•Standing orders – body of rules governing the conduct of the legislature

•Question period – the time allotted for members to ask oral questions of the
government in the legislature
•Opposition days – 20 days allocated to opposition parties so that they have time for
debate about their own motions

Creating Laws

•Laws are created, changed, and repealed after public debate and scrutiny

•Bill – a piece of draft legislation tabled in the legislature

-Private bills
-Public bills
-Government bills
-Money bills
-Private members’ bills
-Omnibus legislation