Elections in Canada
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Canada holds elections for several levels of government: nationally (federally), provincially and territorially, and municipally. Elections are also held for self governing First Nations and for many other public and private organizations including corporations and trade unions. Formal elections have occurred in Canada since at least 1792, when both Upper Canada and Lower Canada had their first elections.
National voting is available to all Canadian citizens aged 18 or older except the Chief Electoral Officer and Assistant Chief Electoral Officer. Other elections may have citizenship, residency, and/or ownership requirements (some municipalities allow both residents and non-resident landowners to vote).
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National
The Parliament of Canada (French: Parlement du Canada) has two chambers. The House of Commons (French: Chambre des communes) has 308 members, elected for a maximum five-year term in single-seat constituencies. The Senate (French: Sénat) has 105 members appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Senators are given permanent terms (up to age 75) and thus often serve much longer than the Prime Minister who was primarily responsible for their appointment.
National elections are governed by the Canada Elections Act. Using the plurality voting system, Canadians vote for their local Member of Parliament (MP), who sits in the House of Commons. Most MPs are members of a federal political party, and generally the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes the Prime Minister. Canadians do not vote directly for the Prime Minister, nor do they vote for senators, who are appointed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the party leader who is elected in his/her local riding (or electoral district). While all Canadians do not vote for the prime minister, the prime minister must win election in a riding and all party members are involved in deciding who the party leader is(and thus the candidate for prime minister).
Although several parties are currently represented in Parliament, Canada has two dominant political parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, which have governed the country in some form since its formation in 1867.
Historically, the Prime Minister could ask the Governor General to call an election at virtually any time, although one had to be called no later than five years after the return of the writs the last election under section 4 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The same provision applies in all provinces and territories, although some provinces have local laws that require elections to be even earlier. However, in 2007 the Conservative-controlled Parliament passed an act fixing federal election dates every four years, unless the government loses the confidence of the House of Commons. Nevertheless, this law is largely symbolic as it does not curtail the power of the Prime Minister to request the dissolution of Parliament at any time, as demonstrated by the same Conservative government's call for elections one year prior to the legislated date without having lost a confidence motion.
If a government loses a "no confidence" motion traditionally the Prime Minister will ask the Governor General to call an election. The Governor General when approached by the Prime Minister who has lost a vote of confidence will traditionally call an election. However it is not assured as some assume. The Governor General also has the right to call the leader of the party they think would be most likely to be able to form government and ask them if they can form the government. This happened in 1926 and is referred to as the King-Byng Affair.
The five-year time limitation is strictly applied to the life of the Parliament or Assembly in question—this body is not deemed to have been "formed" until the return of the writs and ceases to exist the moment it is dissolved. It is therefore possible to run slightly longer than five years between election days, as was the case between the 1930 and 1935 elections.
It is also possible for a general election to be delayed should Canada be embroiled in a war or insurrection. This provision was enacted to allow Prime Minister Robert Borden to delay a federal election for about a year during World War I. Since then, the provision has only been used twice, both times by provincial governments—Ontario delayed an election for a few weeks in the year following the Armistice in 1918. Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction to delay a general election by more than a year due to World War II, but held an election in 1944, six years after the previous vote.
Traditionally, governments have waited four years between elections, but under Jean Chrétien's Liberal government in the 1990s, elections were held on average every three and half years. Parties generally only wait the maximum of five years between elections if they expect to lose, and hope (usually in vain) that a postponement will allow more time for things to change in their favour.
Elections are generally held in either the fall or spring. This avoids the problems of a winter campaign, where outdoor events are harder to hold. It also avoids the problems of the summer, when many Canadians are on holiday.
By-elections can be held between general elections when seats become vacant. The federal government can also hold nation-wide referendums on major issues. The last referendum was held in 1992 on proposed constitutional changes in the Charlottetown Accord. On occasion, one particular issue will dominate an election, and the election will in a sense be a virtual referendum. The most recent instance of this was the 1988 election, which was considered by most parties to be a referendum on free trade with the United States.
Every person who is Canadian citizen 18 years of age or older is allowed to vote except for the Chief Electoral Officer and the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer. In the Canada Elections Act, inmates serving a sentence of at least two years are also prohibited from voting, but on October 31, 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Sauvé v. Canada that such a law violated the section 3 of the Charter, and was rendered of no force or effect.
Election turnout has been steadily falling for many decades. Although turnout rose by four percent in the 2006 federal election, the following election saw the return of the declining trend. Currently, about sixty percent of registered voters vote in federal elections, but this amounts to less than 50% of the eligible, adult population.
The most recent election was held on October 14, 2008.
Length of election campaigns
The length of election campaigns can vary, but under the Elections Act,the minimum length of a campaign is 36 days. There is no explicit maximum length for a campaign, although section 5 of the Charter requires that the Parliament sit at least once every twelve months, and thus a campaign would have to conclude in time for returns to be completed and parliament to be called into session within twelve months of the previous sitting. The federal election date must be set on a Monday (or Tuesday if the Monday is a statutory holiday).
The longest election campaign was the 1926 election following the King-Byng Affair which lasted 74 days. Prior to the adoption of the minimum of 36 days in law, there were six elections that lasted shorter periods of time. The last of these was the 1904 election which occurred many decades before the time limit was imposed.
In practice, the Prime Minister will generally keep a campaign as brief as is legal and/or feasible, because spending by parties is strictly limited by the Elections Act, a law which contains no provisions that would allow for increased spending in a lengthy campaign. The 1997, 2000 and 2004 elections were all of the minimum 36 days in length which has led to a common misconception that elections must be 36 days long. However, prior to 1997, elections averaged much longer: aside from the 47 day campaign for the 1993 election, the shortest election period after World War II was 57 days and many were over 60 days in length.
Much speculation had surrounded how long the campaign for the 39th federal election would be in 2006, especially as it became certain the election would be called in the weeks preceding Christmas 2005. The government of Joe Clark, which fell on December 12, 1979, recommended a campaign of 66 days for the resulting election, and nothing legal barred a similarly lengthened campaign. In the end, the 2006 election was called on November 29, 2005, for January 23, 2006 — making a 55-day long campaign.
Provincial and territorial
The following table summarizes the results of the most recent provincial and territorial elections. A link to complete lists for each province and territory is below. The winning party is indicated in bold and by the coloured bar at the left of the table. The table does not show the current state of the parties within the legislative bodies; refer to the articles on the individual houses for the current state.
In some cases the provincial parties are not associated with the federal party of the same name. Thus, names of provincial parties are sometimes misleading when associating a provincial party with a national party, although the respective ideologies are usually fairly similar.
None of the current provincial Progressive Conservative Parties are formally linked with the federal Conservatives - the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada resulted in the formal disbanding of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The new federal party has never asked the provincial PC parties to re-establish any formal links, although informal links do exist in most provinces and the membership lists in many provinces are quite similar. Some provincial parties (such as Alberta) formally broke off links with the federal party prior to the merger. Both the Saskatchewan and Yukon parties are also closely tied to the Conservative party.
In British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec the provincial Liberals are wholly emancipated from the federal Liberals. The other provincial Liberal parties are autonomous entities but retain formal links with the federal party.
On the other hand, all provincial wings of the New Democratic Party are fully integrated with the federal NDP.
As stated above: this table does not show the current state of provincial legislatures, but rather the party standings as a result of the most recent election.
| Province or territory | Date of most recent election |
Total seats | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progressive Conservative | Liberal | New Democrat | Other | ||||
| Nova Scotia | 2009-06-09 | 9 | 11 | 32 | 52 | ||
| British Columbia | 2009-05-12 | 491 | 35 | 1 (Independent) | 85 | ||
| Quebec | 2008-12-08 | 661 | 51 (Parti Québécois) 7 (Action démocratique du Québec) 1 (Québec Solidaire) |
125 | |||
| Alberta | 2008-03-03 | 72 | 91 | 2 | 83 | ||
| Saskatchewan | 2007-11-07 | 20 | 38 (Saskatchewan Party) | 58 | |||
| Ontario | 2007-10-10 | 26 | 711 | 10 | 107 | ||
| Newfoundland & Labrador | 2007-10-09 | 44 | 3 | 1 | 48 | ||
| Prince Edward Island | 2007-05-28 | 4 | 23 | 27 | |||
| Manitoba | 2007-05-22 | 19 | 2 | 36 | 57 | ||
| Yukon | 2006-10-10 | 5 | 3 | 10 (Yukon Party) | 18 | ||
| New Brunswick | 2006-09-18 | 26 | 29 | 55 | |||
Nunavut does not have political parties, and political parties in the Northwest Territories were disbanded in 1905. MLAs in both territories are elected as independents and the legislatures function under a consensus government model. For lists of general elections in each province and territory, see the infobox at the bottom of the article.
1Note: Provincial Liberal parties that are not affiliated with the federal Liberal Party of Canada.
Municipal
Senate nominee (Alberta)
See also
- List of Canadian federal general elections
- List of political parties in Canada
- Canadian electoral calendar
- List of Canadian federal electoral districts
- Past Canadian electoral districts
- Referendums in Canada
- List of elections in the Province of Canada (pre-Confederation)
- List of federal by-elections in Canada
- Electronic voting in Canada
- Electoral calendar
- Electoral system
- Canadian electoral system
- Timeline of Canadian elections
External links
- Maple Leaf Web—Political Education Website
- Adam Carr's Election Archive
- Pollingreport.ca
- Election Almanac — Complete Coverage of Federal, Provincial and Territorial Elections in Canada
- CBC Digital Archives—Voting in Canada: How a Privilege Became a Right
- CBC Digital Archives—Campaigning for Canada
- Predicting the 2006 Canadian Election
- U.S. State Department estimates of Canadian elections
Publications
The Hill Times: Canada's national newsweekly of politics and government
"rabble.ca's election blog" Daily election commentary from across Canada, hosted on Canada's daily independent news website, rabble.ca
"Shotgun blog" The Western Standard's Shotgun blog, covering Canadian politics from a libertarian/conservative perspective
"The Western Standard" Canada's libertarian/conservative online news outlet
The Tyee: Daily Election stories from this daily independent BC-based online news source
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