When I’ll take the oath of cit­i­zen­ship, I’ll have to swear that “I will be faith­ful and bear true alle­giance to Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth the Sec­ond”. Yes… even though Canada is a sov­er­eign coun­try, it is a con­sti­tu­tional monar­chy with Eliz­a­beth II, Queen of Canada, as head of state, and a par­lia­men­tary democ­racy with a fed­eral sys­tem. Sounds com­pli­cated, doesn’t it?

Par­lia­ment Hill in Ottawa

Eliz­a­beth II is the sov­er­eign and head of state of Canada, and holds the exec­u­tive, judi­cial and leg­isla­tive pow­ers. In prac­tice, the monarch appoints a Gov­er­nor Gen­eral to rep­re­sent her. Michaëlle Jean is the cur­rent Gov­er­nor General.

The Prime Min­is­ter of Canada is the head of gov­ern­ment. He is usu­ally the leader of the polit­i­cal party that has the most seats in the House of Com­mon. We cur­rently have a minor­ity gov­ern­ment, which is when no party has a major­ity in the House of Com­mon. Stephen Harper, leader of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party has been Prime Min­is­ter since Feb­ru­ary 6, 2006; and Stéphane Dion, leader of the Lib­eral Party of Canada, has been Leader of the Oppo­si­tion since Decem­ber 2, 2006

Canada is a very decen­tral­ized fed­er­a­tion: each province has a lieutenant-governor, a pre­mier and a legislature.

Canada’s two main polit­i­cal par­ties are the Lib­eral Party, and the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party. Other major par­ties include the Bloc Québé­cois and the New Demo­c­ra­tic Party (NDP).

We also have a few small­est (and fun­ni­est) par­ties, such as:

• The Mar­i­juana Party (for­mer Bloc Pot) which aims at… well, legal­iz­ing marijuana
• The West­ern Block Party, which pro­motes the inde­pen­dence of West­ern Canada
• The Work Less Party, which aims to defend worker’s right

Busi­ness and pri­vate sec­tor thrive in Toronto, but Ottawa is all about pol­i­tics. The fed­eral cap­i­tal is indeed home the the nation’s Par­lia­ment and most of the fed­eral min­istries. It some­times seems that every­one here is work­ing for the gov­ern­ment, directly or indi­rectly. Nowhere else in the coun­try you will find peo­ple argu­ing at Star­bucks about the lat­est cab­i­net reshuf­fle at Fish­eries and Ocean or the appoint­ment of a new pol­icy ana­lyst at Cana­dian Bor­der Ser­vices Agency. Also known as CBSA. Because we all talk in acronyms here. Goes with the job!

And the last post close my Canadian-ism(s) series. Next week, I’ll start a 10 posts series on blog­ging. You’ll learn about Word­Press and Blog­ger, plu­g­ins, how to set up a self-hosted blog, mak­ing money online and much more! I’ll pub­lish it every Sat­ur­day — enjoy!

Related arti­cles:

1. … And The Gov­ern­ment Fell
2. 10 Cana­dian Polit­i­cal Facts
3. Spring is Cam­paign Signs Season
4. Pic­ture of the Week: Orange Crush
5. I Can Vote!