Canadian Politics 101

With Canada in the news, it's a good time to return to examining the governing situation for our neighbors up north. About a year ago, we highlighted the differences between the federalist system in the United States (a republic) and Canada (a constitutional monarchy). Like many countries, Canada has a parliamentary system, which differs significantly from our own. 

A major difference is that in a parliamentary system, the leader of the political party in power can change mid-election. That’s what will happen soon as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party last month. Now, Trudeau remains Prime Minister until the Liberal Party holds its next leadership election on March 9 with the winner expected to assume the office of Prime Minister. Keep in mind that Canada is also scheduled to hold a federal election on October 20, 2025. So there’s a decent chance that whoever emerges as the new leader of the Liberals could only stay on as PM for a few months. 

And what about those political parties? As mentioned, the Liberal party, which is the center or center-left party, currently holds a majority of 153 seats in the House of Commons. The main opposition party in Canada is the Conservative Party, which was formed in 2003 from the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance, and holds 120 seats. There are another two minor parties with significant seats in Parliament. The Bloc Québécois, which holds 33 seats, promotes Quebec sovereignty and only runs candidates in the province of Quebec. Finally, the New Democratic Party (NDP), sitting to the left of the Liberal party on the political spectrum, has 25 seats. A party requires 172 seats for an outright majority, but they often come up short, which requires making deals with other parties in order to elect a PM. Currently, the NDP supplied the Liberals with the extra votes needed to stay in power and form a “minority government.”

Of course, in a parliamentary system, elections can always take place sooner than originally scheduled. That’s called a “snap election” and down at the provincial level, that’s what’s taking place at the end of this month in Ontario. The next provincial election in Ontario had not been scheduled to take place until June 4, 2026. However, last week Ontario Premier Doug Ford (similar to a governor in the U.S.) called a snap election for Feb. 27, 2025, instead. Premier Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party (PC) anticipates a better outcome if the election is held now than after the next federal election. You might notice that the PC Party is not listed in my breakdown of Canadian political parties above, and that’s because each province has its own political parties that are different than the political parties at the Canadian federal level. Fun!

Track Canadian Legislation

If Canadian politics is making you a bit dizzy, don’t worry! MultiState’s legislative tracking service is now tracking Canada’s federal government along with the 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories, in addition to Congress, and the 50 states in the U.S., and Puerto Rico.

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This article appeared in our Morning MultiState newsletter on February 4, 2025. For more timely insights like this, be sure to sign up for our Morning MultiState weekly morning tipsheet. We created Morning MultiState with state government affairs professionals in mind — sign up to receive the latest from our experts in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Click here to sign up.