Official Party Status
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Official party status refers to the
Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
practice which is used in the
Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada () is the Canadian federalism, federal legislature of Canada. The Monarchy of Canada, Crown, along with two chambers: the Senate of Canada, Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons, form the Bicameral ...
and the provincial legislatures of recognizing parliamentary caucuses of
political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
. In parliamentary documents, this is sometimes referred to as being a recognized party ().


History

Traditionally in Westminster-style parliaments, the only non-governmental member other than the speaker with a recognized status is the Leader of the Opposition. This would be the member who had the widest support among opposition MPs, who would take the lead in questioning the government during parliamentary debates, and who would traditionally be called upon by the Monarch or Governor General to attempt to form a government if the previous government lost the confidence of the House. As political parties became more formalized in the 20th century, some Westminster parliaments (particularly in Canada, but also elsewhere) began to recognize opposition political party caucuses as having a distinct role, where they would have their own opportunities to ask questions during parliamentary debates and have their own organizational budgets and offices within the parliament buildings. Recognition in Parliament allows party caucuses certain
parliamentary privilege Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties ...
s. Generally official party status depends on winning a minimum number of seats (that is, the number of Members of Parliament or Members of the Legislative Assembly elected). The type of recognition and threshold needed to obtain it varies. However, the most coveted privileges are funding for party research offices and the right to ask questions during
Question Period Question Period (QP; ), known officially as Oral Questions (), occurs each sitting day in the House of Commons of Canada—similarly in provincial legislatures—in which members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (includin ...
. At the federal level in Canada, the idea of recognizing parties for official status started in 1963. Prior to this, the only opposition recognition was that of the
Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the Opposition (parliamentary), largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the ...
, effectively limiting "official status" to the Government and the largest Opposition party. It was not until 1970 that the Elections Act was amended to allow parties to register and thus have their party name on the ballot. Most of the rules governing official party status are not laws, but are internal rules governing the legislatures. Therefore, the members of a legislature may, if they choose, pass a motion to dispense with the rules and grant official status to parties that would otherwise fail to qualify. There are many examples of this practice in multiple areas.


Requirements for official party status

Sometimes, the requirements for official party status are set out either in a law or in the parliament's Rules of Procedure. These rules may usually be changed or waived by a vote of the House (for instance, to allow some or all official party privileges to a party that does not meet the minimum requirements set out in the Rules).


Special cases


House of Commons

Under the Canadian War Service Voting Regulations, 1944, membership standings in the House of Commons of eight or more were used to qualify leaders to appoint scrutineers for the special returning offices. Since the early 1950s, parties other than the government and official opposition had been granted limited rights by a series of rulings in the House of Commons. Following an amendment to the Senate and House of Commons Act in 1963, the leaders of parties with twelve or more recognized members in the House of Commons began to be paid an additional stipend above that paid to all members of the House of Commons. Such recognized parties have also received research funding since 1968. In 2001, the Speaker,
Peter Milliken Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken (born November 12, 1946) is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 until his retirement in 2011 and served as Speaker of the House for 10 years beginning in 2 ...
, ruled against full party recognition for the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative (PC/DR) Coalition, which had been formed by the 12 members of the recognized PC Party and 8 independent members of the
Democratic Representative Caucus The Democratic Representative Caucus, also called the Democratic Representative Association, was a parliamentary group in the 37th Canadian Parliament consisting of Members of Parliament who left the Canadian Alliance in 2001 in protest against t ...
, who had left the larger
Canadian Alliance The Canadian Alliance (), formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (), was a centre-right to right-wing federal political party in Canada that existed under that name from 2000 to 2003. The Canadian Alliance was the new name of the ...
caucus. Milliken identified the features of a recognized party as having 12 or more members, appointing slate of House officers as official spokespeople, and working as a cohesive unit under the same banner but noted the practice related to the recognition of parties rather than parliamentary groups. The Speaker could not grant the PC/DR Coalition full party recognition because the group disavowed the title of being a party. A party must have at least 12 seats to be recognized as an official party in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
. Recognition means that the party's caucus is permitted to ask questions during question period more frequently (although this is determined by the Speaker), and money for research (proportional to the number of seats).


Senate

In the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
, a group must have nine seats to be recognized. If the group was registered by
Elections Canada Elections Canada () is the non-partisan agency responsible for administering elections in Canada, Canadian federal elections and Referendums in Canada, referendums. History Elections Canada is an agency of the Parliament of Canada, and reports ...
in the last 15 years, it is called a recognized party. Otherwise, it is called a recognized parliamentary group, as is the case of the
Independent Senators Group The Independent Senators Group (ISG; ) is a parliamentary group in the Senate of Canada. Established on March 10, 2016, the Independent Senators Group is committed to a non-partisan Senate and the modernization of the Upper House of Canada's Parli ...
, which has been granted some privileges like those of a party. Prior to 2017, when the Senate adopted a rules amendments to recognize parliamentary groups not affiliated with a political party, the Senate used political party recognition rules first adopted in 2002. The 2002 rules defined a recognized party as having five or more members in the Senate and required that the party be registered by Election Canada at the time of initial recognition. However, once the party was recognized in the Senate, it could retain its status even if it became deregistered, so long as it kept at least five members. In response to a question in an earlier debate about third political party recognition, Jack Austin, at the time the chair of the Senate Rules Committee, stated that the number of five was chosen as a proportional equivalent to the House of Commons 12-member rule. The second part of the 2002 rule meant that the rump Progressive Conservative caucus in the Senate would have been able to qualify for official status after the rest of that party merged into the Conservative Party except that the initial PC caucus in 2004 after the merger only had three members.


Alberta

In the general elections of
1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...
,
2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...
, and
2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...
, the
Alberta New Democratic Party The Alberta New Democratic Party (Alberta NDP; ), is social democratic political party in Alberta, Canada. The party sits on the centre-left to left-wing of the political spectrum and is a provincial Alberta affiliate of the federal New Democra ...
(NDP) failed to win the requisite four seats to gain official party status in the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...
. Nevertheless, the governing Progressive Conservatives (PCs) granted party status to the NDP after each election.


British Columbia

After the 2001 general election, new B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, leader of the
British Columbia Liberal Party BC United (BCU), known from 1903 until 2023 as the British Columbia Liberal Party or BC Liberals, is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party has been described as conservative, neoliberal, and occupying a centre-right ...
, was criticized for his decision not to grant official party status to the
NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National Dev ...
. It was the only opposition party in the
Legislative Assembly of British Columbia The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia () is the deliberative assembly of the Legislature of British Columbia, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The other component of the Legislature is the lieutenant governor of British Columbi ...
but it had won only two of 79 seats in the last election. Since the 2013 election, the
Green Party of British Columbia The Green Party of British Columbia, or simply the BC Greens, is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1983 and is based in Victoria. The party won its first seat in the Legislative Assembly of British Colu ...
has held their first seat as their then-leader
Andrew Weaver Andrew John Weaver is a Canadian scientist and former politician who represented the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head from 2013 to 2020 in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. Weaver was the leader of the Green Party of British Columbia fr ...
was elected in
Oak Bay-Gordon Head Oak Bay-Gordon Head is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada. Demographics Geography After restructuring prior to the 2017 election, Oak Bay-Gordon Head consists of the entirety of Oak B ...
district. After the 2017 election, Weaver was re-elected and they gained two more seats, thus overall had three seats when the minimum for official party status was four. However, after the party entered a
confidence and supply In parliamentary system, parliamentary democracies based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply is an arrangement under which a minority government (one which does not control a majority in the legislature) receives the support of one ...
agreement with the New Democratic Party to allow the NDP to form government, it was granted official party status with reduced funding. The Legislative Assembly still recognized the Greens as an official party, after the agreement ended, retaining the threshold for official status at 2 seats.


New Brunswick

In
New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...
, parties require 5 seats or 20% of the popular vote to get official party status. However, parties with one to four seats have been allowed time in Question Period with consent of other parties. The Liberals won all 58 seats in the
New Brunswick Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick () is the deliberative assembly of the New Brunswick Legislature, in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. The assembly's seat is located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Fredericton. It was established i ...
in
1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...
. The government allowed the Progressive Conservative Party, which won the second most votes collectively in the election, to submit written questions to ministers during Question Period.


Ontario

Following the
1999 Ontario general election The 1999 Ontario general election was held on June 3, 1999, to elect members of the 37th Legislative Assembly of Ontario, 37th Legislative Assembly of the Canadian province Ontario. The governing Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, led b ...
, the
Ontario New Democratic Party The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP; , NPD) is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. The party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It is Ontario’s provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. The ...
fell to nine seats in the
Ontario Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA; ) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given royal as ...
, down from 17 in
1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...
. The rules at the time of the election called for parties to hold 12 seats to maintain party status. Progressive Conservative
Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...
Mike Harris Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. Taking the PC ...
, citing the reduction in seats from 130 to 103 (-20.76%) between elections, subsequently lowered the required number of seats for official party status from 12 to 8 (33 1/3%). The mathematically corresponding cut would therefore have been from 12 seats to 9 seats (25%, slightly higher than the seat reduction) or 10 seats (16 2/3%, slightly lower). In the 2019 fall economic statement,
Doug Ford Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party since 2018. He represents the Toronto rid ...
's government changed the rules to 10% of the total number of seats in the Assembly, so it is currently set at 12. In the 2003 election, the New Democrats won only seven seats in the
Ontario Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA; ) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given royal as ...
. The new Liberal government refused to accord official party status to the NDP, with Premier
Dalton McGuinty Dalton James Patrick McGuinty Jr. (born July 19, 1955) is a Canadian former politician who served as the 24th premier of Ontario from 2003 to 2013. He was the first Liberal leader to win two majority governments since Mitchell Hepburn nea ...
instead offering the NDP additional funding in return for accepting their status as independents; NDP leader
Howard Hampton Howard George Hampton (born May 17, 1952) is a politician who was a member of Provincial Parliament for the province of Ontario. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada, from 1987 to 1999 in the electoral district of Rainy Ri ...
refused and disrupted the throne speech in protest. MPP
Marilyn Churley Marilyn Churley (born May 7, 1948) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 2005 who represented the downtown Toronto ridings of Riverdale and Toronto—Danf ...
threatened to change her surname legally to "Churley-NDP" so that the Speaker would be forced to say NDP when recognizing her in the House (a non-official party loses the right to have its members addressed in the Legislature by party affiliation). The PCs' Bill Murdoch also considered joining the NDP caucus to help them make official status.
Andrea Horwath Andrea Lynn Horwath (; born October 24, 1962) is a Canadian politician who has served as the 58th List of mayors of Hamilton, Ontario, mayor of Hamilton since 2022. Horwath served as the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) from 200 ...
's by-election win in May 2004 regained official party status for the NDP. After Churley resigned to run in the 2006 federal election, bringing the party to only seven members again, the government decided to allow the NDP to retain official status pending the results of the by-election to replace her, which the NDP won. In the
2018 Ontario general election The 2018 Ontario general election was held on June 7, 2018, to elect the 124 members of the 42nd Parliament of Ontario. The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, led by Doug Ford Jr., Doug Ford, won 76 of the 124 seats in the legislature an ...
, the Liberals dropped from a majority government of 55 seats to 7 seats, one seat fewer than official party status. (The legislature expanded to 124 members in this election.) The
Green Party of Ontario The Green Party of Ontario (GPO; ) is a political party in Ontario, Canada. The party is led by Mike Schreiner. Schreiner was elected as Member of Provincial Parliament (Canada), MPP for the riding of Guelph (provincial electoral district), Gue ...
also elected its first member, leader
Mike Schreiner Michael John Schreiner ( ; born 9 June 1969) is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the Green Party of Ontario since 2009. Schreiner sits as a Member of Provincial Parliament (Ontario), member of Provincial Parliament (MPP), ...
, at
Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as The Royal City, it is roughly east of Kitchener, Ontario, Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Ontario Highway 6, ...
, in 2018 and similarly lacks official party status.


Quebec

In
1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...
, the Equality Party won four seats in the
National Assembly of Quebec The National Assembly of Quebec (, ) is the Legislature, legislative body of the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec in Canada. Legislators are called MNAs (Members of the National Assembly; ). The lieutenant governor of Que ...
(eight seats short of the total needed for official status). Although it did not receive official party status, its members were granted some of the privileges of an official party: their seats in the Assembly were placed together, as were their offices in the Parliament Building. They were also granted a limited number of opportunities to ask questions during Question Period, at the Speaker's discretion. The party had no success in subsequent elections, and stopped organizing after the 2003 election. This precedent was followed when the
Action démocratique du Québec The (, ), commonly referred to as the , was a right-wing populist and conservative provincial political party in Quebec, Canada. On the sovereignty question, it defined itself as autonomist; it had support from nationalists and federalists. Its ...
(ADQ) elected four members in 2003 and seven members in
2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...
. However, when ADQ merged into the newly formed
Coalition Avenir Québec The Coalition Avenir Québec (, , CAQ) is a Quebec nationalism, Quebec nationalist, Autonomism in Quebec, autonomist and conservatism, conservative
(CAQ) and the seven former ADQ MNAs joined with two former
Parti Québécois The Parti Québécois (PQ; , ) is a sovereignist and social democratic provincial political party in Quebec, Canada. The PQ advocates national sovereignty for Quebec involving independence of the province of Quebec from Canada and establishi ...
(PQ) members in January 2012 to form the CAQ caucus, the governing Liberals and opposition PQ refused to grant any status to the new party, requiring all nine members to sit as independents. In the
2018 Quebec general election The 2018 Quebec general election was held on October 1, 2018, to elect members to the National Assembly of Quebec. The election saw a landslide victory for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) led by François Legault, which won 74 of 125 seats, g ...
, the PQ, which was the outgoing Official Opposition party, fell from 28 to 10 seats (and below 20% of the popular vote), thus falling below the threshold of official party status.
Québec solidaire Quebec is Canada's largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast and a coastal border ...
(QS) rose from 3 to 10 seats but did not reach the threshold of 12 to gain official party status. However, before the National Assembly convened, all political parties agreed to give the PQ and QS the status of official parties in the assembly.


Registered party

Official party status is not to be confused with being a ''registered party''. A political party (even if it has no parliamentary seats) may register with
Elections Canada Elections Canada () is the non-partisan agency responsible for administering elections in Canada, Canadian federal elections and Referendums in Canada, referendums. History Elections Canada is an agency of the Parliament of Canada, and reports ...
or a provincial electoral authority. Doing so allows the political party to run candidates for office during elections, have their candidates' party affiliation identified on the ballot, issue tax receipts for donations, and spend money on advertising and campaigning during election campaigns. In return, the party must obey campaign spending and donation limits, disclose the source of large donations, and obey various election laws.


See also

*
List of political parties in Canada This article lists political party, political parties in Canada. Federal parties In contrast with the political party systems of many nations, Canadian parties at the federal level are often only loosely connected with parties at the provincial ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Official Party Status Government in Canada Political parties in Canada