In Canada, each political party with representation in the House of Commons has a House leader who is a front benchmember of Parliament (MP) and an expert in parliamentary procedure. The same representation is found in the provincial and territorial legislatures. The House leader is in charge of the party's day-to-day business in the House of Commons of Canada (or provincial or territorial legislatures), and usually conducts negotiations with other parties on the conduct of bills and debates.
They also argue points of order before the speaker of the House. The "House leader" is not the same as the party leader, but is the leader's senior deputy for House business in Opposition parties, including the Official Opposition. The government House leader is a senior Cabinet minister who navigates the government's business in the House. This system is replicated in the various provincial legislatures. The position of House Leader is especially important during periods of minority government where no one party has control of the House and bills can only be passed with the agreement of multiple parties.
The position of Opposition House leader evolved in the 1950s as each opposition party began to designate a particular MP to question the government House leader on upcoming House business. The title of Opposition House leader became official in 1963, and in 1974, a special annual indemnity was attached to the position of House leader in each of the opposition parties.
The Office of House Leader has also been instituted at the provincial level, in the provincial legislative assemblies.
The term House leader has also been used to describe a party's parliamentary leader, who leads a political party in the House of Commons or a provincial legislature due to their either not being a party leader or the party leader not having a seat.
The House of Commons of Canada is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, the House of Commons is dominant, with the Senate rarely opposing its will. The Senate reviews legislation from a less partisan standpoint and may initiate certain bills. The monarch or his representative, normally the governor general, provides royal assent to make bills into law.
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate Parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done."
Question Period, 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. According to the House of Commons Compendium, “The primary purpose of Question Period is to seek information from the Government and to call it to account for its actions.”
A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. This means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology or the will of their donors or constituents. Whips are the party's "enforcers". They try to ensure that their fellow political party legislators attend voting sessions and vote according to their party's official policy. Members who vote against party policy may "lose the whip", being effectively expelled from the party.
The deputy prime minister of Canada is a minister of the Crown and a member of the Canadian Cabinet. The office is conferred at the discretion of the prime minister and does not have an associated departmental portfolio. Canadian deputy prime ministers are appointed to the Privy Council and styled as the Honourable, a privilege maintained for life.
The Cabinet of Canada is a body of ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada. Chaired by the prime minister, the Cabinet is a committee of the King's Privy Council for Canada and the senior echelon of the Ministry, the membership of the Cabinet and Ministry often being co-terminal; as of November 2015 there were no members of the latter who were not also members of the former.
The premier of Ontario is the head of government of Ontario. Under the Westminster system, the premier governs with the confidence of a majority the elected Legislative Assembly; as such, the premier typically sits as a member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) and leads the largest party or a coalition of parties. As first minister, the premier selects ministers to form the Executive Council, and serves as its chair. Constitutionally, the Crown exercises executive power on the advice of the Executive Council, which is collectively responsible to the legislature.
A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber.
The speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. A member of Parliament (MP), they are elected at the beginning of each new parliament by fellow MPs. The speaker's role in presiding over Canada's House of Commons is similar to that of speakers elsewhere in other countries that use the Westminster system.
The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes.
Donald Boudria, is a former Canadian politician. He served in the House of Commons of Canada from 1984 to 2005 as a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Jean Chrétien.
In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then known as being on the frontbench and are described as frontbenchers. Those sitting behind them are known as backbenchers. Independent and minority parties sit to the side or on benches between the two sides, and are referred to as crossbenchers.
The Jatiya Sangsad, often referred to simply as the Sangsad or JS and also known as the House of the Nation, is the supreme legislative body of Bangladesh. The current parliament of Bangladesh contains 350 seats, including 50 seats reserved exclusively for women. Elected occupants are called Member of Parliament, or MP. The 11th National Parliamentary Election was held on 30 December 2018. Elections to the body are held every five years, unless a parliament is dissolved earlier by the President of Bangladesh.
Dominic A. LeBlanc is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as the minister of intergovernmental affairs since 2020 and also became the minister of infrastructure and communities in 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, LeBlanc sits as the member of Parliament (MP) for Beauséjour, representing the New Brunswick riding in the House of Commons since 2000. He has held a number of Cabinet portfolios throughout his tenure in government.
The leader of the government in the House of Commons of Canada, more commonly known as the government house leader, is the Cabinet minister responsible for planning and managing the government's legislative program in the House of Commons of Canada. Despite the name of the position it does not refer to the prime minister of Canada, who is the head of government.
Gender representation has been a significant issue in Canadian politics.
A parliamentary leader is a political title or a descriptive term used in various countries to designate the person leading a parliamentary group or caucus in a legislative body, whether it be a national or sub-national legislature. They are their party's most senior member of parliament (MP) in most parliamentary democracies.
Bardish Chagger is a Canadian politician who served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Chagger has sat in the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for the riding of Waterloo since the 2015 federal election.
In Canadian political and constitutional terminology, a caretaker government is a government of Canada or provincial government from when parliament or the provincial legislature is dissolved by the governor general or provincial lieutenant governor prior to a general election to a period after the election, until the next ministry is appointed. A caretaker government is expected to conduct itself in accordance with a series of well-defined conventions administered by the Privy Council Office or equivalent provincial agency, but there is no law compelling the caretaker government to do so.
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