Base → Legislatures → Current assemblies: Represented parties

Recognized or official party status... or not

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Winning a seat in a partisan assembly is often not sufficient to get full parliamentary privileges. The type of recognition and threshold needed to obtain it varies from one jurisdiction to another, with the most coveted privileges being funding for party research offices and the right to ask questions (and how many) during Question Period.

However, given that this determination is governed by internal legislative rules, the members of an assembly can pass a motion to dispense with the rules and grant the status to parties that would otherwise fail to qualify — something that has already occurred on several occasions. It goes without saying that the independents do not form a party in themselves, and that non partisan assemblies are excluded from this list.

Legend }				N: Current assembly	✓ Officially recognized party (R)  PAR  Party T Total						† Not in office (n) Current age
Jurisdiction				Rule / Threshold	Parties						Leadership role
					R	PAR	T	♂	♀	⚥
1	CA		44	Total (seats): 343 Threshold: 12 seats	✓ ✓ ✓ ✓	LIB CPC BQ NDP GRN VAC	0 0 0 0 0 343	— — — — — —	— — — — — —	— — — — — —	Mark Carney†  M  ( 60 ) Pierre Poilievre†  M  ( 45 ) Yves-François Blanchet†  M  ( 60 ) Jagmeet Singh†  M  ( 46 ) Elizabeth May†  F  ( 70 ) n/a
9	AB		31	Total (seats): 87 Threshold: 4 seats, although status has been granted to parties with only 2 seats a number of times.	✓ ✓	UCP NDP IND VAC	47 36 2 2	36 16 2 —	11 20 0 —	0 0 0 —	Danielle Smith  F  ( 54 ) Naheed Nenshi†  M  ( 53 ) n/a n/a
8	BC		43	Total (seats): 93 Threshold: 2 seats	✓ ✓ ✓	NDP CONS GRN IND	47 41 2 3	16 24 2 1	31 17 0 2	0 0 0 0	David Eby  M  ( 48 ) John Rustad  M  ( 61 ) Jeremy Valeriote  M  n/a
11	MB		43	Total (seats): 57 Threshold: 4 seats	✓ ✓	NDP PC LIB IND VAC	34 20 1 1 1	19 16 0 1 —	14 4 1 0 —	1 0 0 0 —	Wab Kinew  M  ( 43 ) Wayne Ewasko  M  Cindy Lamoureux  F  ( 33 ) n/a n/a
3	NB		61	Total (seats): 49 Threshold: 5 seats or 20% of the popular vote.	✓ ✓	LIB PC GRN VAC	31 15 2 1	20 9 1 —	11 6 1 —	0 0 0 —	Susan Holt  F  ( 47 ) Glen Savoie  M  ( ±54 ) David Coon  M  ( 68 ) n/a
7	NL		50	Total (seats): 40 Threshold: 2 seats	✓ ✓ ✓	LIB PC NDP IND	22 14 2 2	15 12 2 2	7 2 0 0	0 0 0 0	Andrew Furey  M  ( 49 ) Tony Wakeham  M  Jim Dinn  M  ( ±65 ) n/a
2	NS		65	Total (seats): 55 Threshold: 2 seats and, with the exception of the official opposition, in the last election the party must have run candidates in three-quarters of the ridings and received at least 10% of the vote.	✓ ✓ ✓	PC NDP LIB IND	43 9 2 1	31 2 2 0	12 6 0 1	0 1 0 0	Tim Houston  M  ( 55 ) Claudia Chender  F  ( 48 ) Derek Mombourquette  M  ( 44 ) n/a
6	ON		44	Total (seats): 124 Threshold: Currently set to 12 seats, as the rule calls for 10% of the total number of seats in the assembly.	✓ ✓ ✓	PC NDP LIB GRN IND	80 27 14 2 1	60 10 7 1 0	20 15 7 1 1	0 2 0 0 0	Doug Ford  M  ( 60 ) Marit Stiles  F  ( 55 ) Bonnie Crombie†  F  ( 65 ) Mike Schreiner  M  ( 55 ) n/a
4	PE		67	Total (seats): 27 Threshold: There is no official rule but precedent shows that only one seat is required.	✓ ✓ ✓	PC LIB GRN VAC	19 3 3 2	14 3 2 —	5 0 1 —	0 0 0 —	Rob Lantz  M  ( 55 ) Hal Perry  M  ( 59 ) Karla Bernard  F  n/a
5	QC		43	Total (seats): 125 Threshold: 12 seats or 20% of the popular vote, but exceptions were made in 2018 and 2022 to grant the status to the PQ and QS despite not reaching that threshold.	✓ ✓ ✓ ✓	CAQ QLP QS PQ IND VAC	86 19 12 5 2 1	46 8 8 4 1 —	40 11 4 1 1 —	0 0 0 0 0 —	François Legault  M  ( 67 ) Marc Tanguay  M  ( 52 ) Guillaume Cliche-Rivard  M  ( 35 ) Paul St-Pierre Plamondon  M  ( 48 ) n/a n/a
10	SK		30	Total (seats): 61 Threshold: 2 seats, but an exception was made in December 2022 when the Saskatchewan United Party was recognized by Elections Sasktachewan.	✓ ✓	SKP NDP	34 27	26 14	8 13	0 0	Scott Moe  M  ( 51 ) Carla Beck  F
12	YT		35	Total (seats): 19 Threshold: 1 seat and the party must be registered with Elections Yukon, which requires it to have run candidates in at least two ridings in the previous election.	✓ ✓ ✓	LIB YP NDP	8 8 3	6 5 0	2 3 2	0 0 1	Ranj Pillai  M  ( ±51 ) Currie Dixon  M  ( 39 ) Kate White  F  ( 48 )