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In Canada, a third party has two distinct meanings in the political process. For legal and official purposes, a "third party" refers to agents other than candidates and voters who participate in elections. For example, campaign advertisements funded by groups other than the parties and candidates running may be called "third party advertising". During a campaign period, registered third parties must declare their sources of funding and are restricted in the amounts they can spend in advocating for or against a party or candidate. See Harper v. Canada for the Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of these restrictions in the Canada Elections Act. The second, formerly popular, definition is derived from the phrase in American parlance: a relatively small federal or provincial political party that is not usually considered to have a realistic chance of forming a government, but has representation in the federal House of Commons or the provincial legislature. While both the Congressional and Westminster parliamentary systems tend to reward two dominant parties or blocs, the ability in the latter for third parties to compete and affect the outcome of elections is a major point of differentiation for Canadian political culture and history. Americans describe any party besides the Democrats and Republicans as a "third party" regardless of their relative position; in the Canadian context (and for the purposes of this article), it more commonly refers to the largest party that does not form the government or Official Opposition. The efficacy of these parties often depends on whether they qualify for party status and are thus entitled to play a formal role in the legislative process. Since the House of Commons standing orders were amended in 1963 to recognize smaller parties, the third-largest party has always met the criteria for status. However, each legislature has different standards, and this is not always the case. Like the United Kingdom (on which much of its democratic tradition is based), Canada has been described as a "two and a half" party system, with multiple effective parties, only two of which are contenders for government at any one time, though most provinces have outgrown this definition. During minority government situations, third parties may hold the balance of power, and thus exercise significant control over the government's policy. In some cases, such a party has swept to power by "coming through the middle", as with the emergence of the Social Credit Party of British Columbia in 1952-53. The official meaning has become more prevalent in recent years, since the current Canadian Parliament has seated members from five different parties, making the usual usage less meaningful. == Federal third parties == On the federal level, since Confederation in 1867, the government has been formed alternately by the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative, and its successor, the modern Conservative Party. The first notable third party was the Progressive Party, which appeared in 1920 and had a strong showing in the 1921 elections coming second after the Liberal Party. In tune with their character as an agrarian populist party, the Progressives declaimed any interest in power for themselves, seeking instead to defend the interests of farmers against the main parties and big businesses. Though several provincial farmers' parties did form government, the Progressives under Thomas Crerar and Robert Forke refused the role of Official Opposition and worked closely with the Liberal government of the day when they held the balance of power from 1921-26. The parliamentary party had a house leader, but its decentralized nature and firm belief in the responsibility of individual MPs to carry out the will of their constituents made party discipline impossible to maintain. Tension between the conservative and radical tendencies in the party led to its demise. Following the election of 1925 the Progressive Party was effectively split between those who backed the government of Mackenzie King and those who gravitated towards JS Woodsworth and his caucus of Labour MPs. The latter coalesced into the Ginger Group and continued to serve as United Farmers or Progressives, while the conservatives largely joined the Liberal Party proper or sat in its caucus as Liberal-Progressives. Later Liberal-Progressive Premier of Manitoba John Bracken took over the leadership of the federal Conservative Party in 1942 and rechristened them the "Progressive Conservatives." This gave rise to the mistaken, but persistent belief that the two parties merged; there is no relationship between them, as the Progressive Party had ceased to exist a decade earlier. During the Great Depression two new third parties emerged: the democratic socialist, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), formed around the nucleus of the Ginger Group, and the right-wing, Social Credit Party of Canada, which sought reform of monetary policy. Both parties persisted for several decades with varying degrees of success. After a gradual decline Social Credit lost its remaining seats in the 1980 federal election and never recovered. The CCF was reorganized into the social democratic, New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961 and officially aligned itself with the Canadian Labour Congress. The NDP played a significant role in both Liberal and Conservative led minority parliaments afterwards, particularly from 1963-1968 and 1972-1974. While holding the balance of power, the New Democrats were able to achieve many long-held policy goals (universal medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and the creation of Petro-Canada as a state-owned oil company) without forming government. Following the 1993 election, the division between the "main" and the "third" parties started to break down, due to the poor showing by the Progressive Conservative Party and the rise of the Reform Party and the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois. While the Bloc could never form a government because it never contested ridings outside Quebec, the Reform Party and its successor Canadian Alliance had some modest success and eventually merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the new Conservative Party which formed the federal government from 2006-15. The federal election of 2011 saw a further realignment of Canadian party politics as the New Democratic Party made significant gains, allowing it to emerge as the official opposition. For the first time in Canadian history the Liberal Party was reduced to third party status. The Bloc Québécois which had been the third largest party in the House of Commons since 1997 was reduced to only four seats while a new party, the Greens made their debut in the House after winning a single seat. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Third party (Canada)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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