Governor General of Canada
The Governor General of Canada is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch Queen Elizabeth II. The person of the sovereign is shared both with the 15 other Commonwealth realms and the 10 provinces of Canada, but resides predominantly in her oldest and most populous realm, the United Kingdom; the Queen, on the advice of her Canadian prime minister, appoints a governor general to carry out most of her constitutional and ceremonial duties. The commission is for an unfixed period of time—known as serving at Her Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the normal convention. Beginning in 1959, it has been traditional to rotate between anglophone and francophone officeholders—although many recent governors general have been bilingual. Once in office, the governor general maintains direct contact with the Queen, wherever she may be at the time; the office began in the 16th and 17th centuries with the Crown-appointed governors of the French colony of Canada followed by the British governors of Canada in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Subsequently, the office is, along with the Crown, the oldest continuous institution in Canada. The present incarnation of the office emerged with Canadian Confederation and the passing of the British North America Act, 1867, which defines the role of the governor general as "carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in the Name of the Queen, by whatever Title he is designated". Although the post still represented the government of the United Kingdom, the office was Canadianized until, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 and the establishment of a separate and uniquely Canadian monarchy, the governor general become the direct personal representative of the independently and uniquely Canadian sovereign, the monarch in his Canadian council. Throughout this process of increasing Canadian independence, the role of governor general took on additional responsibilities. For example, in 1904, the Militia Act granted permission for the governor general to use the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian militia, in the name of the sovereign and actual Commander-in-Chief, in 1927 the first official international visit by a governor general was made.
In 1947, King George VI issued letters patent allowing the viceroy to carry out all of the monarch's powers on his or her behalf. As a result, the day-to-day duties of the monarch are carried out by the governor general, although, as a matter of law, the governor general is not in the same constitutional position as the sovereign. In accordance with the Constitution Act, 1982, any constitutional amendment that affects the Crown, including the office of the Governor General, requires the unanimous consent of each provincial legislature as well as the federal parliament; the current governor general is Julie Payette, who has served since 2 October 2017. The Government of Canada spells the title governor general without a hyphen; the Canadian media still use the governor-general spelling. As governor is the noun in the title, it is pluralized. Moreover, both terms are capitalized; the position of governor general is mandated by both the Constitution Act, 1867 and the letters patent issued in 1947 by King George VI.
As such, on the recommendation of his or her Canadian prime minister, the Canadian monarch appoints the governor general by commission issued under the royal sign-manual and Great Seal of Canada. That individual is, from until being sworn-in, referred to as the governor general-designate. Besides the administration of the oaths of office, there is no set formula for the swearing-in of a governor general-designate. Though there may therefore be variations to the following, the appointee will travel to Ottawa, there receiving an official welcome and taking up residence at 7 Rideau Gate, will begin preparations for their upcoming role, meeting with various high level officials to ensure a smooth transition between governors general; the sovereign will hold an audience with the appointee and will at that time induct both the governor general-designate and his or her spouse into the Order of Canada as Companions, as well as appointing the former as a Commander of both the Order of Military Merit and the Order of Merit of the Police Forces.
The incumbent will serve for at least five years, though this is only a developed convention, the governor general still technically acts at Her Majesty's pleasure. The prime minister may therefore recommend to the Queen that the viceroy remain in her service for a longer period of time, sometimes upwards of more than seven years. A governor general may resign, two have died in office. In such a circumstance, or if the governor general leaves the country for longer than one month, the Chief Justice of Canada serves as Administrator of the Government and exercises all powers of the governor general. In a speech on the subject of confederation, made in 1866 to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, John A. Macdonald said of the planned governor: "We place no restriction on Her Majesty's prerogative in the selection of her representative... The sovereign has unrestricted freedom of choice... We leave that to Her Majes
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, Canada's head of government. The current, 23rd, Prime Minister of Canada is the Liberal Party's Justin Trudeau, following the 2015 Canadian federal election. Canadian prime ministers are styled as The Right Honourable, a privilege maintained for life; the Prime Minister of Canada is in charge of the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister chooses the ministers that make up the Cabinet; the two groups, with the authority of the Parliament of Canada, manage the Government of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces. The Cabinet and the Prime Minister appoint members of the Senate of Canada, the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and federal courts, the leaders and boards, as required under law, of various Crown Corporations, selects the Governor General of Canada. Under the Canadian constitution, all of the power to exercise these activities is vested in the Monarchy of Canada, but in practice the Canadian monarch or their representative, the Governor General of Canada approves them and their role is ceremonial, their powers are only exercised under the advice of the Prime Minister.
Not outlined in any constitutional document, the office exists only as per long-established convention that stipulates the monarch's representative, the governor general, must select as prime minister the person most to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons. The position of prime minister is not outlined in any Canadian constitutional document and is mentioned only in passing in the Constitution Act, 1982, the Letters Patent, 1947 issued by King George VI; the office and its functions are instead governed by constitutional conventions and modelled on the same office in the United Kingdom. The prime minister, along with the other ministers in cabinet, is appointed by the governor general on behalf of the monarch. However, by the conventions of responsible government, designed to maintain administrative stability, the governor general will call to form a government the individual most to receive the support, or confidence, of a majority of the directly elected members of the House of Commons.
While there is no legal requirement for the prime minister to be a member of parliament, for practical and political reasons the prime minister is expected to win a seat promptly. However, in rare circumstances individuals who are not sitting members of the House of Commons have been appointed to the position of prime minister. Two former prime ministers—Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott and Sir Mackenzie Bowell—served in the 1890s while members of the Senate. Both, in their roles as Government Leader in the Senate, succeeded prime ministers who had died in office—John A. Macdonald in 1891 and John Sparrow David Thompson in 1894; that convention has since evolved toward the appointment of an interim leader from the commons in such a scenario. Prime ministers who are not Members of Parliament upon their appointment have since been expected to seek election to the commons as soon as possible. For example, William Lyon Mackenzie King, after losing his seat in the 1925 federal election "governed from the hallway" before winning a by-election a few weeks later.
John Turner replaced Pierre Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party in 1984 and subsequently was appointed prime minister while not holding a seat in the House of Commons. Turner was the last serving prime minister to not hold a commons seat. Should a serving prime minister today lose his or her seat in the legislature, or should a new prime minister be appointed without holding a seat, the typical process that follows is that a junior member in the governing political party will resign to allow the prime minister to run in the resulting by-election. A safe seat is chosen. However, if the governing party selects a new leader shortly before an election is due, that new leader is not a member of the legislature, he or she will await the upcoming election before running for a seat in parliament. In a poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid following the first prorogation of the 40th parliament on December 4, 2008, it was found that 51% of the sample group thought the prime minister was directly elected by Canadians.
The Canadian prime minister serves at Her Majesty's pleasure, meaning the post does not have a fixed term. Once appointed and sworn in by the governor general, the prime minister remains in office until he or she resigns, is dismissed, or dies; the lifespan of parliament was limited by the constitution to five years, though the governor general may still, on the advice of the prime minister, dissolve parliament and issue the writs of election prior to the date mandated by the Canada Elections Act. As of 2007, with an amendment to the Elections Act, Section 56.1 was changed
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada, the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial and federal appellate courts, its decisions are the ultimate expression and application of Canadian law and binding upon all lower courts of Canada, except to the extent that they are overridden or otherwise made ineffective by an Act of Parliament or the Act of a provincial legislative assembly pursuant to section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The creation of the Supreme Court of Canada was provided for by the British North America Act, 1867, renamed in 1982 the Constitution Act, 1867; the first bills for the creation of a federal supreme court, introduced in the Parliament of Canada in 1869 and in 1870, were withdrawn. It was not until 8 April 1875 that a bill was passed providing for the creation of a Supreme Court of Canada. However, prior to 1949, the Supreme Court did not constitute the court of last resort: litigants could appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
As well, some cases could bypass the court and go directly to the Judicial Committee from the provincial courts of appeal. The Supreme Court formally became the court of last resort for criminal appeals in 1933 and for all other appeals in 1949; the last decisions of the Judicial Committee on cases from Canada were made in the mid-1950s, as a result of their being heard in a court of first instance prior to 1949. The increase in the importance of the Court was mirrored by the numbers of its members; the Court was established first with six judges, these were augmented by an additional member in 1927. In 1949, the bench reached its current composition of nine justices. Prior to 1949, most of the appointees to the Court owed their position to political patronage; each judge had strong ties to the party in power at the time of their appointment. In 1973, the appointment of a constitutional law professor Bora Laskin as chief justice represented a major turning point for the Court. In this period, appointees either came from academic backgrounds or were well-respected practitioners with several years experience in appellate courts.
Laskin's federalist and liberal views were shared by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who recommended Laskin's appointment to the Court. The Constitution Act, 1982 expanded the role of the Court in Canadian society by the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which broadened the scope of judicial review; the evolution from the Dickson court through to the Lamer court witnessed a continuing vigour in the protection of civil liberties. Lamer's criminal law background proved an influence on the number of criminal cases heard by the Court during his time as chief justice. Nonetheless, the Lamer court was more conservative with Charter rights, with only about a 1% success rate for Charter claimants. Lamer was succeeded as chief justice by Beverly McLachlin in January 2000, she is the first woman to hold that position. McLachlin's appointment resulted in a more centrist and unified Court. Dissenting and concurring opinions were fewer than during the Lamer Courts. With the 2005 appointments of Justices Louise Charron and Rosalie Abella, the court became the world's most gender-balanced national high court, four of its nine members being female.
Justice Marie Deschamps' retirement on 7 August 2012 caused the number to fall to three, however the appointment of Suzanne Côté on 1 December 2014 restored the number to four. After serving on the Court for 28 years, 259 days, McLachlin retired in December 2017, her successor as chief justice is Richard Wagner. The structure of the Canadian court system is pyramidal, a broad base being formed by the various provincial and territorial courts whose judges are appointed by the provincial or territorial governments. At the next level are the provinces' and territories' superior courts, where judges are appointed by the federal government. Judgments from the superior courts may be appealed to a still higher level, the provincial or territorial courts of appeal. Several federal courts exist: the Tax Court of Canada, the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada. Unlike the provincial superior courts, which exercise inherent or general jurisdiction, the federal courts' jurisdiction is limited by statute.
In all, there are over 1,000 federally appointed judges at various levels across Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada rests at the apex of the judicial pyramid; this institution hears appeals from the provincial courts of last resort the provincial or territorial courts of appeal, the Federal Court of Appeal, although in some matters appeals come straight from the trial courts, as in the case of publication bans and other orders that are otherwise not appealable. In most cases, permission to appeal must first be obtained from the court. Motions for leave to appeal to the Court are heard by a panel of three judges of the Court and a simple majority is determinative. By convention, this panel never explains why it grants or refuses leave in any particular case, but the Court hears cases of national importance or where the case allows the Court to settle an important issue of law. Leave is granted, meaning that for most litigants, provincial courts of appeal are courts of last resort, but leave to appeal is not required for some cases criminal cases and appeals from provincial references.
A final source of cases is the referral power of the federa
Appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and interpreting law. Although appellate courts have existed for thousands of years, common law countries did not incorporate an affirmative right to appeal into their jurisprudence until the 19th century. Appellate courts and other systems of error correction have existed for many millennia. During the first dynasty of Babylon and his governors served as the highest appellate courts of the land. Ancient Roman law employed a complex hierarchy of appellate courts, where some appeals would be heard by the emperor. Additionally, appellate courts have existed in Japan since at least the Kamakura Shogunate. During this time, the Shogunate established hikitsuke, a high appellate court to aid the state in adjudicating lawsuits. In the Eighteenth century, William Blackstone observed in his Commentaries on the Laws of England that appeals existed as a form of error correction in the common law during the reign of Edward III of England.
Although some scholars argue that "the right to appeal is itself a substantive liberty interest", the notion of a right to appeal is a recent advent in common law jurisdictions. In fact, commentators have observed that common law jurisdictions were "slow to incorporate a right to appeal into either its civil or criminal jurisprudence". For example, the United States first created a system of federal appellate courts in 1789, but a federal right to appeal did not exist in the United States until 1889, when Congress passed the Judiciary Act to permit appeals in capital cases. Two years the right to appeals was extended to other criminal cases, the United States Courts of Appeals were established to review decisions from district courts; some states, such as Minnesota, still do not formally recognize a right to criminal appeals. Although some courts permit appeals at preliminary stages of litigation, most litigants appeal final orders and judgments from lower courts. A fundamental premise of many legal systems is that appellate courts review questions of law de novo, but appellate courts do not conduct independent fact-finding.
Instead, appellate courts will defer to the record established by the trial court, unless some error occurred during the fact-finding process. Many jurisdictions provide a statutory or constitutional right for litigants to appeal adverse decisions. However, most jurisdictions recognize that this right may be waived. In the United States, for example, litigants may waive the right to appeal, as long as the waiver is "considered and intelligent"; the appellate process begins when an appellate court grants a party's petition for review or petition for certiorari. Unlike trials, appeals are presented to a judge, or a panel of judges, rather than a jury. Before making any formal argument, parties will submit legal briefs in which the parties present their arguments. Appellate courts may grant permission for an amicus curiae to submit a brief in support of a particular party or position. After submitting briefs, parties have the opportunity to present an oral argument to a judge or panel of judges. During oral arguments, judges ask question to attorneys to challenge their arguments or to advance their own legal theories.
After deliberating in chambers, appellate courts will issue formal opinions that resolve the legal issues presented for review. When considering cases on appeal, appellate courts affirm, reverse, or vacate the decision of a lower court; some courts maintain a dual function, where they consider both appeals as well as matters of "first instance". For example, the Supreme Court of the United States hears cases on appeal but retains original jurisdiction over a limited range of cases; some jurisdictions maintain a system of intermediate appellate courts, which are subject to the review of higher appellate courts. The highest appellate court in a jurisdiction is sometimes referred to as a "court of last resort". Civil procedure List of legal topics Judicial review Appellate procedure in the United States Scope of review
Greg Selinger
Gregory Francis "Greg" Selinger, is a Canadian former politician who served as the 21st Premier of Manitoba from 2009 until 2016, leading an NDP government. From 1999 to 2009 he was the Minister of Finance in the government of his immediate predecessor, Gary Doer. Selinger was the member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for St. Boniface from 1999 until his resignation in early 2018, his party was defeated by Brian Pallister and the Progressive Conservatives in the 2016 Manitoba general election. Selinger was born in Regina, the son of Margaret Eva and Nicodemus Selinger, he came to Manitoba from Saskatchewan as a child with his single mother, who ran a small clothing store in Winnipeg. Selinger received a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Manitoba, a Master of Public Administration from Queen's University, a PhD from the London School of Economics. Before entering politics, he worked as an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba, sat on the boards of the St. Boniface Hospital, the St. Boniface Museum, the Community Income Tax Service Boards, as president of the Old St. Boniface Residents Association.
After joining an alliance of progressive municipal politicians called Winnipeg into the'90s in the late 1980s, Selinger was elected to the Winnipeg City Council in 1989 as a candidate of the alliance in St. Boniface, defeating incumbent Guy Savoie. During his time as a city councillor, Selinger was a member of the Executive Policy Committee and was the chair of the Committee on Finance and Administration. In 1992, Selinger came in second place, losing to Susan Thompson; some have attributed his loss to his refusal to accept corporate and union donations, which he based on principle. Following his failed mayoral bid, Selinger stepped back from politics and return to teaching at the University of Manitoba. Selinger was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the provincial election of 1999, defeating his closest opponent, Liberal Jean-Paul Boily, by 5439 votes to 2994 in the Winnipeg riding of St. Boniface. Selinger was appointed Minister of Finance, after the 1999 election, in Gary Doer's first cabinet, was given responsibility for French Language Services, the administration of the Crown Corporations Review and Accountability Act and the administration of the Manitoba Hydro Act.
In his ten years as Minister of Finance, Selinger balanced every budget. On January 17, 2001, he was given responsibility for the Civil Service. Following a cabinet shuffle on September 25, 2002, he was charged with the administration of the Liquor Control Act, while being relieved of his duties for the Manitoba Hydro Act. In 2003, Selinger supported Bill Blaikie's campaign to lead the federal New Democratic Party. Selinger was re-elected in the provincial election of 2003 with 75% of the vote in his riding. On November 4, 2003, he was relieved of responsibilities for the Liquor Control Act. In January 2005, Selinger announced that his government would change its system of accounting for expenditures and revenues; this followed a request from Auditor General Jon Singleton, who criticized the government for listing crown corporation losses and other matters as off-budget spending. Selinger is considered a strong performer in the Doer Cabinet, he was re-elected in the 2007 provincial election. On June 28, 2007, Selinger regained responsibility for the administration of the Liquor Control Act and was charged with the administration of The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation Act.
On September 8, 2009, Selinger resigned from his cabinet position and announced his candidacy for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba. He was running against fellow cabinet ministers Steve Ashton and Andrew Swan until Swan dropped out of the race on September 28; the leadership convention took place on October 17, 2009. Rosann Wowchuk replaced Selinger as interim Minister of Finance, he defeated his leadership rival, Steve Ashton, taking 1,317 votes among delegates, to Ashton's 685. Selinger was sworn in as Premier of Manitoba by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba on October 19, 2009, the same day that Gary Doer was sworn in as Canadian Ambassador to the United States. Despite predictions of defeat, Selinger led the NDP to its fourth straight majority government in the October 2011 general election, surpassing Doer's record and winning 37 seats. In April 2013, the Selinger government reneged on an earlier promise to not increase sales taxes by implementing a 1% increase in the provincial sales tax rate from 7% to 8%, which resulted in a precipitous decline in popular support for the government and a caucus revolt against Selinger's leadership culminating in the resignation of five cabinet ministers.
Due, in part, to the unpopularity of the tax increase, the NDP fell far behind the Opposition Progressive Conservatives in public opinion polls. In the fall of 2014 several cabinet ministers asked Selinger to resign in hopes that the party would recover under a new leader, but he declined. In September 2014, during a caucus retreat, several MLAs told Selinger he needed to resign but he refused. A month at the end of October Jennifer Howard, minister of finance, Stan Struthers, minister of municipal government, Theresa Oswald, minister for jobs and the economy, Andrew Swan, minister of justice and Erin Selby, minister of health, and several senior party officials went public with their call for Selinger's resignation. Selinger asked the media labeled "gang of five", ministers to either disavow their public statements or quit; the five resigned on Monday November 3. The same day Selinger said in a state
Senate of Canada
The Senate of Canada is the upper house of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons and the Monarch. The Senate is modelled after the British House of Lords and consists of 105 members appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Seats are assigned on a regional basis: four regions—defined as Ontario, the Maritime provinces, the Western provinces—each receive 24 seats, with the remaining portions of the country—Newfoundland and Labrador receiving 6 seats and the three northern territories each assigned the remaining one seat. Senators may serve until they reach the age of 75. While the Senate is the upper house of Parliament and the House of Commons is the lower house, this does not imply the Senate is more powerful than the House of Commons, it entails that its members and officers outrank the members and officers of the Commons in the order of precedence for the purposes of protocol. As a matter of practice and custom, the Commons is the dominant chamber.
The prime minister and Cabinet are responsible to the House of Commons and remain in office only so long as they retain the confidence of the House of Commons. The approval of both chambers is necessary for legislation and, the Senate can reject bills passed by the Commons. Between 1867 and 1987, the Senate rejected fewer than two bills per year, but this has increased in more recent years. Although legislation can be introduced in either chamber, the majority of government bills originate in the House of Commons, with the Senate acting as the chamber of "sober second thought"; the Senate came into existence in 1867, when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British North America Act 1867, uniting the Province of Canada with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single federation, a dominion called Canada. The Canadian parliament was based on the Westminster model. Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, described it as a body of "sober second thought" that would curb the "democratic excesses" of the elected House of Commons and provide regional representation.
He believed that if the House of Commons properly represented the population, the upper chamber should represent the regions. It was not meant to be more than a brake on the House of Commons. Therefore, it was deliberately made an appointed house, since an elected Senate might prove too popular and too powerful and be able to block the will of the House of Commons; the original Senate chamber was lost to the fire that consumed the Parliament Buildings in 1916. Subsequently, the Senate sat in the mineral room of what is today the Canadian Museum of Nature until 1922, when it relocated to Parliament Hill. With the Centre Block undergoing renovations, temporary chambers have been constructed in the Senate of Canada Building, where the Senate began meeting in 2019. Reform of the Senate has been an issue since its creation, mirrors pre-Confederation debates regarding appointed Legislative Councils in the former colonies; the federal Parliament first considered reform measures in 1874 and the Senate debated reforming itself in 1909.
There were minor changes in 1965, when the mandatory retirement age for new Senators was set at 75 years and, in 1982, when the Senate was given a qualified veto over certain constitutional amendments. There have been at least 28 major proposals for constitutional Senate reform since the early 1970s and all have failed. Discussion of reforming the appointment mechanism resurfaced alongside the Quiet Revolution and the rise of Western alienation with the chief goal of making the Senate better represent the provinces in parliament, it was suggested that provincial governments should appoint senators, as was done in the United States before the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Others suggested that senators should be members of provincial legislatures, similar to the Bundesrat of Germany; the discussions suggested redistributing Senate seats to the growing western provinces Formal suggestions for equality of seats between provinces occurred in 1981. Schemes to create an elected Senate did not gain widespread support until after 1980, when Parliament enacted the National Energy Program in the wake of the energy crises of the 1970s.
Many Western Canadians called for a "Triple-E Senate", standing for elected and effective. They believed that allowing equal representation of the provinces, regardless of population, would protect the interests of the smaller provinces and outlying regions; the Meech Lake Accord, a series of constitutional amendments proposed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, would have required the federal government to choose a senator from a list of persons nominated by the provincial government. Before the failure of the Meech Lake accord, Alberta had passed the Senatorial Selection Act of 1987, which provided for the direct election of Alberta senators; the first of such elections was held in 1989. The results of these elections are non-binding, only prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper have appointed senators that had won these elections; the Charlottetown Accord, involved a provision under which the Senate would include an equal number of senators from each province, each elected either by the majority in the relevant provincial legislature or by the majority of voters in the province.
This accord was defeated in the referendum held in 1992. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was an advocate of
Green Party of Manitoba
The Green Party of Manitoba is a provincial political party in Manitoba, founded on November 11, 1998. The party is autonomous from the Green Party of Canada, though for several years many of its members belonged to the Green Party of Canada in Manitoba, a federal organization established in 1996; the GPM has maintained a position as the fourth largest party in Manitoba since the 2003 election, both in number of votes received and candidates run. The GPM is not the first "Green Party" in Manitoba history. Former New Democrat Nick Ternette established a "Green Party" in Winnipeg in 1989, fielded candidates under its banner in that year's municipal elections. Ternette was from the left-wing of the NDP, opposed the party's centrist direction in the 1980s, his "Green Party" supported several progressive and environmental causes, was further to the left than is the current GPM. None of its candidates were elected, the party never ran candidates at the provincial level. Ternette is not affiliated with the GPM.
The current party was established by Winnipeg electoral reform activist Chris Billows in November 1998, with the assistance of the Green Party of Canada. Billows, Eymond Toupin, future provincial leader Markus Buchart hosted the Green Party of Canada's national convention in Winnipeg in August 1998; the GPM's policies are progressive. The party is focused on environmental issues, promotes the conservation of land and non-renewable natural resources, it has expressed concern about "urban sprawl" in Winnipeg's suburbs, has called for reform in Manitoba's commercial hog sector, supports the rights of small farming interests over corporations. The GPM favours liberal positions on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, promotes accessible public health care with emphasis on healthy lifestyles and illness prevention; the party supports the extension of labour protection laws to farmworkers and a reduction of Manitoba's standard work week from 40 to 32 hours. It has endorsed full employment, has criticized Gary Doer's NDP government for not reversing welfare cutbacks enacted by the previous Tory government of Gary Filmon.
The GPM released its 2016 election platform, entitled "Building a Sustainable Manitoba", on April 5, 2016. The document included promises to introduce Guaranteed Annual Income to Manitoba, a $50/tonne carbon tax, fare-free transit, oppose the Energy East pipeline, among other items; the GPM ran six candidates in the provincial election of 1999, scored its best result in the Winnipeg riding of Wolseley, where Phyllis Abbé a prominent former New Democrat, received 386 votes. Former party leader Markus Buchart ran against Premier Gary Filmon in the riding of Tuxedo, received 126 votes; the party received 0.2% of all votes cast in the province. The GPM ran fourteen candidates in the 2003 election. Buchart received 1193 votes in Wolseley; the GPM as a whole received 4.08 % of the vote in the ridings. In the December 13, 2005, by-election held in the conservative Fort Whyte constituency, GPM candidate Shelagh Pizey-Allen garnered 1.77% of the vote. The GPM ran fifteen candidates in the 2007 election.
The fifteen captured 1.33 % of 5.5 % in the electoral divisions that were contested. The Green candidates received 12.32% in Wolseley placing second, 8.46% in Lord Roberts, 7.76% in St. Boniface, 6.38% in Fort Rouge, third place in Minnedosa ahead of the Liberal Party of Manitoba. In 2011, the GPM ran 32 candidates across the province and took 2.52% of the vote province-wide, or 10,886 votes, won 4.56% of votes in ridings they contested. Party leader James Beddome placed second in the Wolseley constituency with 19.64% of the vote, while nine other candidates placed third in various ridings ahead of Liberal candidates. Leaders of the Green Party of Manitoba Markus Buchart, 1998-2005 Daniel Drimes, 2005 Holly Nelson, 2005-2006 Andrew Basham, 2006-2008 James Beddome, 2008-2013 Alain Landry, 2013-2014 James Beddome, 2014-Markus Buchart resigned as party leader in late February 2005; the party's second leader was Daniel Drimes. He served as leader from April 2 to 22, 2005; the party's first leadership contest under the rules of Elections Manitoba began on July 1, 2005, a new leader was chosen on November 20, 2005.
She was Holly Nelson, a retired electrical technologist and professional writer who owned a Winnipeg New Age book store, the Philosopher's Stone, during the 1990s. In September 2006, a few weeks before the party's leadership convention, she stepped down, having accepted an out-of-province job. On November 19, 2006, the party chose 23-year-old Andrew Basham as its new leader. On November 15, 2008, James Beddome was elected leader, defeating incumbent leader Andrew Basham and contender Shane Nestruck. Beddome's first term expired November 2010, he was acclaimed a second term. Alain Landry was appointed interim party leader for the Manitoba Greens in Nov, 2013 after the resignation of former leader James Beddome. James stepped down to focus on his new career as a lawyer after graduating from the faculty of law at the University of Manitoba in 2013. Landry ran as a candidate in the 2011 elections. In January 2014, he ran in the Morris by-election. Former leader James Beddome sought to return to the leadership of the Greens and ran in the leadership race held in November 2014.
He defeated past Green candidate Kate Storey in the contest with 21 votes to 9 for Storey. List of political parties in Manitoba List of Green party leaders in Canada List of Green politicians who have held office in Canada Official
