Executive Council (Canada)

Executive councils in the provinces and territories of Canada are constitutional organs headed by the lieutenant governor.

The Cabinet is an informal grouping within the Council, headed by a provincial premier, who holds de facto power over the body. The Executive Council is a larger body, including both Cabinet members, former Cabinet members and other individuals, which technically advises the lieutenant governor but which in practice has purely ceremonial purpose. They serve the same function provincially as the Queen's Privy Council for Canada does federally except that the Executive Council does not have the ceremonial role of directly advising the Queen, proclaiming her successors, or assenting to some royal marriages.

These are the:

  • : Executive Council of Alberta
  • : Executive Council of British Columbia
  • : Executive Council of Manitoba
  • : Executive Council of Newfoundland and Labrador
  • : Executive Council of New Brunswick
  • : Executive Council of Quebec
  • : Executive Council of Nova Scotia
  • : Executive Council of Ontario
  • : Executive Council of Prince Edward Island
  • : Executive Council of Saskatchewan

Canadian territories also have councils. These are the:

  • : Executive Council of Yukon
  • : Executive Council of the Northwest Territories
  • : Executive Council of Nunavut

The executive branch of the Canadian federal government is not called an executive council. Executive power is exercised by the Canadian Cabinet who are always members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

Canadian executive councils
  • Queen's Privy Council for Canada
  • Federal Cabinet
  • Executive Councils of the Provinces and Territories:
  • British Columbia
  • Alberta
  • Saskatchewan
  • Manitoba
  • Ontario
  • Quebec
  • New Brunswick
  • Nova Scotia
  • Prince Edward Island
  • Newfoundland & Labrador
  • Yukon
  • Northwest Territories
  • Nunavut

Famous quotes containing the words executive and/or council:

    “To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.”
    —George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    “There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
    With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
    Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
    Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child....”
    —Allen Tate (1899–1979)