Ontario

C

Sports, Recreation, and Annual Events

Ontario’s many varied parks, forests, and shorelines, as well as its numerous lakes and rivers provide excellent opportunities for many outdoor recreational activities. Sports are also popular in the province, including baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey, and track and field. Professional sports exist at various levels in communities throughout the province. The Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team of the American League, and the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association all play in Toronto. The Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League also play in the province. The Ottawa Senators are a National Hockey League franchise in that city. The Hockey Hall of Fame is in Toronto, and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame is in Hamilton.

Many of Canada’s most significant cultural events occur in Ontario. These include the annual Stratford Festival, in Stratford, which runs from May through November and features productions of plays by William Shakespeare. The festival also offers concerts, contemporary drama, musicals, and other productions. The Shaw Festival, which features the works of Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, is held annually at Niagara-on-the-Lake, and it runs from April through November. In addition, annual events such as the Canadian National Exhibition, the largest annual fair in North America, and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair are held in Toronto’s Exhibition Park, in August and November respectively. International crews compete in the Royal Canadian Henley, a summer rowing regatta at Port Dalhousie. Other summer events include Caribana, a Caribbean costume and music festival held every August in Toronto; Highland Games at Fergus, with traditional Scottish games; and the Six Nations Native Pageant at Brantford. Winter carnivals, spring and summer festivals, and fall fairs are common throughout the province.

VII

Government

Ontario is one of ten constituent provinces of the federation of Canada. The British North America Act of 1867 (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867) divided government powers between federal and provincial levels, with some amount of overlap. The federal government has responsibility for foreign affairs, immigration, indirect taxation, criminal justice, defense, and commerce. The provinces control health, education, civil justice, social services, and direct taxation. Both Canada and Ontario have parliamentary systems of government based on the British model. At the federal level, Ontario sends 106 members to Ottawa’s House of Commons, and the province is represented in the Canadian Senate by 22 senators. Members of Commons are elected whereas Senators are appointed by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister. All Canadian citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to vote.

A

Provincial Government Organization

A

1

Lieutenant Governor

As in all Canadian provinces, the official head of government in Ontario is the federally appointed lieutenant governor. The lieutenant governor is the representative of the British monarch in the province, and he or she signs bills into law, has ceremonial duties, and reads the Speech from the Throne—the government’s agenda—at the beginning of each legislative session.

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A

2

Premier and Cabinet

Although the lieutenant governor is the head of state in Ontario, as in other provinces, real political power rests with the leader of the political party that has a majority in the provincial legislature. This individual is known as the premier. The executive council, or cabinet, consists of the premier and his or her ministers, who head one or more departments of the government. Members of the cabinet, like the premier, are all elected members of the provincial legislature, and they are selected for their posts by him or her. The premier and the cabinet remain in power as long as they maintain the support of a majority in the legislature. This system is called responsible government.

A

3

Provincial Legislature

Ontario has a unicameral (single-chamber) legislature. Provincial legislators are elected to five-year terms of office. They are known as Members of Provincial Parliament. The 107 members of Ontario’s legislature are elected from the same ridings (constituencies) as Ontario’s representatives in the federal House of Commons. After an election, the lieutenant governor calls on the leader of the political party with the most elected members to become premier and form the government. Legislators who are of political parties that do not form the government are known as members of the opposition, and their parties are called opposition parties. The opposition party possessing the largest number of seats in the legislature is called the official opposition.

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