Government of Canada

The Government of Canada (French: Gouvernement du Canada) is the federal government of the Canadian Republic, a sovereign state located in the northern part of North America. It exercises jurisdiction over 13 provinces and five territories, each of which have their own provincial/territorial governments responsible for a majority of domestic matters within their area of jurisdiction. Some of the primary responsibilities of the federal government include conducting diplomatic relations with fellow sovereign states and other foreign entities as well as the United Nations and other intergovernmental organisations, funding, supervising, and if necessary deploying the Canadian Armed Forces, and maintaining the national security of the federation as a whole.

The Government of Canada is based in the major city of Ottawa, a federal capital district which is administratively separate from any Canadian province or territory. Located on the south bank of the River Ottawa approximately 150 kilometres west of Montréal, Ottawa's river boundary on the north of which lies the major Québécois city of Gatineau is contiguous with the boundary along the rest of the River Ottawa between Canada's two most populous provinces of Ontario and Québec.

As Canada is a parliamentary republic, the federal government is led by the Prime Minister of Canada, the federation's head of government, who is traditionally the leader of the party or coalition with a majority of seats in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the bicameral Parliament of Canada. The Prime Minister nominates members to form his/her cabinet, who are confirmed by the President of Canada, the mostly ceremonial head of state who is elected every six years in a direct election. Prime Ministers themselves are also officially appointed by the President on advice of Parliament.

All executives of federal departments and independent federal agencies are members of the Cabinet and thus report directly to the Prime Minister, including the Minister of National Defence, who oversees the Canadian Forces, the Minister of Public Security, which oversees law enforcement at the federal level including supervising the Commissioner of the RCMP (Canada's premier federal police agency), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who conducts international diplomacy and oversees the Canadian Republic's multiple ambassadors and diplomats and their associated foreign missions, and the Director of Security and National Intelligence, who heads the Security Intelligence Service.

An exhaustive list of all federal departments and other executive agencies and their areas of jurisdiction can be found in the main article on the Cabinet of Canada.