Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Official party status" in English language version.
The Chief Electoral Officer shall, whenever necessary for the purpose of these Regulations, appoint six scrutineers for duty in the office of each special returning officer. Two of such six scrutineers shall be nominated by the Leader of the Government, two by the Leader of the Opposition and two on the joint recommendation of the Leaders of political groups having a recognized membership in the House of Commons of eight or more.
There shall be paid to each member of the House of Commons, other than the Prime Minister or the member occupying the recognized position of Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, who is the leader of a party that has a recognized membership of twelve or more persons in the House of Commons, an allowance at the rate of four thousand dollars per annum in addition to the sessional allowance payable to such member.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)'a Recognized Opposition Party' means an opposition party represented in the Legislative Assembly by four or more Members;
Registry of political parties. 394) The Chief Electoral Officer shall maintain a registry of political parties…
In a ruling on the status in the House of the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative Coalition (PC/DR), Speaker Milliken listed the identifying features of a party or a recognized party: there are at least 12 Members in the group; they appoint a slate of House Officers as their official spokespersons; they work as a cohesive unit; and they serve under the same banner. However, this practice relates not to the recognition of groups but to that of parties. In this case, the PC/DR Coalition had 20 Members: there were 12 Members of the recognized Progressive Conservative Party and 8 independent Members who comprised the Democratic Representative Caucus. The Chair could not grant full party recognition to the PC/DR Coalition since he could not extend party recognition to a group which disavowed that title and which was clearly an amalgam of a party and a group of independent Members (Debates, September 24, 2001, pp. 5489–92).
A recognized party in the Senate is composed of at least nine senators who are members of the same political party, which is registered under the Canada Elections Act, or has been registered under the Act within the past 15 years. A recognized parliamentary group in the Senate is one to which at least nine senators belong and which is formed for parliamentary purposes. A senator may belong to either one recognized party or one recognized parliamentary group. Each recognized party or recognized group has a leader or facilitator in the Senate.
On the second question about the figure of five members, essentially, we followed the leadership of the House of Commons with respect to its ratio. Our report discusses how they came to the figure 12 as the official number for a party. Through serendipity, it turns out, as the report notes, there was a party with 12 elected members, and the other place accommodated that party with official status at that level. They are 301 members and we are 105. The wisdom of the committee was to take a proportional number — and that number is five — and to follow generally the practices of the other place on this particular subject.
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