- published: 05 Nov 2015
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The Cabinet of Canada (French: Cabinet du Canada) is a body of ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada. Chaired by the prime minister, the Cabinet is a committee of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and the senior echelon of the Ministry, the membership of the Cabinet and Ministry often being co-terminal; there are currently five members of the latter who are not also members of the former. The terms cabinet and ministry are sometimes used interchangeably, though this is a subtle inaccuracy that can spark confusion.
For practical reasons, the Cabinet is informally referred to either in relation to the prime minister in charge of it or, more formally, the number of ministries since Confederation. The current[update] cabinet is the Harper Cabinet, which is part of the 28th Ministry.
The government of Canada, formally referred to as Her Majesty's Government, is defined by the constitution as the Queen acting on the advice of her Privy Council; what is technically known as the Queen-in-Council, or sometimes the Governor-in-Council, referring to the governor general as the Queen's stand-in. However, the Privy Council—composed mostly of former members of parliament, chief justices of the Supreme Court, and other elder statesmen—rarely meets in full; as the stipulations of responsible government require that those who directly advise the monarch and governor general on how to exercise the Royal Prerogative be accountable to the elected House of Commons, the day-to-day operation of government is guided only by a sub-group of the Privy Council made up of individuals who hold seats in parliament. This body of ministers of the Crown is the Cabinet, which has come to be the council in the phrase Queen-in-Council.
Justin Pierre James Trudeau, MP (born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician. He has represented the Montreal electoral division of Papineau in the Canadian House of Commons since 2008 as a member of the Liberal Party and currently serves as the party's critic for youth, post-secondary education, and amateur sport.
Trudeau is the eldest son of the late former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Sinclair Trudeau Kemper. His maternal grandfather, James Sinclair, was also a federal cabinet minister.
Trudeau was born on December 25, 1971, in Ottawa, Ontario. He was only the second child in Canadian history to be born when one of his parents was prime minister; the first was John A. Macdonald's youngest daughter Margaret Mary Macdonald, and Trudeau's younger brothers Alexandre (Sacha) (born December 25, 1973) and Michel (1975–98) were the third and fourth, respectively. Pierre and Margaret Trudeau separated in 1977, when Justin was six years old, and Pierre retired as prime minister in 1984. Of his mother and father's marriage, Trudeau said in 2009, "They loved each other incredibly, passionately, completely. But there was 30 years between them and my mom never was an equal partner in what encompassed my father's life, his duty, his country."