Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by Ed Broadbent. He is a former Canadian politician who served

in the Canadian Parliament for two decades,

and as the head of its new Democratic Party from 1975 to 1989,

is also served as Director of the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development,

and currently chairs the Broadbent Institute.

He is the author of a new book, Seeking Social Democracy,

Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality. Ed Broadband, thank you so much for joining us on

current affairs today. It's an immense pleasure of my part to talk directly to an American audience.

Well, because we have an American audience, we might want to start with a little bit of a lay of the land for Canadian politics.

So for those who don't know the status of the new Democratic Party within the system, but perhaps you could explain to us what the basic

factional alignments are and where you fit within it. Well, you have to start with the structure

of a parliamentary democracy like ours, as opposed to a presidential system like yours.

Ours depends in terms of the selection of the prime minister.

It depends on the number of seats he or she obtains in the House of Commons.

And if you don't get enough seats, that is a majority plus one,

then you have to work out an arrangement with another party. Historically in Canada, for the past six or seven decades, that has

meant the larger party, liberal or conservative in Canada, has had to work with a smaller

party, namely New Democratic Party of Canada for most of that period.

And the consequence is that we as a party, and this is going on, as you and I are having a conversation right now,

our party constitute a sufficient number of seats to give the Liberal Party of Mr. Trudeau a governing majority.

And for that, and this is a social democratic element and impact, the liberals have to do certain things.

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