A Canadian federal political party is one that runs candidates in elections to the Canadian House of Commons. Elections Canada? regulates such parties under the Canada Elections Act?.

Some political party structures subordinate Canadian provincial political party? structures and even municipal candidates to a single command hierarchy: the New Democratic Party is the only one of the three major nationwide political parties that does this, accordingly, its branches are referred as the NDP-ON? and NDP-NS? and NDP-BC? rather than as independent parties, which they are not. Bloc Quebecois refer to themselves as having an ambassador role, representing the Quebec National Assembly to the federal Government of Canada, from which the Bloc and its provincial arm the Parti Quebecois? seek to secede?.

The Conservative Party of Canada and Liberal Party of Canada are completely independent of provincial parties.

The Green Party of Canada is more confused, as usual, and permits some provincial parties to claim that they are also representing the federal party in some situations, and permits joint councils and very strange claims about relationships between parties. The proposed Green Federation of Canada would remedy this inconsistent and unethical situation.