Privy Council of Canada

The Queen's Privy Council for Canada (QPC) (French: Conseil privé de la Reine pour le Canada (CPR)), sometimes called Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council, is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs. Responsible government, though, requires the sovereign or her viceroy—the Governor General of Canada—to almost always follow only that advice tendered by the Cabinet—a committee within the Privy Council composed usually of elected Members of Parliament. Those summoned to the QPC are appointed for life by the governor general as directed by the Prime Minister of Canada, meaning that the group is composed predominantly of former cabinet ministers, with some others having been inducted as an honorary gesture. Those in the council are accorded the use of an honorific style and post-nominal letters, as well as various signifiers of precedence.

The government of Canada, which is formally referred to as Her Majesty's Government, is defined by the Canadian constitution as the sovereign acting on the advice of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada; what is technically known as the Queen-in-Council, or sometimes the Governor-in-Council, referring to the Governor General of Canada as the Queen's stand-in. The group of people is described as "a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the Queen's Privy Council for Canada," though, by convention, the task of giving the sovereign and governor general advice (in the construct of constitutional monarchy and responsible government, this is typically binding) on how to exercise the Royal Prerogative via Orders in Council rests with by the Cabinet—a committee of the Privy Council made up of other ministers of the Crown who are drawn from, and responsible to, the House of Commons in the parliament. This body is distinct but also entwined within the QPC, as the President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada customarily serves as one of its members and cabinet ministers receive assistance in the performance of their duties from the Privy Council Office, headed by the Clerk of the Privy Council.

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