Lesson 22 — Activity 2:

Comparison of Political Parties

Warm Up

It is important to know what each of the parties stand for before you cast your ballot in an election. In this activity, you will look at the similarities and differences of each of the federal political parties.

@istock

Each party has some similarities and some differences when it comes to their party's platform. In this interactive activity, you will compare the main federal political parties and look at each party's platforms and what is important to that party.

The issues that you will look at include:

the economy
the environment
Aboriginal affairs
pipelines
health care
immigration
education

The federal parties that you will compare are the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party, the Green Party, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Libertarian Party. The information from this activity includes the main parties' platforms from the 2015 federal election. However, the issues that are important to the parties are fairly consistent from year to year as these are the platforms that their party is based on. They cannot drastically change their values or ideas as they need to appeal to the general public for the ultimate purpose of gaining the general public's support and votes about complicated topics or issues.

Have fun comparing the different parties! As you go through this activity, think about which party's ideas you agree with the most.

Try This!

Click here to access the interactive activity. Click on each of the different parties to read more about their ideas and beliefs on the different issues that are important to Canadians. You can click on the icons along the top of the website to view specific issues, or you can read them all at once after you click on a specific candidate. You can also compare the stances (what the party believes) by clicking on the arrows in the top right-hand corner of the page.

If you want more information on the issues, click here to visit CBC's website where you can compare federal party platforms and election promises. Click on each of the issues to learn more about where the Conservative, NDP, and Liberal parties stand.

Now that you know a little more about each of the main federal political parties, take a short quiz to see where you side on different issues and see how your beliefs match each of the political parties. Click here to access the quiz.