實戰(zhàn)口語情景對話：加拿大政治 Canadian Politics

Todd: OK, now Steve, the Canadian political system and the American political system are quite different. Could you explain to me how the Canadian political system works?

托德：史蒂夫，加拿大的政治制度與美國的制度有很大不同。你能跟我說明一下加拿大的政治制度嗎?

Steve: Sure. Basically in Canada there are 10 provinces and three territories. We call the three territories, territories because they have less than 50,000 people living in them. They're really far north, where it is cold and obviously not so comfortable to live. The other ten provinces are British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Foundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Each Province has their provincial government but as far as federal government the capital is in Ottawa, and there's actually an election coming up, probably sometime this year. Each province is given seats in the federal cabinet and seats are given based on population so Ontario and Quebec which have the largest populations have the most seats in Federal Parliament and so wherever you live you basically vote for the politician who is running in your particular geographical area, and the political party which wins the most seats forms the government that rules the country.

史蒂夫：當(dāng)然可以。基本上來說，加拿大有10個省，3個地區(qū)。我們稱之為3個地區(qū)，因為那些地區(qū)的人口不足5萬人。那些地區(qū)在遙遠(yuǎn)的北部，非常寒冷，顯然并不適合居住。10個省分別為不列顛哥倫比亞省、阿爾伯塔省、薩斯喀徹溫省、馬尼托巴省、安大略省、魁北克省、紐芬蘭與拉布拉多省、新斯科舍省、新不倫瑞克省、愛德華王子島省。每個省都有省政府，首都渥太華是聯(lián)邦政府所在地，其實馬上就要舉行選舉了，可能是今年的某個時候。每個省都在聯(lián)邦內(nèi)閣中占有席位，席位數(shù)量是依據(jù)人口定的，因此擁有最多人口的安大略省和魁北克省在聯(lián)邦議會中擁有最多席位，所以不管你住在哪，你都要為在你所居住的地理區(qū)域參加選舉的政治家投票，贏得最多席位的政黨將組成政府治理這個國家。

Todd: OK, and the leader of the country comes from that party?

托德：好，那國家領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人來自那個政黨?

Steve: Yeah, the leader of the country is elected within the party. They elect the leader (OK) So each party, when they want a leader, they have a leadership convention, and they elect a leader to lead that party, but the leader of the party must also run in their own constituency or riding, so if they don't win they can't be the Prime Minister, so, yeah, the main political parties, right now the government is Liberal Government. Other prominent parties are the New Democratic Party, sometimes called the NDP, and the New Conservative Party. Also a powerful party is Bloc Quebecois, which has most of its seats obviously in Quebec, so there are four main political parties.

史蒂夫：對，國家領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人是黨內(nèi)選舉出來的。他們選舉領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。所以每個政黨在需要領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的時候會舉行領(lǐng)袖大會，他們會選舉出一位領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人來領(lǐng)導(dǎo)這個政黨，當(dāng)然政黨領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人也必須要在他的選區(qū)內(nèi)進(jìn)行競選，所以如果他們沒有贏得投票，他們就不能成為總理，當(dāng)然，主要的政黨，現(xiàn)在執(zhí)掌政府的是自由黨。其他主要的政黨還包括新民主黨，可以簡稱為NDP，還有新保守黨。當(dāng)然還有一個強(qiáng)有力的政黨，那就是魁北克人黨，顯然這個政黨在魁北克省擁有最多的席位，所以加拿大有四大主要政黨。