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The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (also known as Ontario Legislative Assembly or Parliament of Ontario),[1] is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada by number of members. It meets at the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park in the provincial capital, Toronto.
The Legislative Assembly has existed since 1867 when the British North America Act, 1867 severed the Province of Canada into two new provinces, with the portion then called Canada West becoming Ontario. Section 69 of the British North America Act section 69 stipulates "There shall be a Legislature for Ontario consisting of the Lieutenant-Governor and of One House, styled the Legislative Assembly of Ontario". The Legislative Assembly is unicameral, without an upper house, with 107 seats representing electoral districts ("ridings") elected through a first-past-the-post electoral system across the province.
Like the Canadian federal government, Ontario uses a Westminster-style parliamentary government, in which members are elected to the Legislative Assembly through general elections and from there the party with the most seats chooses a Premier of Ontario and Executive Council of Ontario. The premier acts as Ontario's head of government, while the Queen of Canada acts as its head of state. The leader of the party with the second-most seats in the House becomes the Leader of the Opposition.
The Ontario Legislature is sometimes referred to as the "Ontario Provincial Parliament". Members of the assembly refer to themselves as "Members of the Provincial Parliament" (MPPs) as opposed to "Members of the Legislative Assembly" (MLAs) as in many other provinces. Ontario is the only province to do so, in accordance with a resolution passed in the Assembly on April 7, 1938. However, the Legislative Assembly Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L10 refers only to "members of the Assembly".