And the U.S. had the federalist party which once held power. An extra party being previously viable in the past has little to do with whether or not a legislature is controlled by 1 of 2 parties.
And because of how our legislature works, if the winning party wins by a minority (Less than 50% of legislative seats), the NDP can team up with the opposition to outpower the party that won and use that to attempt to get legislation that it wants pushed through as a compromise.
“X party can team up with y” also doesn’t negate the definition of a two party system. Cooperation or not, the conservatives and liberals control the overwhelming majority of the seats.
your last paragraph is false and only serves to entrench the 2 most powerful parties.
I’ll be honest, I’m not Canadian and rarely speak about Canadian politics. So in no way am I entrenching the two most powerful parties.
And my last paragraph isn’t false. There are 338 seats in your house of Commons, and 81% of them are held by the two dominant parties. That is objectively true. The final sentence is a subjective one.
Sure, 3rd parties in Canada fair considerably better than they do in the U.S., but it seems pretty clear that they have no shot of getting a majority.
So with all of these things together, Canada is a two party system as well, largely due to the use of FPTP voting. We need more representative systems like approval and star voting.