Canadian Politics Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This Report was produced just before the Law Commission of Canada was defunded by the newly elected Conservative government. The Report argued for a new governance structure to oversee policing that incorporated the rapidly increasing private security sector. The Report was presented to Parliament but received little consideration as the topic of police oversight remains politically charged and the structural reforms suggested were ambitious.

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- Police Science, Security, Governance, Policing Studies

This contemporary and accessible introduction to Canadian politics provides a modern perspective on the institutions and issues at the heart of our political system. Promising an "insider's" take on the discipline, the text provides in-depth coverage of essential topics-from federalism, regionalism, and diversity to the party system, activism, and elections-while inviting students to debate and discuss the strengths and shortcomings of Canada's political institutions. Suitable as a core text for introductory courses in Canadian politics.

- by Alex Marland (Twitter: AlexJMarland)
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- Canadian Politics

Regehr, C., Kanani, K., McFadden, J., & Saini, M.

- by Michael Saini
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- Social Work, Canadian Law, Canadian Politics, Legal

This is a review of my co-edited volume by Gianluca Passarelli, political scientist at Sapienza University in Rome.

- by Cedric de Leon and +2
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- Sociology, Political Sociology, American Politics, Comparative Politics

The paper examines variation in union density in advanced Western countries. It employs newly updated data on unionization which show that differences among industrialized Western nations persist overtime. The analysis includes examination of the role of corporatism, Left party power, Catholic party power, ethnic and linguistic diversity, the religious composition of the population, size of countries and labor force markets, proportion of the government and industry employment, government‟s share of GDP revenue. In addition to cross-national statistical analysis, union density rates are examined by major geographical and cultural clusters of countries, i.e., Northern countries, the Low Countries, English-speaking countries, German-speaking countries and Southern countries. We focus on divergence of union density between the United States and Canada, which belong to the same cluster of Western nations and have similar economic structures. We examine the role of social values and structural, economic, and political factors in divergence of unionism in Canada and the United States. Our analysis employs 1996 Lipset-Meltz survey data on attitudes towards unions in the United States and Canada as well as data from other surveys, such as the World Values Surveys.

Are female government leaders more likely than their male counterparts to see their gendered identities and personal lives profiled in news coverage of their ascents? Are non-novel women leaders-those who are the second in their jurisdiction to achieve the top political jobless likely to experience media personalization than did the women who preceded them in office? By analyzing newspaper coverage of 20 Australian and Canadian premiers, ten women and their immediate male predecessors, our study establishes that female premiers were more extensively personalized in news coverage than were male premiers, particularly in the Australian context. However, gender novelty and other factors proved significant. The proposition that an increased presence of women in leadership roles diminishes the salience of private lives and personal

- by Patrick Taillon
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- Sociology, Constitutional Law, Political Science, Canadian Politics
- by Gabrielle Slowey
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- Canadian Studies, Indigenous Studies, Political Science, Indigenous Politics

Nested Federalism and Inuit Governance in the Canadian Arctic traces the political journey toward self-governance taken by three predominantly Inuit regions over the past forty years: Nunavik in northern Québec, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the western Northwest Territories, and Nunatsiavut in northern Labrador. The Canadian federal system was never designed to recognize Indigenous governance, and it has resisted formal institutional change. But change has come. Indigenous communities have successfully mobilized to negotiate the creation of self-governing regions. Policymakers and politicians have responded by situating almost all these regions politically and institutionally within existing constituent units of the Canadian federation. The varied governance arrangements emerging as a result are forms of nested federalism, a new and largely unexplored model of government that is transforming Canada as it reformulates the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. ...

- by Gary N. Wilson
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- Public Administration, Indigenous Studies, Indigenous Politics, Federalism

This article explores the reasons behind Canada’s declining participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. It proposes a decision-making model that explains how politicians assess opportunities to commit personnel to peacekeeping missions by balancing their policy objectives with the pressures of electoral politics. Emphasizing the importance of voters in political decision-making processes, it argues that participation in peacekeeping is dependent on three key factors: a belief in the value of peacekeeping in principle; a belief in the value of a given peacekeeping operation; and risk aversion in response to the potential costs of peacekeeping. Tracing Canada’s declining participation in peacekeeping operations since the 1990s, it particularly focuses on how this calculus has, in different ways, limited Canada’s involvement in peacekeeping under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, arguing that the former undervalued peacekeeping as a means of obtaining its foreign policy objectives and as a feature of national identity, minimizing the perceived benefits of participation, while the latter has focused on the inherent risks of peacekeeping despite a professed commitment to peacekeeping in principle, maximizing the perceived costs of further personnel commitments. The decisions of successive Canadian governments have led to a free-rider problem in which Canada is willing to enjoy the benefits of peacekeeping but unwilling to bear the costs.

- by Graeme Young
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Canadian Politics, Peacekeeping, Peace
- by FRANCOIS PETRY and +1
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- Public Opinion, Canadian Politics, Political Representation

What Pierre Trudeau did is important enough to discuss, because he changed Canada forever. He made English and French an equal status and he created the status of women office. His government also declared the Multicultural policy. The Multicultural policy is ensuring that Canadians receive, regardless of their race, equal treatment. Trudeau's government also enacted the Canada Health Act in 1984.

- by Faisal Farrukh
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- Canadian Studies, Canadian History, Canadian Politics

This digest of federal, provincial, and civic politicians of Lethbridge was undertaken by the same team that produced a pamphlet on Edmonton politicians several years ago. It appears in part in the Government of Alberta Department of Culture and Multiculturalism under the title of Alberta Election Returns: 1882-1993. The idea behind accumulating all politicians from a locality together in a biographical dictionary is that later researchers will have a more advantageous place to start from in research on the political history of Lethbridge.

- by Austin A Mardon
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- Canadian Politics

For approximately two decades, the federal regulation for third-party election spending was the focus of repeated constitutional debate. However, with the 2004 Supreme Court decision in Harper v. Canada, a relative level of policy stability has been established. This stability permits us to evaluate the performance of spending limits according to the principles of the egalitarian model on which it is based. Using an original data set compiled from third-party election advertising reports from the 2004, 2006 and 2008 federal elections, this article offers the first empirical analysis of this important election policy. A number of observations can be offered. First, third parties are not spending large amounts relative to spending limits. Second, despite legislative changes in 2006 banning all federal party contributions except those from individuals, there appears little strategic action by third parties in spending “around” contribution limits. During this three-election cycle, third parties quite simply did not spend significant amounts. Current third-party spending limits therefore appear to be situated comfortably within the expectations of the egalitarian model, though why third parties of all types spend so little remains in question.

- by Erin Crandall and +1
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- Canadian Politics, Election Law, Public Policy
- by Jane Ekstam
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- New Media, Political Science, Political communication, Canadian Politics

In this paper, I argue that we can directly observe the impact of different degrees of solidarity when analyzing the system of public finance in comparative perspective. The main
hypothesis is that the stronger the principle of solidarity is enshrined in the constitution of a federal country, the greater is what scholars of public finance call the ‘flypaper effect’, namely local overspending of common resources. In order to test the hypothesis, I will present a comparative model of public spending on the state level in five ‘mature federations’ (Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the United States) including all states within those five countries over a 15 year period.

- by Björn Egner
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- Comparative Politics, Federalism, Fiscal Federalism, Canadian Politics

The Creator's Game returns to a classic political question in colonial contexts: What forms of resistance and life meet material and symbolic theft and trickery in "new lands"? The book's anchoring in the philosophy, practice and economy of lacrosse offers an extensive account of an answer: by foregrounding Indigenous organizing and resurgence in Canada from the nineteenth century to the near present, the book extends its analysis beyond an account of state power or formation. Downey begins this history with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) creation story as retold by Delmor Jacobs of Six Nations of the Grand River. With this ancient narrative and theory of origins, we encounter a woman generating life, the cooperation and autonomy of animals , the axis of good and bad ("good twin / evil twin")-what some might see as some of the standard fare found in creation stories across the globe. But within this story of life, we also find something unique: sport. Known as the Creator's Game, lacrosse was brought from the Sky World to the earth by the first woman, Sky Woman, who introduced it to her grandchildren (the aforementioned twins) to resolve conflict (7). Jacobs explains that lacrosse, originally a stick-ball game, required that hands not touch the ball. Lacrosse sticks were made from spiritually loaded trees and tied to the spiritual, familial and political life of the sky and earth worlds (167, 191). As the twins staged one of their most dramatic conflicts through this game, it is considered a mode of resolution so powerful that it can guarantee life beyond the earthly world to the ancestors in the Sky World (11). With that, Downey sets the tone for all that follows: the political life of this practice; its deep metaphysical, medicinal and political purpose; its repackaging as "sport"; and its appropriation by Canada as a national sport, which is then rebranded as a symbol of white masculinity and civilization and used as a tool of assimilation for Indian students in residential schools. Downey draws from multiple sources to tell this story. He augments his work in the archives with oral histories and his rendering of an imagined present, introducing his readers to both himself as the book's author and to a trickster figure, "Usdas," who acts throughout the book to cue in readers to the location and timeframe of each chapter as well as the key organizing issue or conflict to follow. This playful figure, in Downey's hands, is also suggestive of trickery-of colonial deception and wrongdoing and of Indigenous responses to that wrongdoing. Not only was an Indigenous sport taken out of its context and then claimed as the "national sport" of Canada, Indigenous peoples were limited from play in 1867 and then barred entirely from competition in 1880 (43). This racialized and colonial exclusion was justified first by arguments that Indigenous peoples were perceived to be professionals and thus had an unfair advantage in a sport that was to be played by amateurs and then by arguments that they were too rough, that they played an "Indian style of the game" that was too savage, disordered and "ungentlemanly" (80). In spite of this ban, Indigenous players participated in exhibition games, including spectacular displays for white consumption during a visit to Queen

This op-ed analyses how Justin Trudeau lost his majority in the 2019 October Canadian election. It concludes that his election struggles stemmed from the loss of progressive voters that had formed the basis of his 2015 victory. It notes that his struggles were also tied to his inability to truly address deep structural inequalities and income insecurity, which fits a pattern of the political landscape in nearly every other liberal democracy today.

- by Jeremy Wildeman
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- Canadian Political History, Canadian Politics, Canada

We are at a pivotal moment in addressing homelessness in Canada. For decades, the Federal Government did not prioritize investments in safe, adequate, and affordable housing. Coupled with shifting economic and social landscapes, the modern homelessness crisis was made. In order to develop long-term solutions to homelessness, we must recognize that homelessness exists along a continuum. In this article, we discuss the full extent of homelessness in Canada, including the relationship between a lack of affordable housing and the homelessness crisis. We argue that preventing and ending homelessness is achievable so long as investments, strategies, policies, and practices account for those at risk of homelessness and/or who are precariously housed.

- by Erin Dej
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- Homelessness, Canadian Politics, Affordable Housing, Canada

The Special Planning Secretariat was established in the Privy Council Office of the Canadian federal government in 1965 with a mandate to coordinate and promote initiatives against poverty, and was quickly dubbed Canada’s “war on poverty” department. Originally the brainchild of Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s policy chief Tom Kent, who hoped it would make the government’s ambitious social policy agenda more legible, the Secretariat survived Kent’s resignation and took on a lower-profile role generating material to raise public awareness both of poverty and of government’s various efforts to alleviate it. Working in partnership with voluntary organizations and other government agencies including the National Film Board, the Secretariat pioneered new ways of presenting government activities and representing the poor. Its vision of government, reflected in the Index of Programs for Human Development, was comprehensive, reflecting a strategic approach to the federal bureaucracy that would dominate by the 1970s; its representation of poverty, especially in the film The Things I Cannot Change, was bleak and it isolated the poor from social relations. The Secretariat’s activities, which have been obscured by the memory of the redistributive social programmes introduced in the same era, left a mixed legacy for government action to redress poverty.

- by David Tough
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- Rhetoric, Welfare State, Poverty, Canadian Politics
- by Asa McKercher
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- Canadian Studies, Canadian History, International History, Cold War
- by Victor Platt
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- Canadian Studies, Information Security, Canadian Politics, Cyber crime

Employment equity policy in the province of British Columbia has undergone a corrosive, back door backlash, compared to Ontario's more classic, or front door, backlash under a similar neoliberal government shift. Using interviews and policy analysis, we document the process. Understanding local variations in the backlash phenomenon is important to strategies to combat oppression and systemic discrimination.

- by Abigail Bakan
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- Canadian Politics, British Columbia, Employment Equity Policies
- by Jane Jenson
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- Canadian Politics, New Social Risks

Immigration is a contentious topic in most liberal democracies. Anti-immigrant politicians and parties have used nativism to generate electoral support and roll back immigration policies. In marked contrast, Canadian governments have continued to pursue an expansionary immigration program, with the support of the public. Explanations of Canadian exceptionalism point to Canada’s isolated geography and distinctive immigration and multiculturalism policies. We highlight the importance of three additional factors: the distribution of immigrants in Canada, Canada’s citizenship policy, and its Single Member Plurality electoral system. The interaction of these forces enhances the electoral weight of new Canadian voters. This, in turn, moderates Canadian political parties’ positions, helping shore up a robust cross-party political consensus. The portability of the “Canadian model” is therefore limited. While other countries may adopt Canadian policy approaches, given the contingent factors shaping the politics of immigration in Canada, generating similar degrees of political consensus will be difficult.

Using a case study of Alberta, Canada, this paper demonstrates how a geographic critique of fossil capitalism helps elucidate the tensions shaping tar sands development. Conflicts over pipelines and Indigenous territorial claims are challenging development trajectories, as tar sands companies need to expand access to markets in order to expand production. While these conflicts are now well recognised, there are also broader dynamics shaping development. States face a rentier's dilemma, relying on capital investments to realise resource value. Political responses to the emerging climate crisis undercut the profitability of hydrocarbon extraction. The automation of production undermines the industrial compromise between hydrocarbon labour and capital. Ultimately, the crises of fossil capitalism require a radical transformation within or beyond capital relations. To mobilise against the tar sands, organisers must recognise the tensions underpinning it, developing strategies that address ecological concerns and the economic plight of those dispossessed and abandoned by carbon extraction.

- by Tyler McCreary
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- Canadian Studies, Climate Change, Indigenous Movements, Canadian Politics

Cet ouvrage collectif est l'aboutissement d'un projet en quatre temps, lequel a inclus un colloque à l'Assemblée nationale du Québec, un autre à McGill dans le contexte de l'ACFAS en 2017, ainsi qu'une exposition à la bibliothèque de l'Université Laval.
Bonenfant builds bridges between two Québecs, before and after the Quiet Revolution. Québec's way to adapt to its society British parliamentarism owes a lot to him

- by Guy Laforest
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- Sociology, Constitutional Law, Political Science, Canadian Politics

A critique of Multiculturalism as it is practiced in Canada

- by Luis Dizon
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- Multiculturalism, Politics, Canadian Politics, Pierre Elliot Trudeau

Oxford University Press, 2016

This chapter of the book "Sustainability Soup" explores how Western-based ideas and ideologies about resource management, economic, legal, and socio-cultural systems have disrupted and destabilized non-Western Aboriginal societies (both Inuit and First Nations) in the Canadian Arctic and the sub-Arctic northern regions. For hundreds of years Western-based resource management concepts, technologies, values and ideas have been imposed on other societies, primarily through militaristic control of space and resource development as well as religious and educational systems. Western ideologies and values can be characterized as analogous to invasive alien (or exotic) species that are disruptive to existing ecosystems. The introduction of Western approaches to development has led to severe cultural and social destabilization in many traditional societies such as the hunter-gatherer Aboriginal populations in Canada. This destabilization has resulted in the loss of traditional social and economic frameworks. The loss of these frameworks undermines the ability of non-Western societies to maintain sustainable livelihoods and protect ecosystems that support them.
Specifically, this chapter considers the impact of alien ideals, laws, resource management systems and socio-technical systems related to the oil and gas development sector in the Canadian Arctic in the past, present, and future. It is argued that metropolitan interests in Southern Canada, to paraphrase Harold Innis (1930, 1972), exported a resource development paradigm to the Arctic that caused cultural, economic, political and social disruptions to Aboriginal peoples. To understand the development processes underway today and the social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological destabilization of the Canadian North, it is necessary to consider some of the key social, cultural and economic transformations that have taken place in the past. The chapter then examines the current impact of alien ideologies and socio-technical systems on Aboriginal communities in the Arctic and on the natural environment. Finally, the chapter considers some of the future threats posed, such as the possible increase in Arctic shipping.

While No Burden to Carry has been taken up largely within Caribbean-Canadian women's labour historiography, this article argues for its position within a trans-national history of feminist Black nationalism in which that politics crosses the Canada-U.S. border with Black immigrants as early as the 1840s. The connective history it offers challenges preconceptions of Black nationalism as a masculinist and early-to-mid-twentieth century political movement, and historical dismissals of Black nationalism as unimportant or ineffectual in the Canadian context. RÉSUMÉ Si No Burden to Carry a été principalement abordé dans le cadre de l'historiographie des travailleuses caribéennes-canadiennes, on soutient ici que l'oeuvre s'inscrit plutôt dans le contexte de l'histoire transnationale du nationalisme noir fémin-iste. Le projet politique a en effet traversé la frontière canado-américaine par le biais d'immigrant-e-s noir-e-s dès les années 1840. L'histoire connectée offerte par cette interprétation remet en cause les idées reçues selon lesquelles le mouve-ment nationaliste noir est un projet masculiniste datant de la première moitié du XXe siècle et dont l'importance historique dans le contexte canadien est balayée du revers de la main.