This study addresses three questions: to what extent lobbying efforts undertaken by associations vary across different types of associations; what are the different lobbying instruments used by Canadian associations; what factors explain the intensity of the lobbying efforts deployed by the Canadian associations? These questions are dealt with through a sample of 438 associations operating in 12 different policy domains and at three possible levels of government (Canadian, provincial and municipal). The results show that leisure associations deploy less intense efforts in lobbying than public and private goods associations. Likewise, public and private goods associations do not appear to differ significantly with respect to efforts deployed in lobbying. Furthermore, the results show that the lobbying instruments used by associations differ across the different types of associations. Finally, the results indicate that competition between associations, participation in coalitions of associations and the number of policy domains in which associations have intense interests are significantly related to efforts deployed in lobbying by associations in many different policy domains. However, the variables related to the material resources of the associations have been shown to exert no significant impact on the lobbying efforts of Canadian associations.

A leader from Quebec boosts the fortunes of the Liberal party in that province. This, in turn, has helped make Quebec the veto player in twentieth-century Canadian elections and the Liberals the “natural” governing party. Although Quebec is no longer as critical as before, a leader from the province still makes a big difference. Full impact from the pattern requires more than one election to unfold. Patterns outside Quebec are similar, if fainter: the Liberal party is not punished for choosing a Quebecker and may even be helped. The early success of the pattern moved the Liberals to alternate between Quebec and non-Quebec leaders, such that the party is now led by a Quebecker more often than not. Maintaining alternation has never been easy and is only getting harder.

Abstract. Social democracy changed over the course of the twentieth century in relation to changes in the structure of Canada's economy, society and state. In the following article, we advance a framework to interpret and understand this process of change, identifying four major periods in the development of social democracy: Social Gospel (1900–1925), Social Planning (1925–1950), Social Security (1950–1975) and Social Movements (1975–2000). These periods are neither exclusive nor rigidly drawn, but they are instructive in explaining the development of Canada's left-wing political tradition. Situating social democracy within the framework of Canada's political economy and intra-party debates, and also in an international and historical context, we trace the transition from a moral crusade against capitalism to the seasoned, yet vulnerable, electoralism of the contemporary NDP.

Résumé. La social-démocratie a évolué au cours du 20e siècle, en même temps que la structure de l'économie, de la société et de l'État canadien. Dans l'article ci-dessous, nous proposons un cadre pour interpréter et comprendre ce processus en décrivant quatre périodes majeures dans le développement de la social-démocratie : l'Évangile social (1900–1925), la planification sociale (1925–1950), la sécurité sociale (1950–1975) et les mouvements sociaux (1975–2000). Ces périodes ne sont ni exclusives ni rigides, mais elles aident à expliquer le développement de la tradition politique de gauche au Canada. En situant la social-démocratie dans le cadre de l'économie politique canadienne et des débats intrapartis, ainsi que dans un contexte international et historique, nous traçons la transition de la croisade morale contre le capitalisme à l'électoralisme chevronné mais vulnérable du NPD contemporain.

Discussions over the debate on the electoral system in Canada typically contrast the actual distribution of legislative seats held by the parties resulting from the first-past-the-post system with what the outcome would have been with proportional representation. But the debate could consider another option, namely, the alternative vote. What would electoral outcomes have been in the 1997 Canadian election with the alternative vote? According to a simulation, 10 per cent of the members of parliament in Ottawa would have been different. The Liberals and the Conservatives would have benefited from the new distribution of votes while the Bloc Québécois and the Reform party would have fewer seats.

Cybernetic analysis is part of the systems approach and has been used by several authors to study governmental policies or public decisions. Nevertheless, the way in which it is used in this article is different from preceding attempts. Regulation by feedback is considered as being complex rather than simple; positive feedback seems neither exceptional nor pathological, and great emphasis is placed on power relations in the phenomena of regulation by feedback through which government policies are formed.

The presentation of different sub-systems of the cybernetic model and of different types of regulation by feedback are illustrated by examples touching on the adjustment of electoral boundaries. In the last part of the article, the first results of research bearing on the sector of social affairs and on that of energy serve to underline three characteristics of the cybernetic analysis of government policies as proposed in this article: the key role that it gives regulation by feedback, its particular attention to the unexpected consequences of action, and its insistence on the phenomena of communication as essential to action.

Macdonald is described as a man of phronesis who possessed a sophisticated political philosophy which, in general, conformed to the political disposition exemplified by Edmund Burke. Macdonald's views on the constitution, change, representation, democracy, women, tradition, economics, religion and unions are investigated. It is concluded that Macdonald was an anti-rationalist who saw the world in terms of loyalty, duty and obligation and who was devoted to the principles of prudence, tradition and the rule of law, to constitutional monarchy, to the British connection and British institutions but with respect for French traditions, to the minimal change consistent with harmony, to order before liberty, politics before economics and experience before abstract reason.

In 1996 the Alberta Court of Appeal struck down election spending limits for individuals, interest groups, corporations and unions for violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These spending restrictions were part of a complex regulatory regime which sought to promote fairness by controlling the election spending of candidates and parties. Although this decision was not appealed to the nation's highest court, the Supreme Court disapproved the Alberta ruling in an unrelated decision. This suggests that spending limits are justifiable under the Charter. Yet if new legislation is not introduced, the Alberta decision will continue to govern election conduct throughout the country and could undermine the democratic ideal of citizens participating in fair terms in the act of self-governance.

Journalistic writing is usually conceived as simple, clear and accessible. It is a vulgarisation discourse. Using a sophisticated program for discourse analysis (DEREDEC), the author has computerized the Flesch and Gunning readability tests. Montreal French newspaper coverage of the White Paper on the referendum constitute the corpus of this study. In brief, the unexpected conclusion is that newspapers are not so readable. The author attempts to explain this situation, referring not only to the journalists' competence but also to their working conditions. Also, what social and political influence can the press have if papers are hardly readable?

The orthodox view that Canada's ideological tradition is more supportive of an active state cannot explain earlier innovations in social and labour policy in the United States. A neo-pluralist and neo-institutionalist synthesis is used to contrast these nations. Organic ideologies of labour, agrarian, business and professional groups reveal no consistent national differences in support for state action. Initial state interventions were similar and limited. But institutional development occurred in different contexts, producing more effective executive leadership in Canada. American policy was constrained by the Congress, with its opportunities for blocking, and by inadequate executive power. Frustration with inaction plus greater social well-being reduced demands in the US for state action. Canada's institutions allowed more creative policy and fostered greater support for state action, especially where the weak economy exacted costs on social groups. But constitutional change could replicate American gridlock, and reduce the capacity for new state action.

Les élections générales de 1970 au Québec ont marqué tant les esprits que la discipline de la science politique au Québec, en particulier les analyses s'intéressant au comportement électoral et à l’étude des partis. En effet, pour la première fois de l'histoire de la province, un parti indépendantiste, le Parti québécois (PQ), faisait son entrée à l'Assemblée nationale, « un réalignement important des divisions partisanes » (Lemieux, 1976a : 60) remettant en question le bipartisme tenace de l’échiquier politique québécois. Cette élection, ainsi que celle de 1973, ont aussi illuminé les défauts du mode de scrutin majoritaire uninominal à un tour (MU1), le PQ récoltant respectivement 7 sièges pour 23% du vote et 6 sièges pour 30% du vote–frustrant une grande partie de l’électorat.

Since the 1990s, Canada's francophone minority communities (FMCs) have become increasingly involved in francophone immigration governance, and this trend has coincided with the wider neoliberalization of immigration in Canada. This article analyzes the implications of the growing influence of a neoliberal immigration policy and the narrative of an ideal immigrant on Canada's FMCs by focussing on the francophone Acadian community in New Brunswick, Canada's only constitutionally bilingual province. Making use of three types of sources—semistructured interviews, debates in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, and official and archival documents—the article argues that francophone and Acadian organizations have adopted the federal, neoliberal perspective on immigration, placing greater emphasis on economic integration and the creation of a bilingual workforce. Changes in the type of immigrant selected and role of the community in the lives of francophone immigrants create new challenges for minority language communities that define and identify themselves through language use and belonging.

This review surveys the literature on vote choice in Canada. It highlights key findings regarding a variety of factors that influence Canadians’ vote choice, while also suggesting future avenues of research. The focus is on studies conducted on vote choice at the federal level, with an emphasis on studies that have been published since 2000.

Canadian political science has changed over the past 50 years; however, these changes have come slowly and lag behind larger societal demographic transformations. While early attention to diversity concentrated on the place of women within the discipline, more recent attention focuses on the presence of Black, Indigenous and other political scientists of colour. Accompanying a diversification of personnel has been a broadening of the substantive focus of our research, as well as an expansion in the epistemological and methodological approaches applied to the study of politics. Yet despite these adaptations, the study of political science in Canada remains siloed and often exclusionary, challenging our ability to train the next generation of scholars to be capable of addressing the issues facing a world that is increasingly complex and diverse.

Recent increases in the number of openly LGBTQ2+ candidates have not resulted in a corresponding rise in the number of LGBTQ2+ politicians elected to the Canadian House of Commons, reviving the hypothesis of the “sacrificial lamb” candidacies. Drawing upon Lovenduski and Norris’ work on political recruitment, we analyze the backgrounds and experiences of the 172 LGBTQ2+ candidates who ran in the 2015, 2019 and 2021 federal elections in Canada. Our approach is based on the idea that LGBTQ2+ candidacies are the new sacrificial lambs of Canadian politics, although some of them seem less likely to be sacrificed than others. Indeed, we highlight how the electoral opportunities (for example, district competitiveness) afforded to LGBTQ2+ cis men are more likely to result in success than those afforded to LGBTQ2+ cis women or gender minority candidates.

Abstract. There is a discussion in the literature about whether, to what extent, and in what ways the welfare state is retrenching or otherwise changing. Both the health policy literature and the broader policy studies literature have tended to focus on economic measures of privatization. This study tests the adequacy of the measures of public-private change proposed by Stoddart and Labelle (1984) by using them to track and analyze the sequence of policy changes in automobile legislation, workers' compensation and health that transformed Ontario's rehabilitation health sector from being almost entirely public in 1990 to being almost entirely private a decade later. It suggests adding what is called “allocative decision-making power” to indicators used to assess public-private change in order to more adequately capture transformations.

Résumé. Assiste-t-on au déclin de l'État-providence ou à sa transformation? Quelle est l'ampleur du phénomène? Ce sont des questions qui ont été maintes fois examinées. Or, les analyses des politiques de santé ainsi que les études plus générales des politiques publiques ont tendance à se concentrer sur les mesures économiques de privatisation. La présente étude vise à tester la pertinence des mesures du changement public-privé proposées par Stoddart et Labelle (1984) en les appliquant à la série des changements de politiques en matière de réglementation automobile, d'indemnisation des travailleurs et de santé qui ont fait passer le secteur de la réadaptation du système de santé ontarien d'un statut presque entièrement public en 1990 à un statut presque entièrement privé une décennie plus tard. Cette étude propose d'ajouter la mesure de ce qu'on appelle “ la capacité à prendre des décisions d'allocation ” aux indicateurs traditionnels d'évaluation de l'équilibre public-privé, afin de mieux décrire les processus de changement.

Mechanism-based explanations are gaining in popularity in the social sciences. Canadian political science has somewhat embraced these debates. Recent work has explicitly identified with mechanismic explanation and, at the same time, there is a point to be made about the compatibility of CPS's cannons with a mechanism-based understanding of causation. In this paper, we survey past and recent work aligned with this ontological approach. We demonstrate a heterogeneous engagement with the methodological literature regarding mechanisms and different understandings as well as uses of mechanisms in political analysis. This survey allows us to argue for the potential of mechanism-based explanations for CPS while also forcing us to advocate for a sober and discerning use of this approach.