Abstract. Although the US and Canada share ecosystems, with many species ranging freely across the border, the two countries have taken very different approaches to protecting endangered species. The US Endangered Species Act, adopted in 1973, relies primarily on regulation, thus imposing the costs of protecting biodiversity on the private sector. In contrast, Canada's Species at Risk Act, adopted in 2002, relies primarily on public expenditures to support stewardship programs. We argue that this difference is best explained by negative lesson drawing from the US experience. In particular, awareness of the costs of species protection in the US led Canadian business to present stronger opposition to regulation than had their American counterparts decades earlier. We use the case of the Canadian Species at Risk Act to theorize about conditions under which negative lesson drawing is likely to be most influential.

Résumé. Bien que les États-Unis et le Canada partagent les mêmes écosystèmes, les deux pays ont adopté des approches très différentes en matière de protection des espèces en péril. La Loi américaine sur les espèces en péril (US Endangered Species Act), adoptée en 1973, porte essentiellement sur la régulation, et de ce fait impose les coûts de la protection de la biodiversité au secteur privé. En revanche, la Loi canadienne sur les espèces en péril, adoptée en 2002, fait principalement retomber les coûts des programmes de gestion au secteur public. Nous démontrons que cette différence s'explique principalement par le rôle des leçons négatives apprises de l'expérience des États-Unis. La prise de conscience des coûts liés à la protection des espèces en péril aux États-Unis a notamment amené les milieux d'affaires canadiens à présenter une plus forte opposition à la régulation que leurs homologues américains l'avaient fait des années plus tôt. En s'appuyant sur le cas de la Loi canadienne sur les espèces en péril, nous visons à théoriser les conditions selon lesquelles l'acquisition de connaissance par leçons négatives (“ negative lesson drawing ”) est susceptible d'être le plus concluant.

Do women vote for women and men for men? Do visible minorities vote for minority candidates, and white voters for white candidates? And what happens when a minority woman appears on the ballot? This study tests for the presence of gender and ethnic affinity voting in the Toronto mayoral election of 2014, where Olivia Chow was the only woman and only visible minority candidate among the three major contenders. Our analysis, which draws on a survey of eligible Toronto voters, is the first to examine the interactive effects of sex and ethnicity on vote choice in Canada in the context of a non-partisan election and in a non-experimental manner. We find strong evidence of ethnic affinity voting and show that Chow received stronger support from ethnic Chinese voters than from other minority groups. Our results also reveal that gender was related to vote choice but only when connected with race.

It has been argued that rapid membership turnover in the Canadian House of Commons robs the institution of a dedicated and experienced group of MPs and produces a Parliament stocked with political amateurs. Both electoral defeat and voluntary retirement have been seen to play a role in the amateurism phenomenon. The authors explore the roots of amateurism and critically examine the argument that a frustrating career structure in the House of Commons encourages voluntary vacancies. Using a random sample of former MPs, the authors find support for both a “frustration” and an “exhaustion” model of career choice. The article concludes that while amateurism—in the sense of short political careers—may be problematic, not all MPs are amateurs and the problem of amateurism cannot be addressed simply by satisfying frustrated ambition.

Does national identity necessarily have exclusionary effects when it comes to immigration attitudes or is it possible that some national identities act as inclusive forces? While research in Europe and in the US points to the former, one of the long-standing explanations for Canada's success with immigration has been the central place played by immigration and multiculturalism in its national identity. Using the Canadian case, this research tests the possibility that some national identities might represent an inclusive force. It does so through a nationally representative survey experiment (N = 1500) where respondents' national identity was primed before answering questions on immigration and multiculturalism. The analysis shows that contrary to previous results obtained in the Netherlands, priming Canadian identity does not increase anti-immigration attitudes. A new prime designed to isolate the effect of national identity even decreased these exclusionary attitudes.

Election studies must optimize on sample size, cost and data quality. The 2015 Canadian Election Study was the first CES to employ a full mixed-mode design, aiming to take advantage of the opportunities of each mode while preserving enough commonality to compare them. This paper examines the phone interviews conducted by ISR-York and the online questionnaires from panellists purchased from a sample provider. We compare data quality and representativeness. We conduct a comprehensive comparison of the distributions of responses across modes and a comparative analysis of inferences about voting. We find that the cost/power advantages of the online mode will likely make it the mode of choice for subsequent election studies.

The “leader factor” in Canadian voting has received surprisingly little research attention. In this article, the authors employ data from the 1974, 1979, 1980 and 1984 Canadian National Election Studies to examine the organization of respondents' images of the major political party leaders. The central thesis developed here is that respondents' images of the leaders are not typically idiosyncratic to the leader or to the election in question. The images are shaped by a prototypical leader schema that affects the information about leaders that is processed and recalled. The authors test several implications of this thesis. They demonstrate that there is considerable commonality in the content of a citizen's images of leaders in any one election, and that there is evidence of both aggregate and individual-level stability in the structure of images across elections. The authors test an additional hypothesis from schema theory concerning individual differences in image content. In this regard, they demonstrate, contrary to some of the literature, that better-educated respondents are more likely than less-educated respondents to cite task-relevant dispositional attributes of the leaders.

The most important source of data for research into Canadian society is the federal census. These decennial inventories, of which there have been nine since Confederation, contain hosts of numbers, most of them unfortunately rather widely ignored by social scientists. Of the battery of questions to which every individual is subjected, a few are singled out as yielding fundamental facts, and appear again and again in the tabulated product in cross-classification with other subjects. The three basic attributes, which are the sine qua non of a personal census, are age, sex, and geographical location. Next to these in importance, if we may judge by the volume and detail of published tabulations and analysis, is origin. Now the intriguing circumstance about this highly emphasized piece of information is that it remained undefined until 1951. There was no explicit indication of the operations required to identify the referent of the term. Furthermore, the answers obtained and published clearly applied to an array of different types of evidence, which could easily overlap for a given individual.

Consider, for example, the 1941 census, and its question, there termed “racial origin.” The “Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators,” which are required reading for anyone making serious use of census statistics, give the following clues:

What is racial origin? The word “race” signifies—“Descendants of a common ancestor.” [It may be asserted that this does not specify a practicable operation.] … a person's racial origin and nationality very often are different …. The name of a country from which a person came to Canada gives no indication of that person's racial origin …. The word “Canadian” does not denote a racial origin, but a nationality; the same applies to the word “American” …. What determines racial origin? As a general rule a person's racial origin is to be traced through his father ….

This study tests explanations of the growth of Canadian provincial governments that draw from the political budget cycle approach. The approach assumes that governments jointly respond to electoral and partisan goals. When the next election is not expected soon, the government uses its discretionary power to pursue its ideological target. When the next election is near, politicians in government, fearing electoral defeat, deviate from their normal behaviour and engage in a re-election effort by undertaking an expansionary policy. This study suggests that provincial governments behave in the opportunistic fashion described by the model. Moreover, there is no sign that this opportunistic behaviour has been affected by government cutbacks in the 1990s.

It is generally known that John Stuart Mill spent his working career in the service of the East India Company, but very little has been written about him in this capacity. As an administrative official of the company, the home government of India, John Mill's activities have been greatly overshadowed by the influence exerted upon Indian policies by his father, James Mill, historian of British India and a member of the Examiner's Office of the Company from 1819 until his death in 1836. Like his father, John Stuart recognized the company's government of India for what it actually was—a despotism of an alien race, which, despite the good accomplished by it in the last decades of its existence, was established by conquest, treaty, and annexation. And yet, he spent almost half of his life as an official of this establishment, drafting dispatches to the India government, and, in defence of the company's rule against extinction by Parliament, wrote what Lord Grey described as the ablest state paper he had ever read.

How did John Mill, the great exponent of nineteenth century liberalism, reconcile his employment as an official of a despotic government with his espousal of the principles of civil and political freedom? How, in other words, did he reconcile this freedom with colonialism? What conceptions did he entertain concerning: (1) the place of India in the history of civilization; and (2) its eventual emergence from British rule as an industrially transformed self-governing nation? These questions, arising out of Mill's career with the East India Company, have not been discussed in any of the numerous treatises on the great man. In considering them here we hope to fill this gap in the literature. Other questions, such as Mill's administrative skills and his influence upon the company's policies, cannot be taken up in this paper. The author does not share the view that Mill's influence at India House was insignificant. He is inclined to a moderate version of Henry Fawcett's opinion that all the important principles for governing the great dependency of India were laid down by Mill in the documents he drafted for the East India Company.

This article assesses the impact of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the Canadian political system. Unlike some commentators who have minimized the effect of the Charter, the author finds that the Charter is inducing significant and permanent changes in the conduct of Canadian politics. Canadian judges have shed their pre-Charter style of deference and self-restraint, and are playing a bolder and more influential role in the governing process. Charter decisions are remolding the Canadian criminal law process along the lines of the “due process” model and away from the “crime control” model of the pre-Charter era. The Charter has also begun to change the way the Canadian political system operates. Interest groups have responded by making greater use of Charter constitutional litigation as a tactic to pursue policy objectives. Law-making areas once solely the prerogative of provincial governments are now being threatened with uniform national standards laid down by the Supreme Court in the course of Charter decisions. Political executives are using the reference procedure to pass Charter issues on to the courts in order to avoid dealing with political “hot potatoes” such as abortion and minority language education. In sum, the predicted “judicialization of politics” is well under way.

The authors tested predictions concerning the effects of respondents' identification with governing versus opposition political parties on feelings of political efficacy and trust, using data from the 1984 Canadian National Election Study. Dependent variables were political competence, perceived system responsiveness, and political trust, each measured federally and provincially. Respondents who supported the party in power scored significantly higher on perceived responsiveness and trust than those who supported opposition parties, although mainly at the provincial level. Whether respondents' preferred party was in power or not interacted with strength of party identification on the responsiveness and trust measures, both federally and provincially, as expected. Effects were much less pronounced for feelings of political competence. The authors suggest an interpretation to explain the weaker and inconsistent federal results. The article concludes with some observations concerning the relationship between partisanship, on the one hand, and efficacy and trust, on the other.

What impact do local candidates have on elections in single member district plurality electoral systems? We provide new evidence using data from a large election study carried out during the 2015 Canadian federal election. We improve on the measurement of local candidate effects by asking over 20,000 survey respondents to rate the candidates in their constituency directly. We present three estimates. We find that when all voters are considered together, local candidate evaluations are decisive for approximately 4 per cent of voters. Second, these evaluations are decisive for the outcome of 10 per cent of constituency contests. Third, when models are estimated for each constituency, we find significant evaluation effects for 14 per cent of candidates.

“Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” Lionel Robbins' well-known definition of their subject is one which most economists would probably accept, at least as a description of their workaday activities. The definition allows—and it was specifically framed by its author to allow—for the pursuit of other ends than purely material ends; but in practice economists devote themselves predominantly to the study of the allocation of material means between ends conceived and defined in material terms. Inherent in the way economists set about their task is the implicit assumption that material means are scarce and material wants are pressing—in short that economic society is materially poor, and resources must not be wasted.

This assumption permeates the theoretical apparatus of the subject; it also directs what economists have to say about economic policy. In the debate which has been going on over the general problem of inflation, for example, economists have been divided between those who stress the loss of production and potential growth of output that results from anything less than full employment of labour, and those who stress the loss of production and potential growth of output that results from the misallocation of resources brought about by inflation. Again, in making comparisons between the Russian and Western economic systems, economists have generally tended to accept as their standard of performance the rate of growth of output per head, a standard which gives away most of the positive points on the Western side. In both cases, the adoption of the output standard implicitly assumes that the economic problem is of prime importance.

Abstract. In recent years there has been a debate about how to evaluate Alexis de Tocqueville's defense of colonialism. Some scholars have argued that there is a tension between the key doctrines of Tocqueville's political theory and his enthusiastic promotion of the French conquest and colonization of Algeria. Others have concluded that the apparent contradiction can be explained by paying careful attention to the nuances of his work or the logic of liberalism. This article advances this debate by reconstructing Tocqueville's theory of martial law, a dimension of his work that has been frequently overlooked. In a series of letters, notes and parliamentary reports on Algeria, Tocqueville criticized of the use of martial law in governing French citizens and defended its use against native Algerians. Tocqueville's writings on Algeria make it clear that he treated the rule of law not as a natural right held by all people but rather as a technique of government that was appropriate in communities already united by social ties.

Résumé. Récemment, l'interprétation de la défense du colonialisme par Alexis de Tocqueville est devenue l'objet d'un débat important. Certains auteurs discernent une tension entre les principes centraux de la philosophie politique de Tocqueville et sa promotion enthousiaste de la conquête et la colonisation de l'Algérie par la France. D'autres ont conclu que la contradiction apparente s'explique lorsqu'on regarde de près les nuances de ses écrits sur la logique interne du libéralisme. Cet article contribue à ce débat en reconstruisant la théorie de la loi martiale de Tocqueville – une dimension de son oeuvre trop souvent négligée. Dans une série de lettres, notes et rapports parlementaires sur l'Algérie, Tocqueville a critiqué l'usage de la loi martiale dans le gouvernement des citoyens français, mais l'a défendu contre les indigènes. Ses écrits sur l'Algérie démontrent que Tocqueville considérait l'État de droit non comme un droit naturel inhérent à la personne, mais plutôt comme une technique de gouvernement s'appliquant principalement aux communautés déjà unies par des liens sociaux.

The revised guidance on masks from public health officials has been one of the most significant COVID-19 policy reversals to date. Statements made at the outset of the pandemic, including those from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Surgeon General, and the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, all actively discouraged asymptomatic members of the general public from wearing masks. However, on April 3, 2020, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations that called for nonmedical masks, such as cloth face coverings, to be worn in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (Adams, 2020). Canadian public health officials quickly followed with their own guidance for wearing nonmedical masks or face coverings when out in public; however, they have stressed that doing so is optional for asymptomatic persons and should be seen as a complement to existing precautionary measures such as physical distancing and hand hygiene, particularly in cases where physical distancing may not be feasible (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2020). Emphasis was placed on nonmedical masks serving not to protect the wearer, but rather others who come within close proximity of the wearer. Echoing her public statements on the matter, Canada's chief public health officer Tweeted that “[w]earing a NON-MEDICAL mask in public settings has not been proven to add any protection TO the person wearing it, but it can be an additional way to prevent spread FROM an infected person to others” (Tam, 2020).

Between 1985 and 1995, 12 provincial parties in Canada elected their leaders by a direct vote of their membership. This article examines the motivation behind the switch to direct election, the direct election procedures used and whether the expected benefits have been realized. Claims that direct elections are more democratic than traditional conventions and that they can revitalize a party membership are scrutinized.

Abstract. “Trade, not aid” has long been a catchphrase in international development discourse. This paper evaluates whether the “trade, not aid” logic has driven bilateral aid allocations in practice. Using a dataset that covers development assistance from 22 donor countries to 187 aid recipients from 1980 to 2002, we find that donor countries have dispersed bilateral aid in ways that reinforce their extant bilateral commercial ties with recipient countries. Instead of “trade, not aid,” bilateral aid disbursement has followed the logic of “aid following trade.” The policy implication is that bilateral aid allocation patterns have reinforced the disadvantages of poor countries that have a limited ability to participate in international trade due to a variety of factors such as geography and a lack of tradable resources.

Résumé. «Le commerce et non l'aide» est un slogan qui continue d'occuper une place importante dans le débat sur le développement international. L'article qui suit vise à évaluer la mise en pratique de ce principe dans les allocations de l'aide bilatérale. S'appuyant sur une base de données recouvrant l'aide distribuée par 22 pays donateurs à 187 pays récipiendaires entre 1980 et 2002, notre analyse révèle que l'aide a été allouée en fonction des liens commerciaux bilatéraux existants et les a renforcés. C'est donc le principe de «l'aide après le commerce» qui a prévalu. Les allocations d'aide bilatérale ont ainsi aggravé les désavantages des pays pauvres dont la capacité à bénéficier du commerce international est limitée en raison de divers facteurs, dont la situation géographique et le manque de ressources marchandes.

Abstract. This article contests the concepts of “region” and “regionalism” in Canadian political science. There is widespread agreement among observers of politics in Canada that the country is divided in politically consequential ways along regional lines. There is little agreement, however, about what causes these regional divisions or, indeed, about where the lines of regional division should be drawn. As a result, rival explanations for regional differences in Canada are commonly tested against different evidence arising from different definitions of region. This article argues that “region” should be conceptualized in generalizable terms as the physical space that surrounds an individual, and that “regionalism” should be conceptualized as an affective attachment to the people, places and institutions within a geographic area. Regionalism, from this perspective, is a concept that plays an important role in driving regional differences in opinion differences rather than simply describing these differences. The article applies this argument to a study of regional differences in Canadian opinions about government involvement in the economy. The empirical analysis points to the need for the development of concepts that can be generalized across explanations and levels of analysis. Even on the single issue analyzed here, regional differences appeared to have different causes in different regions, and these different causes seemed to operate at different levels of analysis.

Résumé. Cet article questionne le bien-fondé des concepts de “région” et de “régionalisme” tels qu'utilisés dans la littérature en science politique au Canada . La plupart des politologues s'entendent pour souligner l'importance des clivages régionaux dans la politique canadienne. Par contre, on s'entend moins sur l'identification des sources de ces divisions régionales, ainsi que sur la délimitation de ces différentes régions. Par conséquent, les études scientifiques des facteurs possibles qui sous-tendent les clivages régionaux sont souvent difficile a comparé puisqu'elles utilisent différentes définitions du concept de “région”. Cet article défend l'idée que le concept de “région” devrait être limité à décrire l'espace physique où se situe un individu. Par ailleurs le concept de “régionalisme” devrait inclure l'idée d'un attachement affectif aux personnes, endroits et institutions d'un emplacement géographique donné. Le régionalisme, dans cette perspective, doit être compris comme une cause des clivages régionaux, et non comme une simple description de ces différences. Cet article propose l'utilisation de cette distinction conceptuelle à une étude des différences régionales quant à l'opinion publique sur le rôle que devrait avoir le gouvernement dans l'économie. L'analyse empirique démontre l'importance de développer des concepts qui peuvent être généralisés au point de s'appliquer à différentes explications et niveaux d'analyse. Si on se fie au seul enjeu étudié dans cet article, les clivages régionaux semblent avoir différentes causes dans chacune des régions, et ces causes semblent opérer à différents niveaux d'analyse.

As a strategy of immigrant inclusion, official multiculturalism in Canada is based on the premise that national integration is possible, even preferable, without assimilation. This article considers whether such an approach can be successful. Drawing on a qualitative study of Lao immigrants in Ontario, it is suggested that newcomers can in fact be disposed to high levels of political commitment, specific mechanisms of political assimilation aside, as a result of the process of immigration itself. At least in the short term, though perhaps mainly in the short term, the Canadian political order does not seem to suffer for lack of an assimilative emphasis.