In March 1973 this Journal published an article in which I attempted to show that section 51 of the British North America Act had been wrongly applied when seats in the House of Commons were allocated amongst the provinces as a result of the 1971 decennial census. I pointed out that my analysis was in conflict with that of the Representation Commissioner, the official having the legal duty to implement the section in question. In my penultimate paragraph I wrote: “There is a pressing need for some authoritative person or institution to analyse the present ambiguities and to decide which interpretation is correct and for what reasons. Alternatively the Canadian Parliament could clarify the situation by amending section 51 of the bna Act while at the same time retroactively applying the amended rules to the post-1971 redistribution.” While writing these words I actually expected that someone would take some interest in the problem I had discovered and would show me where I had erred. The reference to the bna Act was a theoretical flourish.

More than two years after the publication of this article no one has shown my interpretation to be wrong, although Stanley Knowles has made a number of relevant comments. In general, however, it seems that nobody cared about an argument which was admittedly obscure and even legalistic (surely the ultimate sin in modern political science). Those constitutional lawyers who might have been exposed to the article were no doubt put off by the complicated arithmetic.

In his article “Land and Politics in Mexico” Robert Adie argues that the ejido has served the important political function of maintaining stability in the Mexican countryside. We agree entirely with this conclusion; however, we disagree with the arguments which Adie uses to arrive at this conclusion. To develop his thesis concerning the primacy of the ejido's political function, Adie attempts to demonstrate the non-viability of the ejido as a unit of economic organization. Thus he argues that “for political reasons the ejidatarios have the land, while the federal government has devised a means to use that land for its own economic purposes.” The implications of this statement are that ejidos not only do not but could not have played a major role in Mexico's agricultural development, and that the policies of the federal government (which have favoured the large, privately owned capitalist agricultural enterprises) have been rational and correct in economic terms. To corroborate his thesis, Adie uses an extensive body of literature which essentially maintains that the economic performance of the ejido has been weak as a consequence of peasant backwardness – the persistence of traditional attitudes, or of a “subculture of poverty” in which the ejidatarios are inextricably caught.

Raymond Hudon of Université Laval recently undertook, in the pages of this Journal, to offer a critique of my treatment of the Lapalme affair. Unfortunately, Hudon's critique is so overburdened with irrelevancies and digressions that it is difficult to discern a coherent line of argument. Indeed, one is sorely tempted to follow him from paragraph to paragraph, discussing each of his statements in turn. However, that would only produce a reply as difficult to follow as the critique. Instead, I shall attempt to divide the substance of the critique into two sets of arguments and proceed to deal with each set separately.

Political theorists have long argued that political participation has been a minimal requirement of democratic political systems. More recently, social scientists have turned their attention to understanding the factors that impede or promote participation. This paper examines several such hypotheses which lie within the framework of personality and social-psychological theory. Briefly stated, this author's contention is that: (1) each individual has a need to have sufficient control over relevant aspects of his life-space, which, under specified conditions, includes the political system; (2) the attempt to satisfy this need in the social world generates basic assumptive beliefs about personal control; and (3) these beliefs have important implications for political participation and the support of regimes.

To examine these contentions more fully, we first must consider the concept of political efficacy, especially as it relates to the motivation to participate in political life. It will then be possible to present a theory that links feelings of personal control in the political arena with more basic psychological needs that help to organize the personality system. Finally, we will present some exploratory data on the relation between beliefs in personal control and political participation. While these data do not directly contradict previous empirical studies, they do suggest the possibility that a substantial reorganization of the way in which political efficacy is conceptualized may be in order.

I should like to congratulate Alan Cairns on his splendid analysis of the introductory texts on Canadian government in the March 1974 issue of the Journal (“Alternative Styles in the Study of Canadian Politics”). It should be required reading for all phd students of Canadian government and politics. In fact, I think it should also be read by all undergraduates, so that they would be aware of the particular slant of the text that they are using.

Perhaps the reason I am so favourably impressed by the piece, in addition to the sophisticated style in which it is written, is that I agree with nearly everything he says. In particular, I agree with his favourable portrayal of the historical-institutional approach to the study of Canadian government and politics. But this may be just an indication that he and I belong to the same older generation.

I certainly agree that all of the texts are deficient in their treatment of provincial and local government and politics and in their use of French-Canadian materials and points of view, and feel that the authors’ replies to his article did not adequately justify these deficiencies. I believe that he missed an important reason for the concentration of our interest on the federal level. A main reason for this, and for the lack of scholarly research on provincial and local government in Canada, was simply that Dawson's text omitted provincial and local government entirely.

The volume and variety of published works on voting in Canada suggest to us it is time to take stock of where we have been and where we should go. It is our belief that developments have not matched the rosy prognosis implicit in Donald Smiley's 1967 statement that “undoubtedly the most extensive developments in Canadian political science in the past two decades have been in the field of studies of voting behaviour and political parties.” To be sure, the body of literature has expanded considerably, but we are struck by major gaps in its coverage and by certain conceptual and technical shortcomings.

Traditionally review articles have treated a limited number of works in detail or have attempted an overview of an entire body of literature. We have eschewed the former approach since it presupposes the existence of a few outstanding works, comprehensive in nature, which can be fruitfully compared because of the diversity of approaches or interpretations they present. Such a situation does not yet obtain in the field of Canadian voting behaviour. The latter approach is less necessary since the recent appearance of a propositional inventory by John Terry and Richard Schultz, and a long summary chapter by Mildred Schwartz.

Therefore, we propose to outline major trends in the last decade or so and to suggest new directions.

The purpose of this note is to examine the voting behaviour of Edmonton city councillors from 1966 through 1972 in order to determine whether members who campaign together on local slates and parties vote together on council. In short, are local electoral slates and parties able to function as cohesive legislative organizations?

Edmonton's form of government is similar to the governmental structure in the majority of Canadian cities in that it does not lend itself to “responsible government.” The city operated under an at-large electoral system for councillors until 1968 when a plebiscite forced the council to adopt a ward system. With a council reluctant to give up the advantages of an at-large system, four multimember strip wards of equal size were created. By establishing four wards completely heterogeneous in terms of socioeconomic composition, the council in effect provided four at-large elections at every municipal election.

How much effort by politicians and public administrators is needed to create awareness of proposed new policies or policy changes? Is broad newspaper coverage of proposed legislation and the high visibility of a minister enough to spread a significant amount of information? This note reports a study of the effectiveness of communication by one federal department, especially of a significant bill proposed by it.

The establishment of well-accepted and useful public policy depends on an adequate flow of information. A careful assessment of the wants and needs of society is required. The best policies are established when interested parties exchange opinions and ideas. If adequate communication about proposed plans does not occur, this exchange cannot take place. Perhaps policy-makers too readily assume that communication with other significant persons is occurring.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the degree of knowledge evinced by a group which would be significantly affected by an apparently widely publicized piece of proposed federal legislation relating to business activity. The amount of knowledge demonstrated by the group is one indication of the effectiveness of the communication efforts of the minister and the department.

In autumn 1971 and early January 1972, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs was perhaps more visible than at any other time in its history. The minister, Ronald Basford, had spent several years building and strengthening the department, as well as actively informing the public of a highly intensified orientation towards consumer protection and scrutiny of business activities.