The comparative literature has devoted considerable attention to why individuals join political parties. This is especially important in the context of the declining party membership and activism that political parties face in contemporary politics. While the question of why members join parties has been well-documented, considerably less work has considered incentives to join other party positions. In the Canadian case, for example, we know very little about the incentives to join an electoral district association (EDA). This is surprising given the consequential role—both formal and informal—that local party associations and their presidents have been known to play in intra-party politics (influencing candidate nomination, membership recruitment and so forth). This study applies Clark and Wilson's (1961) framework of material, solidary and purposive incentives to local party association membership and asks why individuals join their local party executive and whether this motivation shapes the subsequent character of the EDA.

Canadian political scientists have often taken a normative approach to political institutions like the constitution, the electoral system, and Parliament. An assumption that institutional reform can itself be a solution to political problems is also reflected in general public commentary and at times has been openly encouraged and supported by the Canadian state itself. This approach has many strengths but also deficiencies, particularly the degree to which it replicates existing understandings of the state, focused on the distribution of power among white men. The study of political institutions in Canada must continue growing to incorporate and integrate a greater diversity of perspectives, including interrogating and challenging their very foundations.

In affluent democracies, a broad rise in wealth concentration since the 1980s has not been accompanied by a broad rise in wealth taxation. As a large literature points out, conditions such as growing financialization, tax competition and tax avoidance have all curtailed the ability of left governments to tax wealth. This article argues that, despite the global constraint on taxing wealth, as left governments continue to influence wealth concentration and more advanced economies enter an era of slowing population growth, financial wealth of the rich tends to gain at the expense of (more equal) housing wealth. In response, left governments increase taxes on financial assets relative to housing wealth. By contrast, when population growth is still high, left subtly by adjusting the relative difference by which different types of wealth are taxed. In particular, as governments tax housing wealth more heavily instead. These predictions are tested using data from 15 to 16 advanced economies (1970–2015).

This article examines statements issued by municipal governments, local organizations, and Indigenous communities that cancelled Canada Day celebrations in 2021, following news confirming physical evidence of unmarked graves at former residential schools. We argue that the statements reflect political logics of the past, present, and future, including dominant national narratives of liberal multiculturalism, residual logics of white nationalism, and emergent, transformative projects of Indigenous-defined reconciliation and resurgence. Through dominant narratives, the policy of cancelling Canada Day is presented as an expression of Canadian values, while settler-colonialism is obscured. Meanwhile, the residual white nationalism of the post-Confederation movement surfaces as statements tend to speak to an imagined normative Canadian subject who—only temporarily—suspends their celebration of the nation-state. Finally, the statements evidence emergent political forces, including Indigenous articulations of transformative reconciliation, resistance to settler-colonialism, and expressions of sovereignty, which signal the potential for major shifts in practices of national celebration in Canada.

Securitization scholars in Canada have investigated how settler-colonial governments discursively construct extractive infrastructure and policing on Indigenous lands as “critical” for Canada’s economic security. Less literature exists about how Indigenous activists through provincial institutions counter colonial securitization discourse and legislation. This article interrogates discourse in the Manitoba Legislature pertaining to three “critical infrastructure” bills presented by the PC government during the fall 2020 and winter 2021 sessions: Protection of Critical Infrastructure Act (Bill 57), Animal Diseases Amendment Act (Bill 62), and The Petty Trespassers Amendment and Occupiers’ Liability Amendment Act (Bill 63). The study combines an analysis of the bills’ debates, drawn from Hansard, with an interview with then-official opposition house leader, Nahanni Fontaine, to explore the interactions between securitization and counter-securitization discourse(s) and defeat of Bill 57. The study hypothesizes that Indigenous MLAs’ counter-securitization discourse reconstructed the bills as attacks on Indigenous ontological, environmental, and physical security.

Even though the Parti Conservateur du Québec (PCQ) did not manage to elect any members to the Assemblée nationale in Quebec's 2022 general election, this political party nonetheless received nearly 13 per cent of the popular vote. The party mainly campaigned on issues related to the economic right, but also discontent with the Legault government's COVID-19 health measures. We assess the extent to which these different drivers of support explain vote choice in favour of the PCQ using individual-level survey data from the 2022 Quebec Election Study. We find that the PCQ did succeed in gathering support on the basis of these issues, but that it was also able to attract voters with a lesser appetite for climate change mitigation as well as a populist and cynical outlook on politics. The party also appears to be especially popular among younger, male and less educated voters living outside the Greater Montreal region.

After 30 years of relative neglect, Canada’s notwithstanding clause has been invoked in six different provincial laws since 2018. We argue that this resurgence can be explained by the growing judicial invalidation of provincial statutes and federal-provincial partisan conflicts. Drawing from an original dataset of Charter cases decided by the Supreme Court of Canada (1982–2020), we show that provincial statutes have been invalidated at much higher rates since 2010. We also show how increasing partisan conflicts between conservative provincial governments and the Liberal federal government have helped frame the notwithstanding clause as a partisan tool for resisting centralizing rights decisions. The strategic environment facing provinces has shifted as partisan federalism conflicts lower the political costs of using the clause, while rising invalidation rates incentivize provinces to use it to protect their jurisdiction. This supports the “regime politics” understanding of judicial power as partly a function of federal (central) regime power.

Les élections municipales de 2021 à la Ville de Québec ont été marquées par une forte compétition entre cinq candidats et une saillance des enjeux concernant la construction d'un tramway et d'un troisième lien autoroutier entre Québec et sa Rive-Sud. Ainsi, cette élection représente un contexte idéal pour étudier le comportement électoral au niveau local et plus spécifiquement le vote sur enjeu qui a été très peu étudié dans le contexte municipal. Nous soutenons que ces deux enjeux ont acquis une valeur symbolique et ont été exploités comme enjeu de brèche par le candidat à la mairie Jean-François Gosselin. À l'aide d'une analyse multivariée, nous testons la relation entre l'appui aux deux projets de transport et l'intention de vote. Nos résultats montrent que les attitudes des électeurs envers ces deux enjeux sont fortement corrélées avec leur choix de vote et suggèrent une continuité entre le comportement électoral municipal, provincial et fédéral, du moins lorsqu'il est question de vote sur les enjeux.

Cet article étudie le rôle des fonctionnaires parlementaires de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec et la nature des relations qu'ils entretiennent avec les acteurs politiques. En prenant appui sur la séparation classique entre les sphères politiques et administratives, cette étude illustre l'ambiguïté inhérente à cette relation au plus haut niveau de l'État. Les hypothèses examinées portent sur la perception de la hiérarchie, la distinction des rôles entre fonctionnaires parlementaires, fonctionnaires de l'exécutif et le personnel politique, ainsi que les qualités attendues des fonctionnaires parlementaires. Sur la base de données empiriques originales, les résultats mettent en évidence des perceptions communes entre élus et fonctionnaires parlementaires, tout en faisant ressortir certaines nuances. Il conclut que la séparation entre les domaines politique et administratif observée dans le cas étudié favorise le bon fonctionnement du parlement et protège l'institution des querelles partisanes, mettant en évidence le rôle essentiel des fonctionnaires parlementaires pour assurer la stabilité de la branche législative de l'État.

The proliferation of agencies and arm's-length bodies provides opportunities for elected governments to reassert political control in a fragmented public service through staffing and board appointments. We have little basis to make systematic claims about the politicization of agencies in Canada. This study addresses this gap by drawing on the Government of Canada's Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey (SNPS) micro data from 2018 and 2021, which surveys employees in departments and agencies with questions related to political impartiality in carrying out government duties. We ask: Do employees in agencies in the Government of Canada report a climate of less political impartiality than those working in conventional departments? The data reveals that those working in agencies are less likely to report their organizations acting impartially politically in carrying out their duties than those in conventional departments, though this is driven largely by particular types of agencies, namely those focused on enforcement.

Australia, Canada and the United States are settler-colonial federations comprising two types of federal units. The first are states/provinces: full, permanent federal partners, securely settler controlled. The second are territories. Historically, territories were “partners in waiting,” slated for federal incorporation once settlers achieved control of the jurisdiction, outnumbering and disempowering Indigenous peoples. The “rights revolution” made achieving control by force less acceptable. Meanwhile, in Australia, Canada and the US, there remain several territories where Indigenous peoples hold significant power. I find today’s remaining territories experience a new way settlers target Indigenous power, not through force but through rights-challenges. Further, I show these rights-challenges provoke “constitutive contests,” the outcome of which are consequential, potentially “re-constituting” territories in a manner fostering settler control. Finally, I explore why territories might be especially vulnerable to re-constitution through settler-rights challenges.

The political importance of race has historically received limited attention across Canadian behavioural scholarship. Building on more recent work, this article comparatively examines the prevalence and effects of white identity and racial attitudes between white Canadians and Americans by leveraging original survey data and a novel conjoint experiment. This article presents several major findings. First, on average, white Canadians express lower levels of racial identity and racial resentment than white Americans, but more similar levels of racial affect. Second, experimental evidence shows that white Americans are more inclined to penalize nonwhite political candidates than Canadians. Third, white identity and racial resentment are strongly correlated with right-wing voting and partisanship in both Canada and the United States, but the magnitude of effects is greater among Americans. Race continues to be of greater political importance in the United States, but it is far from an irrelevant factor in Canada.

Voter turnout has declined across established democracies, which has been accompanied by an increase in turnout disparities along class lines. In contrast to most advanced democracies, class voting has largely been neglected in Canada. Using the entire series of the Canadian Election Study (1965–2021), this article examines the turnout gap in Canada over time by class, education, and income, and whether the offerings of political parties impact these relationships. Results find major class-based participatory inequalities, which have worsened over time. The magnitude of the turnout gap between lower and higher socio-economic status (SES) individuals has mainly been driven by the demobilization of lower-SES individuals and a significant factor is the reduced saliency of economic issues in the party system. The findings contribute to our understanding of how economic inequalities translate into political inequalities and show that rising turnout inequality between politically relevant cleavages, represents a deterioration of democratic representation.

Aaron Mills (2017) has argued persuasively that to understand treaty relationships as contracts is to betray the spirit of those relationships. In this, he joins numerous Indigenous scholars who express wariness of contractualist understandings of treaty. This article inquires into the distinction between contractualist and relational understandings of treaty in order to think about the phenomenon of collective, transhistorical debt. Drawing out the distinction between relational and contractarian modes of thinking about long-term collective obligations, the article examines whether ongoing historical debts to Indigenous nations can be made sense of on a Kantian, contractarian logic. It concludes that the widespread colonial incomprehension of treaty as understood by many Indigenous nations was and remains tied to contractarian confusions. While contractarian thought can serve as a heuristic for articulating the injustices of colonial dispossession, it cannot capture the type of long-term collective responsibilities that treaties are supposed to represent.

According to the “miracle of aggregation” principle, in the absence of systematic biases, errors in individual judgments within a population should cancel each other out and lead to a correct decision at the aggregate level. This article explores potential individual- and group-level correlates of the accuracy of citizens’ electoral expectations and investigates how potential markers of political sophistication—namely, educational attainment and political interest—could be used to improve upon the raw aggregation of citizens’ forecasts using massive survey datasets collected during six Canadian national and provincial election campaigns between 2011 and 2022 (n = 279,003). We find that while educational attainment and interest increase the probability of a correct forecast at the individual level, delegating the forecasting task based on these variables does not necessarily lead to improvements in the accuracy of aggregate-level predictions. At the group level, we fail to uncover any evidence that sociological or informational diversity increases forecasting accuracy.

This article asks why states choose to explicitly label themselves as feminist and critically examines the case of Canada. Drawing on constructivist insights, I suggest that identity insecurity is a key contextual factor driving states’ decision to adopt a feminist branding. Through a thematic analysis of 1,551 statements from the Canadian House of Commons and additional documents published by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development from 2006 to 2017, I find that Canada’s choice to adopt a feminist brand occurred within a broader context of identity insecurity, with gender equality emerging as a strategic area to enhance the country’s role through strengthened leadership in this sector. This article advances the study of feminist foreign policies by highlighting the strategic motivations behind the adoption of the feminist label, offering insights into its diffusion despite differing levels of commitment to gender equality.

This article examines the effects of changes in 2018–19 to the Income Tax Act and Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) regulations that were ostensibly intended to facilitate public policy engagement by Canadian charities. The article examines a case study of charities in the international development sector through interviews with charity leaders and quantitative analysis of data from the Canada Revenue Agency, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, and House of Commons Standing Committees. The article finds that the 2019 change in CRA regulations had very little effect on policy engagement by international development charities. Rather, a series of other factors continue to shape and constrain policy engagement by charities—including concerns about the future repoliticization of the CRA, misunderstandings of the regulations, difficulties fundraising for public policy work, fears of jeopardizing federal government funding, and a strategic preference for insider approaches to policy advocacy.

This article examines the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) in relation to a growing literature on bureaucrats’ role in immigration policy making, while challenging interpretations of the agreement as a “Europeanization” of Canadian policy. Canada is a prototypical liberal “migration state” that balances economic considerations, national security, rights and broader cultural concerns through its immigration regime. We open the “black box” of the state to examine how bureaucratic decision making informed the development of Canada’s asylum system. Drawing on interviews, archival materials and government documents, we show bureaucrats simultaneously sought to manage asylum backlogs and ensure compliance with international obligations while countering advocacy group opposition. The STCA reflects a uniquely Canadian approach to balancing competing imperatives in refugee policy, highlighting the role of bureaucrats in shaping immigration policy within domestic and international constraints. This research contributes to understanding the historical development of migration control policies in liberal democracies.

Despite over 50 years of advocacy and policymaking toward deinstitutionalization, residential institutions for people labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) remain operational in six Canadian provinces. In addition, the lack of public, community-based housing has led to contemporary housing models that represent the re- or trans-institutionalization of labelled people. This article asks: why does the institutionalization of people labelled with IDD still occur in Canada? We argue that institutionalization is propelled by a policy legacy of systemic ableism that is manifested in three pervasive logics, which “haunt” the public provision of IDD housing: exclusion, elimination, and extraction. Empirical support is drawn from textual analysis and interviews with policymakers, advocates and people labelled with IDD in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Nova Scotia). We conclude by discussing the interrelation of institutionalization and systemic ableism and presenting implications for counteracting ableism in Canadian IDD housing policy.