Canadian Political Life Research Articles

Social Identity Leadership in Canada: The Impact of Group Identity and Individual Prototypicality on Leadership Attainment

Leaders are an important part of Canadian political life. However, research has focused on the structures that shape how leaders act, not yet developing generalizable understandings of the way leadership itself is formed, exercised, and impacts outcomes. This article contributes to the closing of this knowledge gap by focusing on how scholars can understand why certain individuals, rather than others, are successfully elected leaders. It examines the usefulness of identity leadership theory (ILT) in explaining Canadian leadership outcomes by performing a comparative study of the initial electoral appeals of two successful premiers of Alberta, William Aberhart and Peter Lougheed. The approach should find that both leaders appealed to Alberta’s social identity by conveying themselves as “prototypical group members” and by incorporating their agenda into the pre-existing collective understandings. As an initial investigation, it explores the extent to which these conditions may constitute a decisive condition for successful leadership attainment. Through an analysis of discursive material, however, the results do not support the processes theorized, casting doubt on ILT’s explanatory capacity. Still, variations in Aberhart’s and Lougheed’s identitarian appeals suggest that aspiring leaders may be incentivized to pursue ILT-related strategies in favourable contexts. Future research needs to investigate the impact that individual prototypicality may have when considered alongside other leaders, appeals, and contextual factors.

Federalism and Settler Imperialism: Racial Regimes, Whiteness, and Conquest in Canadian Constitutionalism

AbstractIn political science, federalism is often treated as an “antithesis” to empire. While Canadian Politics has recently become more attentive to the importance of ongoing settler colonialism as conditioning Canadian political life writ large, this has yet to induce a paradigm shift in understanding how the institutional logics of the state were established by, and in order to advance, colonial and imperial ends. This article contributes to this broader understanding by exploring how, in Canada, the federal arrangement congeals a constitutionalized whiteness that facilitates both the internal coherence of a settler class and its subsequent continental expansion. Attentive to the importance of this constitutional development within a world-spanning imperial context, this article also suggests that the simultaneous innovation of Dominion status contoured the early twentieth-century's global colour line, as self-determination was increasingly devolved to other white settler polities. The contradictory realities of these processes are also noted.

Canadian Public Opinion on Official Bilingualism: Ambivalent Consensus and its Limits

With the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Official Languages Act celebrated in 2019, the question of its degree of acceptance by the Canadian public is in order for review. When the national policy on official bilingualism was first advocated by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, it frankly acknowledged that it was highly controversial and opposed by substantial portions of the Anglophone public. Nevertheless, they insisted that the policy was necessary for the survival of the country and maintained that the firm resolve of united political elites at federal and provincial levels eventually would generate political success for the policy. While elite unity was elusive and only partially realized, the essential elements of official bilingualism were adopted, expanded and have survived to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The evolving pattern of public opinion over the past three decades demonstrates that official bilingualism is accepted as an essential component of Canadian political life, but that acceptance is hedged by some important qualifications, and indications that any further expansion would not enjoy public support. Nevertheless, it is firmly established as a core operating principle of Canadian public policy.

Jerry and Jewry: Ethnicity and Humanity in G.A. Cohen

If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? presents Gerald A. (“Jerry”) Cohen's musings on his ethnic identity. The interplay between the personal reflections, central to which is Cohen's “communist Jewish” upbringing in Montreal, and the philosophical position that Cohen holds, sheds Canadian light on the foundations of Western culture. Although he identified as Jewish throughout his life, Judaism Cohen rejected. Too, as a Marxist early, a luck egalitarian later, he was critical of the liberalism that Jewish people (certainly those of his native Montreal) embrace. Most Jewish Canadians self-classify as secular Jews. Cohen is right to waver, but not because, as he incorrectly avers, being a Jew is in tension with irreligiosity. Cohen does not qualify as a secular Jew because he does not qualify as a Jew at all. His philosophy disqualifies him. What is it to be a Jew? The Hebrew Bible contains the answer. Against the then-regnant, pagan, belief system, the Bible advances a conception of a person as an effective locus of action within the system that is nature. This conception is the essence of humanism. In effect, being a Jew is an ethnically inflected form of being, in the dominant Western sense, a person. As distinct from adhering to Judaism, or being Jewish, being a Jew associates more than just voluntarily with liberalism. The religion-friendly irreligiosity of the secular Jews of Montreal turns out, then, to link with a value embedded deep in Canadian political life. Cohen's philosophical anthropology, enmeshing men and women in a wider whole, socio-economic (Marxism) or natural (luck egalitarianism), marks him as a neo-pagan. As to Cohen's Jewishness, even a pagan can eat bagels and speak Yiddish.

125 years since the beginning of Ukrainian Immigration to Canada


 
 
 According to the Canadian Customs records that preserved in the archives on September 9, 1891 well-known Ukrainian Calician Ivan Pylypiv and Wasyl Yelynyak came to Canada. Following them hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians immigrated to the new land, as Canada was called by those who got there. The author investigates the immigration waves of the Ukrainians to Canada: before World War I; between Wars; after World War II; and after collapsing of the Soviet Union. Also, the Cana- dian researches talking about one more wave of the Ukrainian immigration to Canada – from the begining of 80th last century from Poland.
 
 
 
 
 
 According 2011 Canadian census of population and the counts of the last years there are more then one million and three hundred of thousands persons that recognized themselves of Ukrainian descend. The author charaterizes the peligious, cultural, national and political life of Ukrainians in Canada. The main role in this paper is dedicated to Ukrainians role for Canadian political life, their involvement into local, provicial and federal governmental structure.
 
 
 
 
 Keywords: Post-communist countries of CEE, theoretical and methodological approaches, political transformation
 
 
 

Surveying the Canadian State: Evolution of Canadian Political Science, Politics, and Government Since 1967

This review essay identifies major monographs about the study of government and political institutions in Canada published in English over the past 50 years. Our review is woven around a general argument that key books about Canadian political life have mirrored the evolution of the discipline in the country as a whole. For instance, important books on federalism were written at turning points in Canada's constitutional history, while the recent uptick in social diversity and political communication studies mirrors broader societal trends. Equally, greater diversity in hiring within the academy has contributed to a broadening of subject matter, perspectives, methodologies and authorship. Thus, we explore the intersection between scholarship and society, with political scientists and their books as much products of their time as they have been contributors to the evolution of the political world around them. The sources that we identify have given shape to the study and practice of Canadian domestic politics.

Right and Resistance: Norms, Interests and Indigenous Direct Action in Canada

Direct mobilization of indigenous peoples, involving protests, blockades and occupations, plays a prominent role in Canadian political life, but has to date been subject to limited explanatory social science. This article examines two high-profile flashpoint events, both involving sustained physical occupations of disputed territory by indigenous peoples, in light of the theoretical debate between instrumental and normative explanations for ethnonational group mobilization. The behaviour of indigenous protesters does not suggest a material or political cost–benefit calculus—as instrumentalism predicts—but rather an ongoing, dynamic evaluation of the legitimacy and righteousness of contentious action. This ‘calculus of right’ reflects the Weberian notion of value rationality—political action that is selected for its intrinsic rather than instrumental value to participants. The concept of ‘calculus of right’ is proposed for future scrutiny in studies of nationalist mobilization.

Exiled, Executed, Exalted: Louis Riel, Homo Sacer and the Production of Canadian Sovereignty

In this article, I argue that Louis Riel is a necessary invention for the production of Canadian sovereignty. The argument builds on the work of Giorgio Agamben. I see Riel as a Canadian version of homo sacer, “who may be killed but not sacrificed,” and thereby serves as the exception that proves the rule of Canadian sovereignty. I carry out this argument in three stages, focusing first on Riel’s exile in 1870 after the Red River Rebellion. I then bring Agamben’s insights into an examination of the tensions between French and English Canada over Riel’s execution in 1885. Finally, I look at the contemporary exaltation of Riel, focusing on the two statues that have occupied the legislative grounds in Winnipeg, which, when considered in tandem, serve as a metaphor for the relationship between liberal and colonial dynamics in Canada political history. The liberal–colonial relationship is key to Riel’s ambivalent standing in contemporary Canadian political life.

Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain (review)

Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. by Reinhold Kramer. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. 498 pp. $39.95. As one of Canada's most influential novelists and public figures, a scholarly biography of Mordecai Richler has been long in coming. A product of Montreal's Jewish immigrant community, Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Duddy) and other award-winning novels and his role as political pundit made him a Canadian icon. Whether loved or reviled, Richler was a force to be reckoned with in Canadian intellectual life. His death in 2001 prompted numerous tributes, including two books: Mordecai & Me (2003) a candid memoir of Richler by journalist Joel Yanofsky, and Michael Posner's oral biography, The Last Honest Man (2004), which draws on interviews conducted with Richler's family, friends, and others who knew him. Most recently, Reinhold Kramer's Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain is a literary biography that focuses on the intersections between Richler's life and his writing. A professor of English at Brandon University, Kramer has completed meticulous research for this project: in addition to drawing on existing secondary sources as well as doing many of his own interviews, Kramer has scoured the Richler archive at the University of Calgary to draw on drafts of published and unpublished manuscripts as well as Richler's voluminous body of correspondence. The result is an engaging portrait of Richler that situates the writer and his oeuvre in relation to the people in his life and shifting historical realities. The second half of the book's title, leaving St. Urbain, refers to the street in Montreal's Jewish immigrant quarter where Richler grew up in the 1930s and 1940s before setting out for Ibiza, Paris and London, and eventually returning home. No matter how far he traveled, both literally and figuratively, Richler's heart remained in his native Montreal. In Kramers analysis, the title also captures Richler's path from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing as grandson of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (author of the modern Golem tale) into an avowed secularist. Although Kramer is a literary scholar, his strongest analysis is of Richler's role in Canadian political life, where he employed his barbed wit as a commentatot and critic. Kramer's account is full of lively anecdotes of the notoriously witty and provocative Richler, such as his exchange with the widow of magnate Samuel Bronfman at the movie premiere of Duddy. Well, Mordecai, you've come a long way from being a St. Urbain Street slum boy, to which he replied, You've come a long from being a bootlegger's wife (p. 255). Despite its merits, this study has several significant flaws. …

Change of Political Allegiance in Parliamentary Life*

Since Confederation in Canada and until the 39th federal general election of 23 January 2006, no fewer than 246 members of the House of Commons have changed political allegiance. This number includes only those in the federal portion of Canadian public life and only those in the Lower House of Parliament. At the time of writing, there were 16 Members of the House of Commons who, at one time or another in their careers, left one political party for another. The realities of floor‐crossing and the consequences of such an admittedly risky venture in public life must be assumed to affect parliamentarians’ views about the creation of rules, whether legal, political or mixed, in respect of changes of political allegiance. Through a close examination of the Constitution Act and other Acts of Parliament this article investigates whether such rules exist in Canada. It also provides an overview of recent attempts at codification and lessons learnt from foreign jurisdictions, such as South Africa and New Zealand. The article concludes by referring to Edmund Burke’s famous Address to the Electors of Bristol and observing that the logical consequence for current Canadian political life of Burke’s thoughts may be that a Member of Parliament must be free to vote according to their conscience and therefore may only be held to account to those who elected them until the following election. * The views expressed here are exclusively those of the author and this article was prepared as a personal text, not on behalf of the House of Commons, its Members or its Administration.

Right and Wrong in Foreign Policy 40 Years On

In 1965, James G. Eayrs was asked to give the Alan B. Plaunt memorial lectures.1 lectures had been inaugurated in 1958, and were intended to focus on broad issues in Canadian political life. Eayrs would have been a logical person to invite to give the 1965 lectures. A well-known academic in the department of political economy at the University of Toronto, he had published a number of works on Canadian foreign policy, including a volume in the Canada in World Affairs series published by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, and Art of the Possible, a pioneering exploration of the foreign policymaking process in Canada.2 Since 1959 he had been the co-editor of the International Journal. He was also well-known outside the university as an accomplished essayist whose commentaries on world affairs appeared in the popular press and were heard on CBC radio. Perhaps most importantly, in 1965 he had just won the governor general's literary award for non-fiction for In Defence of Canada: From the Great War to the Great Depression, a work that turned out to be the first volume of magisterial five-volume exploration of Canadian defence policy in the 20th century.1The two lectures were delivered at Carleton University in November 1965, and were published in 1966 as a slim 57-page volume-Right and Wrong in Foreign Policy.* As the title he selected suggests, Eayrs took the opportunity to explore the question of morality in world politics, particularly in contemporary statecraft.The first lecture, The ways of statecraft, began by reminding us of the widespread deception, treachery, and cruelty that is so much a mark of contemporary foreign policy. Eayrs provided a quick cook's tour of some of the most egregious examples of these essential characteristics of foreign policy, ending with a discussion of the cruelty-and immorality-of using the threat of the destructive power of nuclear weapons as a means of advancing national interests. lecture concluded by looking at different ways of treating morality in statecraft.The second lecture, The ways of keeping faith, was a discussion of the difficulties faced by those who seek to be moral in world politics, and looking at how to the practitioners of statecraft moral. Examining the role of both the bureaucracy and the general public, Eayrs concluded that neither the public service nor the public at large is specially equipped...to confront statesmen with their wrong-doing. Rather, in view, that task was best left to intellectuals-particularly university professors. Indeed, the conclusion of the lecture was a spirited admonition to the intellectual to keep faith by refusing to enter the service of the state or consulting for government. Rather, he should maintain his distance from those who want to buy thoughts. intellectual's obligation was thus to embrace the intellect of and engage in detached analysis and condemnation of foreign policy.5Right and Wrong in Foreign Policy, written at a time when the United States was dramatically increasing its military commitment to fight against an externally supported insurgency in Vietnam, reflects the degree to which normative issues were looming larger in Eayrs's work, reflected most clearly in the informed condemnation that marked popular, more journalistic writings in the late 19605 and early 19705.'' Read four decades later, Right and Wrong in Foreign Policy still resonates, and not just because another American administration is enmeshed in another military campaign against an externally supported insurgency in Iraq. It resonates also because Eayrs's reflections on morality in foreign policy provide us with a useful framework for the assessment of Canadian statecraft over the last 40 years.EAYRS ON REALISM AND IDEALISMEayrs's lectures reflected the common view in the academic discipline of international relations at the time that there were two broad historical approaches to the issue of morality in international politics- the realist and the idealist. …

A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life

A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life, Miriam Smith, Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005, pp. 224.A curious thing about Canadian political science is that, compared to its American or British counterparts, it offers very little analysis of collective action outside of political parties. Even the interest groups in Canada don't call themselves interest groups any more. So, when a book on collective actors by a respected scholar like Miriam Smith—who has made significant contributions to the study of Canadian institutionalism and whose book on the lesbian and gay movement is a gem—comes along, it is an event for the field. Because Smith starts the book with a quote from my 1996 article with Jane Jenson on regime shift, I was well invested from the first line and had high expectations that Smith would not only set the macro institutional context that she always does so well, but would provide an insightful analysis of developments in collective action over the past decade that would build on where Jenson and I left off.

A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life

A Civil Society? Collective Actors in Canadian Political Life

A civil society?: collective actors in Canadian political life

A civil society?: collective actors in Canadian political life

Trudeau or Taylor? The Central Question

Juxtaposing Pierre Trudeau and Charles Taylor allows for assessing not simply an epoch in Canadian political life but more fundamentally two contrasting visions of modern government and society. The key is not in the usual contrasts: liberalism versus communitarianism or individual rights versus collective rights; but in the opposition between Trudeau’s centralized and Taylor’s decentralized vision of federalism. What emerges from analyzing that familiar difference is significant and ironic. While Taylor’s view seems more cognizant of government’s formative activity and of culture in politics, it is Trudeau’s view that better upholds: (1) the role of government as both an instrument of common purposes and a protector of individual rights; (2) the significance of culture as both a carrier of democratic values and an array of distinctive ways of life.

'The Dragon of Imperialism': Martin Butler, Butler's Journal, the Canadian Democrat, and Anti-Imperialism, 1899-1902

This paper examines the anti-imperialist writings of New Brunswick radical Martin Butler (1857-1915), during an era when ideas on imperialism constituted a powerful force in Canadian political and social life. The analysis is focused on editorials written during the South African War and published in Butler's two newspapers: Butler's Journal, which ran from 1890 until Butler's death in 1915, and the Canadian Democrat, which ran from 1899 to 1901 and was originally planned as the English edition of L'Independence canadienne (1894-6), a newspaper from Trois Rivi�res, QC, edited by veteran editor Georges-Isidore Barthe. Butler, who grew up in rural New Brunswick and Maine and cultivated ties with Canadian nationalists, social reformers, and radicals of various stripes from all over North America, perceived imperialism within the context of social reform and the possibilities of the nation-state. Deeply committed to helping his fellow human beings, Martin Butler initially advocated independence for Canada because he linked attainment of this goal to the achievement of related social, political, and legal reforms for Canadians. As he became more aware of imperialism's stranglehold on the nation-state, however, and the entanglement of imperialism with capitalism, he shifted his focus away from Canadian independence and more toward expressions of anti-imperialism. Butler'sJournal, consequently, was a source of early and critical views on imperialism. The Democrat, launched during the South African War, became the vehicle for Butler's sharpest anti-imperialist critiques when imperialism became too controversial a topic to be placed in the more established - and more valuable - Butler's Journal. Butler's political and social philosophy was shaped, early on, by a mainly rural (and non-Fredericton) audience. Ultimately, this audience supported the Journal even when they did not completely agree with the anti-imperialist politics of its editor, allowing the Journal, though not the Democrat, to survive beyond the years of the South African War. Cet ouvrage �tudie les �crits contre l'imp�rialisme pr�sent�s par l'extr�miste Martin Butler du Nouveau-Brunswick (1857 � 1915), � l'�poque o� les id�es sur l'imp�rialisme repr�sentaient une force puissante dans la vie sociale et politique au Canada. L'analyse se concentre sur les articles de r�daction r�dig�s par Butler au cours de la Guerre des Bo�rs et publi�s dans les deux journaux de ce dernier : Butler's Journal, publi� de 1890 jusqu'� son d�c�s en 1915, et le Canadian Democrat, publi� de 1899 � 1901. (Ce dernier journal �tait, � l'origine, pr�vu comme l'�dition anglaise de l'Ind�pendance canadienne [1894 � 1896], � Trois-Rivi�res, un journal qu�b�cois r�dig� par le r�dacteur chevronn� Georges-Isidore Barthe.) Monsieur Butler, qui a grandi dans les r�gions rurales du Nouveau-Brunswick et du Maine, a tiss� des liens avec des nationalistes canadiens, des r�formateurs de soci�t� et des extr�mistes de diff�rentes nationalit�s provenant de toutes les r�gions de l'Am�rique du Nord. Il percevait l'imp�rialisme dans le contexte d'une r�forme sociale et envisageait les possibilit�s de cr�er une nation-�tat. Muni d'un d�sir d'aider ses compatriotes, Martin Butler, au d�but, plaidoyait la cause de l'ind�pendance pour le Canada car il associait l'atteinte de cet objectif � la r�ussite des r�formes sociales, politiques et juridiques qui s'y rattachaient pour le peuple canadien. Toutefois, au fur et � mesure qu'il devenait conscient de l'�tranglement de l'imp�rialisme au sein de la nation-�tat et de l'emm�lement de l'imp�rialisme au capitalisme, il se concentra, dans une plus grande mesure vers des expressions d'anti-imp�rialisme, plut�t que vers l'ind�pendance canadienne. Butler's Journal, par cons�quent, fut une source des opinions premi�res et critiques sur la question d'imp�rialisme. Le Democrat, lanc� au cours de la Guerre des Bo�rs, fut le moyen d'expression pour Butler d'exprimer vigoureusement ses sentiments d'anti-imp�rialisme au moment o� le sujet d'imp�rialisme devenait une question beaucoup trop discut�e pour �tre ins�r�e dans le Butler's Journal, journal d�j� bien �tabli, et en tant que tel, d'une plus grande valeur. La philosophie politique et sociale de Butler a �t� form�e, au d�but, par un auditoire provenant principalement des r�gions rurales (et non de Fredericton). En fin de compte, les membres de cet auditoire �taient en faveur du Journal, m�me s'ils n'�taient pas enti�rement d'accord avec les politiques d'anti-imp�rialisme pr�sent�es par son r�dacteur. Ceci a permis au Journal, et non au Democrat, de survivre au-del� des ann�es de la Guerre des Bo�rs.

Defying Conventional Wisdom: Political Movements and Popular Contention against North American Free Trade

This book offers a crisp and thoughtful account of political phenomena still fresh in the minds of Canadians, and with continuing relevance to policy-making processes. As the first major work on the origins, strategies, and activities of movements and coalitions that arose in Canada and spread across North America to oppose free trade, it captures an important developmental period in Canadian political life. Focusing on an analysis of the Action Canada Network, Jeffrey Ayres adopts a political-process model to link the emergence of popular sector movements and transnational networks to constraints posed by the Canada-US FTA and NAFTA. His extensive use of popular writings and interviews highlights the personal reflections of coalition members and provides an intimate perspective on their strategies and actions. As a contribution both to the study of recent developments in Canadian politics and to our understanding of emerging transnational contention in North America, Defying Conventional Wisdom will appeal to readers across a wide spectrum of interests and backgrounds. University of Toronto Press gratefully acknowledges that this book was sponsored in part by the Association for Canadian Studies in the U.S. and by the Government of Canada.

Divine Intervention

In the closing decades of the Victorian period (1870-1900), Canadian trades unionists along with few socialists and agrarian rebels launched more than 133 working-class newspapers. These paperssome of which survived well into the twentieth century-were central to labour's efforts to check the unbridled development of big business in Canada. More important, they were the intellectual forum for the merger of Christian humanism and working-class interests that laid the foundation for the reformist politics that exists in most parts of Canada today. This article focuses on some of those labour journalists and how they sought to reform organized Christianity, invoking Christian theology and tradition in upholding the dignity and rights of the working class. Throughout their long struggle, these journalists battled collusion between big business and institutionalized religion, arguing that industrial capitalists actively exploited the Christian church and co-opted its leadership. These journalists and their ideas are important because they helped to give birth to nonconformist, quasi-secular, reformist, puritanical ideology that eventually provided the foundations for Canadian social democracy and relegated materialist, atheistic socialism to the margins of Canadian political life.' It is not the result that concerns us here, but the path that led to it. Religious reform had to occur before any notions of political interventionism could take root. Labour journalists recognized that religion, specifically the non-theological codes of human conduct contained in Christian teachings, played significant role in defining working-class behaviour. Respect and reverence for clerical figures was an attitude prevalent in working-class communities. It was milder version of earlier deferent social relationships which existed when quasi-feudal Church of England-based institutions shaped Canadian political and social life prior to the coming of democratic government in 1848.' Their autocratic rule ensured that religious notions underscored virtually every detail of daily life in Victorian Canada long after their legal authority had ended. As consequence, Christian and quasi-Christian organizations dominated Victorian Canada during the most active period of industrial development following 1870. Both Catholic and Protestant fraternal societies were among the many through which working-class communities sought protection from the insecurities of factory society.^sup 3^ However, for labour journalists, the Church, its ancillary organizations and established authority were one and the same, the very nature of which made them hostile to working-class interests. Industrialization exacerbated societal conflict. Organized religion tended to side with the newly emergent industrial capitalism.^sup 4^ The line of demarcation between church and state was so fragile in the three decades following Canadian union in 1867 that clerical and secular initiatives were often one and the same. Between 1867 and the turn of the century, this alliance produced distinctive Canadian political culture called Toryism.^sup 5^ In Victorian Canada, Toryism, through its political arm, the Conservative Party, used the levers of the state to lay the infrastructure for modem industrial economy while simultaneously working to preserve the vestiges of privilege and power enjoyed by both clerical and secular elites.^sup 6^ In spite of public claims of sympathy for working-class causes, the Church continually provided ample ammunition for its critics. The Methodist weekly, Christian Guardian, called trades unions a depraved monopoly. In the winter of 1891, Toronto preacher Hugh Johnston attributed all labour troubles to pro-union demagogues. Johnston advised working men to stop striking and rely on the good will of industrialists at the conciliation table. Labour journalist Phillips Thompson observed in the editorial columns of his weekly Labor Advocate that Johnston did not understand basic labour relations. …

The Question of Changing Moral and Ethical Standards in Canadian Political Life?

Honest Politics: Seeking Integrity in Canadian Public Life. Ian Greene and David P Shugarman. Toronto: Lorimer, 1997. Corruption, Character and Conduct: Essays on Canadian Government Ethics. John W. Langford and Allan Tupper. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994. The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism: Paradoxes, Achievements, and Tragedies of fationhood. Samuel V. LaSelva. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996. The title of this review attempts identify a common theme in these three books, which deal in different ways with current debates in Canadian political life, in particular what their authors see as a decline in our civic values. The first two are in the tradition of public administration, dealing with issues of ethics and corruption in the public sphere. The third is quite different. It is a philosophical reassessment of the Confederation debates and their implications for contemporary Canadian federalism and its institutions. All three are written by political scientists. Three of the five authors teach at western universities: John Langford at the University of Victoria, Allan Tupper at the University of Alberta and Samuel LaSelva at the University of British Columbia. The other two, Ian Greene and David Shugarman, emphasize that their concerns are rooted in their earlier experiences at the University of Alberta and working in Alberta politics. As I grew up in Manitoba, the western Canadian background of the authors may explain some of my problems with the other common theme of the three books, which is that we should aspire go back in time capture something which was nobler and better. I will deal first with the books which are most similar. The more recent book by Greene and Shugarman liberally cites the earlier work by Langford and Tupper. Honest Politics: Seeking Integrity in Canadian Public Life, claims in its Introduction to present a framework for sorting out right from wrong in politics. We don't claim have all the answers ... [and] have focused on three key areas of misconduct that need be checked and repaired: conflicts of interest, undue influence, and dirty handed (vi). The book starts from the premise that mutual respect, or what my grandmother used call common civility, is the essence of a democracy and that five principles of democracy follow from this: social equality, deference the majority, minority rights, freedom (and by this they seem mean freedom of expression) and integrity. The emphasis throughout is on integrity and some degree social equality. The chapters that follow discuss the relationship between ethics and the principles of democracy and explore the nature of ethical duties and ethical problems. There are chapters on each of the three areas of misconduct and two chapters of prescriptions. Most chapters use a combination of examples drawn from newspaper reports, judicial and other inquiries into ethical shortcomings and the results of workshops or focus groups on the nature of ethical politics held with a series of academics, journalists, graduate students, former politicians and practitioners. It is not clear from the lists of participants what the criterion for selection was. The major problem is that the book simply does not hold together. One reason may be that there are not enough cases of malfeasance constitute a pattern of dishonesty or lack of integrity. Another may be that the authors exhibit more sensibility than sense in their concern about some of the cases cited. The chapter on conflict of interest covers fewer than 10 cases of real, potential or apparent conflict of interest over a 13-year period in both provincial and federal politics, scarcely an epidemic of lack of integrity. The one case of fraud (Michael Gravel) and the two cases of conflict of interest (Sinclair Stevens and William Vander Zalm) were corrected. Most would agree that the individuals should have known better but they seem be isolated examples of lack of integrity, not evidence of a trend. …

Predictable and Unpredictable Policy Windows: Institutional and Exogenous Correlates of Canadian Federal Agenda-Setting

AbstractThis article addresses the question of the applicability of John Kingdon's theory of agenda-setting to Canadian political life. It examines the extent to which agenda-setting in Canadian governments is routine or discretionary, predictable or unpredictable, and the extent to which it is influenced by events and activities external to itself. The study uses time series data collected on issue mentions related to Native affairs, the constitution, drug abuse, acid rain, the nuclear industry and capital punishment in parliamentary debates and committees between 1977 and 1992. It compares these series to other time series developed from media mentions, violent crime rates, unemployment rates, budget speeches and speeches from the throne, elections and first ministers' conferences over the same period in order to assess the impact of such events on public policy agenda-setting.