Party Of Canada Research Articles

Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism

AbstractOn October 22, 2015, two days after the Liberal Party of Canada came to power,The Globe and Mailpublished an editorial entitled “Canada to the World: Xenophobia Doesn’t Play Here.” The article suggested that, in these times of migration crises, a rising xenophobic discourse and neo-nationalism, it is essential for the European countries to start taking lessons in navigating cultural diversity from Canada, the first country in the world that institutionalized principles of multiculturalism. This view is clearly reflected in the repertoire politics of Canadian theatre institutions, specifically the National Arts Centre (NAC) Ottawa, the only theatre company in Canada directly subsidized by its government. Mandated to support artistic excellence through arts, the NAC acts as a pulpit of official ideology. It presents diversity on stage as the leading Canadian value, and thus fulfills its symbolic function to serve as a mirror to its nation.However, this paper argues that, by offering an image of Canada, constructed by our government and tourist agencies, as an idyllic place to negotiate our similarities and differences, the NAC fosters what Loren Kruger calls atheatrical nationhood(4–16). A closer look at the 2014 NAC English theatre co-production ofKim’s Conveniencewill help illustrate how the politics of mimicry can become a leading device in the aesthetics ofnational mimesis– a cultural activity of “representing the nation as well as the result of it (an image of the nation)” (Hurley 24); and how the artistry of a multicultural kitchen-sink can turn a subject of diversity into that of affirmation and sentimentalism.

Formal and Informal Control of Cannabis: Regular Users' Experience

ABSTRACTBackground: The debate on recreational use of cannabis, recently relaunched by the election of the Liberal Party of Canada that intends to legalize and regulate its use and access, implies a better understanding of social control mechanisms that are in place, and their influence on users' behaviors. Objective: This study addresses the issue of formal and informal controls by providing, first, a theoretical perspective of this concept, and, second, by illustrating its operation from the users' perspective. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 164 regular, adult cannabis users recruited in four large Canadian cities (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax). An initial qualitative analysis based on the principles of grounded theory was conducted. The main categories identified were then used to find and re-code relevant material on the respondents' experience with formal and informal control (secondary analysis). Results: The users' perspective shows that mechanisms of informal control play an important role in defining the social context of their use (when, where, and with whom cannabis is consumed). In contrast, formal control had no deterrent impact on the cessation or reduction of use, but affected their behavior by influencing them to change the context of their practices to avoid criminal legal consequences and stigmatization. Conclusions/Importance: The regulatory controls based in public health that the Canadian government plans to implement (replacing criminal ones), should be based on a better understanding of current practices and patterns of cannabis users, and in accordance with informal controls already in place. Legislative formal controls, in a regulatory model, that are better defined and consistent with social practices, will be more accepted and respected by the user population and thus likely to be more effective in reducing harm.

Auditing party democracy: the case of Canadian party constituency associations

ABSTRACTPolitical parties are often assessed on the basis of participatory democratic theory, which emphasises the importance of openness, inclusiveness, and responsiveness as the markers by which we can measure their democratic quality. This approach can be contrasted with competitive democratic theory that emphasises the centrality of fairness, transparency, and accountability to the democratic assessment of parties and other democratic actors. We apply these contrasting frameworks to a democratic audit of one set of party institutions and actors: the grassroots constituency associations maintained by Canadian parties. We illustrate how the outcomes of such assessments are deeply informed by the frameworks employed.

Role conflict: Canada’s withdrawal from combat operations against ISIL

This paper seeks to understand the peculiarity of the Trudeau government’s decision to withdraw Canadian fighter jets from Iraq and Syria. Most studies have focused on electoral turnover to account for early withdrawal from coalition operations. Yet no study offers a plausible explanation for why a centrist challenger, such as Trudeau, favoured early withdrawal despite public support and alliance pressure for continued involvement, and committed when in power to a bolder and riskier mission while withdrawing valued military assets from coalition operations. Building on foreign policy role theory, we argue that role conflict best explains the particularity of the Trudeau government’s withdrawal decision. In the wake of the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada witnessed an intra-party conflict over which role to perform between that of a faithful ally and a good international citizen. The party leader finally proposed a compromise mission making Canada more involved on the frontlines.

Political battlefield: aggressive metaphors, gender, and power in news coverage of Canadian party leadership contests

ABSTRACTOur study analyzed aggressive figures of speech used by the Globe and Mail to describe the personas, performances, and prospects of women and men leadership candidates for the (Progressive) Conservative Party of Canada in 1976, 1993, and 2004. We codified four distinct forms of power communicated by the aggressive metaphors—power over, power to, power with, and power as—to investigate what these battleground metaphors communicate about gender and political power. Our content analysis and discourse analysis of the phrases applied to each of the candidates revealed gendered assumptions about political leadership. All three women candidates in our study—Flora MacDonald (1976), Kim Campbell (1993), and Belinda Stronach (2004)—were discussed as formidable foes, capable of using considerable force in their efforts to win. Indeed, Campbell became Canada’s first and only woman prime minister. Yet, much of the aggressive mediation confirms the gendered mediation thesis that aggressive metaphors exclude women and reconstitute politics as masculine. Many of the combative phrases cast doubt on a woman candidate’s ability to successfully compete on the political battlefield.

Race, Apology, and the Conservative Ethnic Media Strategy

As part of their campaign leading up to the 2011 federal election, four versions of a Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) political advertisement aired during “ethnic television programming.” These advertisements featured Asian CPC candidates viewing archival photographs of the 1914 Komagata Maru incident and Chinese Canadian railroad workers. These images are overlaid with neoliberal multiculturalism scripts about the Conservatives' recognition of our history and our community's sacrifice. By examining the apologies for the Komagata Maru incident (2008) and Chinese Canadian exclusion (2006) and the 2011 federal election campaign representations of historic anti-Asian regulation, this article explores how such discourses craft Conservative innocence and tell the story of the good political subject as an immigrant that integrates into the nation by putting race behind them.

Does Canadian Multiculturalism Survive through State Repression?

Emma Ambrose and Cas Mudde argued in this journal that the absence of far-right parties in Canada can be attributed, among other factors, to “strong state repression of dissent” on multiculturalism policy. This article provides numerous examples of such dissent, to show that the state repression invoked by Ambrose and Mudde does not exist. The article also argues that certain “supply-side” explanations for the absence of a strong far-right apply to the Canadian case. It notes, in particular, how Steven Harper's Conservative government occupied much of the political space that might otherwise have been available for far-right challengers.

Putting Canada in a Comparative Context: Still the Multiculturalist Unicorn

In a very respectful response—titled with a classic rhetorical question: “Does Canadian Multiculturalism Survive through State Repression?”—Phil Ryan supports most of the arguments that Emma Ambrose and I laid out in our article “Canadian Multiculturalism and the Absence of the Far Right.” However, he does question two particular claims: (1) that the Canadian state represses critique of multiculturalism and (2) that there are no other supply-side factors to explain the absence of the far right in Canada. In this short response, I will argue, first and foremost, that Ryan perceives Canada too much through an exclusively Canadian lens, exaggerating the tolerance of the Canadian state for far-right discourse as well as the criticism of multiculturalism by the Conservative Party of Canada.

Candidate Selection in Canada

This article examines how political parties choose their candidates in Canada’s decentralized multilevel setting. We examine the selection practices of the leading federal parties, focusing on the formal and informal rules relating to the eligibility and mobilization of voters and candidates, the distribution of power within the party, and representational outcomes. In doing so, we highlight how Canadian parties have approached the trade-off between competing democratic norms as each party attempts to find a delicate balance between grassroots authority and central party involvement. Despite typically being considered a local affair, the selection of candidates is highly influenced by the central party apparatus—both formally and informally. This central party authority, however, often results in considerable tension that erupts in public conflict. We suggest that while centralization may undermine membership participation, grassroots autonomy, and responsiveness, central party involvement may also enhance the democratic values of fairness, representation, and in some instances even participation.

Toronto-area Ethnic Newspapers and Canada's 2011 Federal Election: An Investigation of Content, Focus and Partisanship

AbstractCanada's political class is embracing ethnocultural news media with increasing zeal, highlighting the need to understand the role of these news organizations in the political process. This study investigated coverage of Canada's 2011 federal election in five Toronto-area ethnocultural newspapers. The publications, which carried campaign news to varying degrees, provided coverage that was distinct in many ways from mainstream media. Content such as the focus on ingroup candidates had the potential to strengthen community bonds while more general election news equipped readers with information that would facilitate participation in society through informed voting. Analysis of reporting about the Conservative Party of Canada, which pursued an aggressive ethnic media strategy, identified no clear pattern of stories with explicitly biased content. In most newspapers, however, the CPC did enjoy an advantage in that it received more coverage than the competition.

Amending the Youth Criminal Justice Act, 2007–2012: dynamics and contingencies of a ‘transforming Canada’ agenda

This paper addresses the Conservative Party of Canada's three-phase effort (2007–2012) to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to prioritise public protection, accountability and victims' rights over prevention and rehabilitation. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and criminology and critical policy scholarship, the paper situates this tough-on-crime initiative in relation to a US-led punitive turn that Canada is belatedly catching-up on, positions this catch-up effort in relation to the Conservative's larger transforming Canada agenda, and explores cultural, institutional and political contingencies salient to its impacts on Canadian law and society.

Elite–Activist Relationships In Political Parties: A Social Exchange Analysis of Canadian Parties

How can we understand interactions and relationships between party elites and activists? We argue that social exchange theory (SET) provides a useful framework to understanding interactions and relationships between party actors. This article develops a SET framework to analyse intra-party relationships and marshals the framework (in addition to interview and observation data) to analyse one set of relationships, those between Canadian Members of Parliament and the party activists in their constituencies.

Parties, elections, and the future of Canadian politics

Introduction: Change and Continuity in Canadian Parties and Elections / Amanda Bittner and Royce Koop 1 Has Brokerage Politics Ended? Canadian Parties in the New Century / R. Kenneth Carty 2 Candidate Recruitment in Canada: The Role of Political Parties / William Cross and Lisa Young 3 The Effects of Constantly Campaigning upon the Canadian Parliament / Kelly Blidook and Matthew Byrne 4 Constituency and Personal Determinants of MPs' Positions on Social Conservative Issues in the 37th and 38th Canadian Parliaments / Munroe Eagles 5 City Ministers: The Local Politics of Cabinet Selection / Anthony M. Sayers 6 Women Candidates, Voters, and Legislators: A Gender Perspective on Recent Party and Electoral Politics / Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant 7 Revisiting the Ethnic Vote: Liberal Allegiance and Vote Choice among Racialized Minorities / Allison Harell 8 The Canadian Party System: Trends in Election Campaign Reporting, 1980-2008 / Blake Andrew, Patrick Fournier, and Stuart Soroka 9 Parties, Politics, and Redistribution: The Constitutional and Practical Challenges of Politicized Apportionment / Russell Alan Williams 10 Too Little, Too Soon: State Funding and Electoral District Associations in the Green Party of Canada / Harold Jansen and L.A. (Lisa) Lambert 11 When Partisans Are Attacked: Motivated Reasoning and the New Party System / J. Scott Matthews 12 Coping with Political Flux: The Impact of Information on Voters' Perceptions of the Political Landscape, 1988-2011 / Amanda Bittner 13 Situating the Canadian Case / Richard Johnston 14 Parties and Elections after 2011: The Fifth Canadian Party System? / Royce Koop and Amanda Bittner

From Opposition to Government: Party Merger as a Step on the Road to Power

Little is known about the negotiations behind closed doors that culminate in the fusion of political parties. This detailed study of the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada draws on data collected through depth interviews with 32 merger participants, including party negotiators. The findings are organised around four notional stages: the war of attrition, acceptance by leaders that merger is necessary, the negotiations and the agreement's ratification and implementation. This research illustrates the complexity of the merger process including the manipulation of media to increase pressure, the authority of leadership and the nature of bargaining public and private goods.

The Unite the Right Movement and the Brokerage of Social Conservative Voices Within the New Conservative Party of Canada

2003 marked a year of significant change in the political landscape, particularly for the Canadian right. After ten years of division, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PCs) and the Canadian Alliance united to create the Conservative Party of Canada. This union required a balancing of the interests of both of its founding parties who, on certain issues, espoused very different views. One important example of this was social conservatism. In this paper, the author examines the new party’s attempt to balance the two parties’ differing opinions on social conservatism. In order to accomplish this, the paper first examines the differences between the two parties, and then examines how conflicting interests were resolved under the banner of the ‘New Conservative Party.’ The author concludes that by deliberately declarin socially conservative issues beyond the scope of party policy, the new conservative party has been able to strike a balance between the interests of the voting population and the interests of its more socially conservative members, who are able to express their preferences by means of a free vote.

‘We must maintain a balance between propaganda and serious athletics’ – the workers' Sport Movement in Canada, 1924–1936†

In its heyday, the international socialist movement sought to create a completely alternative way of life for its members and potential recruits, with its own political organizations, rituals and traditions, solidarity networks for health and welfare, and cultural organizations for the arts and sports. Some of the most ambitious European socialist or workers' sports organizations had their own facilities, their own system of training coaches and instructors, their own newspapers and their own calendar of events. In 1913, the European associations banded together to form the Socialist Workers' Sport International. When the socialist movement split into social democratic and communist camps in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and World War I, the newly formed communist parties sought to turn sport into a weapon of recruitment and struggle. One such effort was the Workers' Sports Association of Canada (WSAC). Initiated by a top-down directive from the Communist International in Moscow, it nonetheless resonated with the sporting activities of hundreds of left-wing and working-class people and clubs in both urban and hinterland Canada, especially among immigrants who brought the socialist tradition from Europe and felt shut out of mainstream Canadian sport. For a time, despite the tensions between the Community Party of Canada organizers who demanded strict adherence to the political line of the day, and the coaches and athletes on the ground who wanted to focus on their sport, the WSAC provided both a pan-Canadian network of opportunities and a public face for these activities. This article was my first attempt to document this history. It was a ‘recovery project’ because despite extensive historical literature on Canadian parties of the left, no one else had ever mentioned sport.

Neoliberalism, Class and Culture: The 2008 Federal Elections in Canada and the United States

In the 2008 federal elections in Canada and The United States, conservative parties used class rhetoric in an attempt to draw votes from the working class. They did so by defining class along narrowly cultural lines, so excluding economic concerns. This research note examines the cases of ‘Ordinary Canadians Don’t Care About The Arts’ and ‘Joe the Plumber’ to show how conservative parties in Canada and the United States are redefining class as a purely cultural variable. Although the rhetoric was not entirely successful, the cases are instructive about the ways that the understandings and importance of class as an economic relation is suppressed by pro-capitalist parties in political elections.

A Diplomatic Counter-Revolution

In a July 2011 wide-ranging interview with Madean's magazine, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, still glowing from his majority election victory, offered a stark confession. Since becoming prime minister [in 2006], he said, thing that's probably struck me most in terms of my previous expectations - I don't even know what my expectations were - is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but in fact that it's become almost everything.1 Six weeks later, a report in the National Post revealed that the government planned act on Harper's new understanding of the significance of world affairs: Once considered an afterthought by a prime minister preoccupied with winning a majority, wrote Tobi Cohen, relations have moved centre for the Conservatives, who have undertaken a quiet but sweeping re-examination of federal foreign policy.2This essay addresses two questions that should be central Ottawa's review: first, what might have motivated the government's actions on the international stage between 2006 and2on? And, second, was this motivation consistent with Canadian national interests? To date, analysts have offered three answers question one. The first two are consistent with the content of a debate over the possibility of a distinct Conservative foreign policy that was published in a volume of Canada Among Nations shortly after Harper's first election victory in 2006. Conservative partisans argued that there was indeed a distinctly Conservative approach international relations - characterized by a combination of compassion, realism, engagement, focus, and global leadership. Opposing them were those who maintained that the strategic constraints imposed upon Ottawa both domestically and internationally limited the flexibility of any ruling party effect significant change in foreign policy, no matter its partisan leanings. The only real difference that a new government could make was at the rhetorical level.3Both suggestions are profoundly conservative: neither anticipates, nor allows for, broad divergences from the authors' general understandings of Canada's foreign policy history. And while analysts from both camps might point specific rhetoric and decisions from the last five years that support their interpretations, considering the activist nature of the Harper regime (not mention the prime minister's comments in Maclean's), neither theory is ultimately satisfying. Kim Richard Nossal, a professor of political studies at Queen's University, has offered a more plausible assessment. To him, Canadian foreign policy between 2006 and 2011 was driven more by a partisan desire to make the Conservatives the dominant political party in Canada, than it was by dear thinking about world affairs.11 But if the government of Stephen Harper's approach international relations was designed primarily erase any memory of Canada's allegedly Liberal (internationalist) past, why did Ottawa not reject the national security policy of 2004? Why did it not distance itself from the never-popular Afghanistan mission, or Paul Martin's efforts increase the focus of Canada's development assistance program? Further examination will demonstrate that Nossal's explanation is yet more compelling if one defines Liberal foreign policy as the practices manifested most clearly during an exceptional period of Canadian conduct in world affairs, when the national diplomatic personality was shaped primarily by a single Liberal member of parliament - Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy. Conservative foreign policy between 2006 and 2OII might therefore be most effectively characterized as an effort eradicate one individual's, as opposed one party's, legacy.To determine whether such an approach world affairs was consistent with Canada's national interests, an issue that has yet be dealt with by scholarly analysts in significant detail, one must take into consideration what the Harper government's global outlook attempted replace. …

Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008, Brooke Jeffrey, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 672.

Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984–2008, Brooke Jeffrey, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp. 672.

New development: Macroeconomic fables

This article uses a structural narratology approach to define four archetypal fables concerning managers and organizations, based on whether the narrative involves growth or decline for the protagonist and growth or decline for the organization which the protagonist leads. This approach is applied to three cases: a celebratory-political narrative about the Conservative Party of Canada's victory in the 2011 federal election; Charles Ferguson's Academy Award-winning documentary ‘Inside Job’ about the 2008 financial meltdown; and the ideological-polemical narratives of the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. The article concludes that narrative analysis helps us understand the structure of these stories and helps us examine and question the assumptions about economic causation that they incorporate.