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Recent cases of partisan-motivated prorogations of parliaments at the federal and provincial levels in Canada have focused attention on this phenomenon. While such prorogations are uncommon in the mature Westminster-style parliaments, the Canadian cases are not unique. Systematic study of partisan-motivated prorogations in the Australian states has illuminated the factors commonly associated with such cases. This paper outlines the results of this literature and then tests whether the Canadian cases fit the pattern. It shows that, on balance, these factors do apply. The paper thus concludes that, while partisan-motivated prorogations may not be predictable, it is possible to identify circumstances in which there is a substantially greater risk of their occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper builds on the insights of Sawer and Laycock (2009) to explore similarities in the use of populist discourse by former Australian Prime John Howard and current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. While Sawer and Laycock label this discourse ‘market populism’ and focus on economic issues, here it is argued that Howard and Harper's populism is better understood as ‘mainstream populism’ due to the equal importance of sociocultural issues in their discourses. To demonstrate this, the treatment of issues such as immigration, multiculturalism, the culture wars, criminal justice, and childcare is considered. It is further suggested that such populist policies were used to satisfy rival wings of their respective parties – neoliberals and social conservatives – that do not always share the same priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

National parties in the Canadian and Australian parliamentary federations, despite the differences in their federal systems, are dependent for their success in mobilising electoral support on a similar network of local and subnational partisan activity over which they have, at best, only limited control. We find that, over the last 100 years, national parties in both federations have moved through a similar sequence of structural changes, none of which has altered their reliance on subnational agencies for mobilising local support. We argue that these regularities flow from the nature of parliamentary government in these two federations, their origins as federations by aggregation, and the use of single member districts for electing the lower house of their national legislatures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conventional wisdom has been that the Canadian Citizenship Act and the British Nationality and Australian Citizenship Act demonstrated the growth of a local nationalism after the Second World War. In reality, the situation was more complicated. Both English-speaking Canada and Australia still regarded themselves as British nations. The passage of the Canadian Act was an illustration of the bicultural nature of that country, which developments during the war had brought to the fore. The Australian Act was simply a reaction to the Canadian Act, as the latter had undermined the common code of British subject status across the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, the British Nationality Act was primarily an attempt to preserve the common status of British subjects throughout the Commonwealth and maintain the integrity of this organisation during a period when it was being rapidly transformed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]