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Canada has been celebrated in popular and academic work for its relative immunity to nativist populism. No competitive nativist party has recently emerged in federal politics that challenges the mainstream consensus around mass immigration, unlike virtually every other postindustrial democracy. This paper argues that existing explanations for this "exceptionalism" are lacking. In particular, they fail to appreciate the importance of Quebec nationalism in contributing to this outcome. Quebec nationalism fractured the stronger anti‐immigration sentiment found in rural and smaller urban areas in both Quebec and Anglophone Canada and thereby prevented right‐wing parties from mobilising that sentiment in a way that could feasibly win elections. This forced such parties to moderate their message and court "ethnic voters" in suburban ridings around Toronto and Vancouver. We illustrate this argument using novel data which permit a comparison of the Canadian experience with nativist politics in Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pattern of intergovernmental relations (IGR) on immigrant integration in Canada runs counter to core arguments in the extant literature. In particular, Canada's federal structures have not produced multilateral, institutionalized, and conflictual IGR; IGR in Canada has been predominantly bilateral and only moderately institutionalized. Moreover, IGR has been conflictual at times, while collaborative at others. Several factors explain this unexpected pattern. In an attempt to ward off separatism, the central government devolved authority over immigrant selection and settlement programmes to Quebec, creating a deep asymmetry between Quebec and the Anglophone provinces (and territories) in these areas. Interprovincial competition drove other provinces to seek powers over immigration and integration. The central government – driven by fiscal pressures and a philosophical commitment to symmetry – struck bilateral agreements with Anglophone provinces to fund and devolve settlement programming and some control over the selection of economic immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article endeavours to explain why English Canadians and Quebeckers differ in their opinions about private healthcare options. Data indicates that respondents in the nine predominantly English-speaking provinces are more likely to oppose private hospitals than Quebeckers. No one province or region in “English Canada” drives these results: aversion to private hospitals is consistent across the nine provinces. Research on welfare states slots Canada into the “liberal” category, which is indicative of a preference for market solutions to welfare problems, which makes this finding perplexing. The argument presented here is that universal healthcare has become bound up with the national identity of English Canada, resulting in a general aversion to private healthcare initiatives outside of Quebec. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]