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While the number of women standing as candidates in federal elections in Canada has surged, it is unclear how voters respond to the increased presence of women in politics. In this paper, we study who votes for women candidates in four recent federal elections. Using Canadian Election Study data and biographical information on candidates for the 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021 federal elections, we examine the impact of the presence of women candidates on voting in Canadian elections. Leveraging the individual-level nature of our data, we also explore heterogeneity in voting for women candidates, with specific attention to patterns of gender affinity voting, and the moderating effects of gender consciousness and gender attitudes on voting for women. Our findings are similar to previous work in failing to show much evidence of an electoral disadvantage for women candidates. We also find very little evidence of heterogeneity in this basic null effect in terms of voters' gender or their gender attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of racial attitudes on the electoral performance of the New Democratic Party (NDP). Since 2017, the NDP has been led by Jagmeet Singh, the first non-white leader of a nationally competitive Canadian political party. Voters' racial attitudes and the race of party leaders have a significant effect on vote choice in the United States. Less is known about whether similar effects exist in Canadian elections. I show that NDP vote choice polarized on the basis of racial attitudes following Singh's ascension to party leader. Voters with cold feelings toward racial minorities were less likely to vote for the NDP in 2019 and 2021 than in comparable historical elections. In contrast, there is no significant difference between 2019/2021 and prior elections in support for the Liberals and Conservatives among such voters. These results suggest that racial attitudes are salient in Canadian elections and that national parties may face an electoral penalty when selecting non-white party leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians carefully construct a public persona that is authentic to who they are as individuals but also addresses voter expectations. Many Black candidates follow a deracialization strategy in which they downplay their racial identities to seek voter support while some follow a racial distinction strategy in which they highlight their racial identities but situate them within hegemonic national narratives. But questions remain about whether a candidate's decision to use one strategy over another is shaped by national context, partisanship, political position, and riding competitiveness. This paper thus asks the question: How do Black candidates in Canadian elections deploy race in their campaign communications, and what factors might explain any differences in their strategies? To answer this question, we analyze how Black candidates used Twitter during the 2021 Canadian election. Our analysis reveals that Black candidates generally used a deracialization strategy when communicating on Twitter, opting to celebrate the many cultural groups in their riding rather than casting their appeal only to Black voters. They only highlighted their racial identities or racial issues when world or campaign events gave them the political cover to do so. But the degree to which Black candidates engaged in (de)racialized communications differed by party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal elections between 2008 and 2019 saw a great of volatility in Quebec, with important consequences for election outcomes. The surge in New Democratic Party (NDP) support in Quebec led the party to official opposition, while Liberal gains in 2011 led the party to a majority government, and Bloc Québécois gains in 2019 helped to reduce the Liberals to a minority. To what extent was this volatility driven by voters switching parties and to what degree was it driven by voters entering and exiting the electorate? This article uses ecological inference based on riding-level data to examine the dynamics of party competition in Quebec from 2008 to 2019. We show that while voter mobilization mattered to volatility, vote switching was the important driver of changing party fortunes during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian party system experienced a period of remarkable transition between 2006 and 2015, with the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Liberals trading places as the main competitor to the Conservatives. While national-level explanations are often used to explain this volatility, William Cross's research has shown that local association revitalization played a central role in the Liberals' 2015 resurgence. This article examines the relationship between NDP local spending and success between 2006 and 2015. It shows that the NDP was consistently outspent by its opponents overall but that it often had a spending advantage in marginal ridings. As a result, this article finds little evidence that the NDP's local spending disadvantage cost the NDP seats, even though it finds a positive correlation between NDP local spending and NDP vote share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ottawa Law Review is the property of University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Election candidates resigning when confronted by moral outrage over their indiscretions is now a routine aspect of Canadian elections. Often controversy is generated by opponents who conduct American-style opposition research and provide findings to the media. As a preventative measure, central party agents now subject their aspiring candidates to background scrutiny and reject applicants deemed likely to spark negative publicity. This article traces the recent evolution of candidate vetting in Canada, and sheds light on political parties examining candidates' backgrounds. It suggests that a wave of vetting arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to concern about political ethics, and again around 2008 with the growth in the influences of social media. Central party officers encroach on the role of local party members in the candidate selection process to protect the party's brand and its election prospects. Implications of screening candidates range from rooting out political extremists to fortifying the leader's authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the resources devoted to microtargeting in recent election campaigns, we still have a limited understanding of its impacts on the electorate. This article aims to test the reinforcement effect of microtargeted messages on voters' attitudes. Specifically, it looks at how microtargeting influences the strength and stability of partisan affiliation and the probability of voters changing their vote choice during the 2015 Canadian election campaign. Given that individuals are not targeted randomly, entropy balancing is used to model selection into treatment and create a valid counterfactual for microtargeted individuals. This approach is complemented by an extensive sensitivity analysis to improve confidence in selection on observables. We find evidence that microtargeting reinforces party ties and makes voters less likely to defect from their preferred party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring relative legislative influence is notoriously difficult, particularly in bicameral systems where two chambers have similar formal powers. Recent changes to the Canadian legislature offer a unique opportunity to understand how an upper house liberated from party constraints impacts that houses' legislative influence. I leverage an original panel data set matching lobbyist activity to parliamentarian characteristics and responsibilities and, using a difference-in-differences design, compare Members of Parliament to Senators, both independent and partisan. I find that independent Senators receive disproportionately more attention from lobbyists both after the changes and as the independent composition of the Senate grows. This article offers a time-variant measure by which perceived influence can be evaluated and contributes to the extant literature on intercameral relationships, partisanship, the legislative process, and party discipline and cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of custom electoral systems in First Nations' local policies and on-reserve living conditions. Topics discussed include association of changes in accountability or political representation with this institutional reform; focus on indicators of policy outcomes such as the composition of band expenditure, chiefs' remuneration, and the quality of water; and use of confidential census microdata to examine possible effects on housing conditions.

The 2019 Canadian Election Study (CES) consists of two separate surveys with campaign-period rolling cross-sections and post-election follow-ups. The parallel studies were conducted online and through a random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone survey. Both continue the long tradition of gathering information about the attitudes, opinions, preferences and behaviours of the Canadian public. The online survey, in particular, introduces some important innovations that open up the potential for exciting new research on subgroups in the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note describes the Canadian Municipal Elections Database (CMED), a new publicly available and actively maintained dataset of more than 24,000 municipal elections in Canada. We describe the need for high-quality election results data for municipal politics research and describe the content, sources and construction of the CMED. To illustrate the value of the CMED, we estimate gender differences in municipal electoral performance for the first time, finding that women are, on average, more likely than men to win municipal elections in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation of election campaign donation, fundraising, expenditure, and advertising is an enduring object of study and reform. Compared to the federal and provincial levels, virtually no attention has been paid to Canadian municipal campaign finance regimes. This is surprising given the urban political economy literature's focus on business influence on local politics and policy and evidence of corruption in Canadian local government. We take stock of Canadian campaign finance rules for municipal elections in light of Canadian and American research findings, which reveals considerable interprovincial variation in their sophistication and stringency. We then propose a research agenda to investigate aspects of Canadian local campaign finance regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including social, ethnocultural, religious, and linguistic diversity; political order in Canada; and elections in Canada.

We examine citizens' evaluations of specific campaign pledge fulfillment using data from the 2015 Canadian Election Study. We find that the accuracy of these evaluations increases in the presence of factors related to citizens' informed judgments, namely, political knowledge and the relative importance of each pledge. On the other hand, we find that citizens' evaluations often turn on factors not based on informed judgments but rather on group identities and a priori beliefs, including partisan identification and political trust. The presence of these factors does not increase the likelihood of accuracy of pledge evaluations. We also find, through a split-ballot experiment, that even though a change in question wording affects the tone of pledge evaluations, it does not affect their accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many western democracies, law has been the dominant occupational background of politicians. This raises the question whether lawyers get more votes when they run for election compared to non-lawyers. To our knowledge, this question has not been examined empirically over an extended period of time. Our study aims to fill this lacuna. We collected longitudinal data about the careers of all candidates in Canadian federal elections from 1921 to 2015. Our dataset is composed of about 32,000 observations including the occupation and electoral performance of every candidate who ran for office. Our analysis shows that lawyers do get more votes but that their personal electoral boost is very small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key component of the Conservative Party of Canada's (CPC) electoral strategy in 2011, 2015 and 2019 was to court the country's "ethnic vote". Under the leadership of Stephen Harper and Andrew Scheer, the CPC launched an aggressive outreach strategy aimed at attracting conservative ethnic populations while at the same time, continuing to appeal to the party's "old stock" base – referred to as the "populist paradox". This approach was particularly prominent in the Party's immigration and citizenship policy platform. While the CPC continuously rolled out reforms further restricting access to incoming immigrants and refugees, they framed these initiatives as a way to keep disingenuous immigrants out in order to protect the integrity of the Canadian immigration system, a system used appropriately by those immigrants from whom they were seeking support. Using Sara Ahmed's work on affect and happiness, this paper examines the CPC's construction of "good" and "bad" immigrants, specifically how these constructions are taken up in broader narratives of Canadian citizenship and belonging. In doing so, I address how the CPC uses this rhetoric to appeal to voters, both immigrant and non-immigrant alike. Un élément clé de la stratégie électorale du Parti conservateur du Canada (PCC) en 2011, 2015 et 2019 était de convoiter le ''vote ethnique'' dans le pays. Sous la direction de Stephen Harper et Andrew Scheer, le PCC a lancé une stratégie de sensibilisation agressive visant à attirer des populations ethniques conservatrices tout en continuant de faire appel à la base du ''vieux stock'' du parti – appelée ''paradoxe populiste''. Cette approche était particulièrement importante dans la plate-forme de la politique d'immigration et de citoyenneté du Parti. Bien que le PCC ait continuellement déployé des réformes restreignant davantage l'entrée aux immigrants et aux réfugiés, il a présenté ces initiatives comme un moyen de garder les immigrants de moralité douteuse à l'écart afin de protéger l'intégrité du système d'immigration canadien, un système utilisé de manière appropriée par ces mêmes immigrants auprès de qui ils cherchaient du soutien. Utilisant les travaux de Sara Ahmed sur l'insouciance et le bonheur, cet article examine la construction par le PCC des notions de ''bons'' et ''mauvais'' immigrants, en particulier comment ces constructions sont reprises de façon plus large dans des récits de la citoyenneté et de l'appartenance canadiennes. En somme, j'explique comment le PCC utilise cette rhétorique pour séduire les électeurs, immigrants et non-immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a relatively large body of literature has explored the conditions that might promote either reform or the status quo in multinational federations, few studies have explored majority attitudes toward minority nations in the context of multinational federations. In this article, we ask what factors account for majority attitudes toward minority nations in multinational federations. In making use of data from the 2011 Canadian election study (CES), we explore both attitudes toward Quebec in general and the willingness to do more for Quebec, which we refer to respectively as "affective attitudes" and "policy attitudes." Our findings demonstrate the key role played by generalized prejudice and perceptions of how one's province is treated in the Canadian federation in structuring both sets of attitudes. The impact of Canadian identity, on the other hand, is more limited. Meanwhile, conservative ideological predispositions are a predictor of policy attitudes but not affective attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing importance of polls in news coverage raises questions about whether legislators should regulate polls in election campaigns. Although restrictions are on the rise, little is known about some basic but important facts regarding polls. Who reads polls? Are citizens who are aware of polls more likely to change their voting behaviour? And do polls help them to better anticipate electoral outcomes? We answer these questions using data from the 2015 Canadian election. We show that being exposed to polls is not associated with voter's likelihood of changing their vote choice compared with their vote intention during the campaign, does not affect the propensity to turn out or abstain, but does improve their ability to forecast the winner. We conclude that polls are more helpful than harmful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates over multiculturalism are increasingly partisan. The rise of the far right is forcing centre-right parties into difficult decisions over how to hold on to nationalist voters while appealing to moderates. Left parties face similar dilemmas when balancing the pressures of pro-multicultural voters against those opposed to immigration. What do these debates mean for the future of multiculturalism? Using a new, annualized version of the Multiculturalism Policy Index, this article argues that partisan consensus is important to the development of multiculturalism. It demonstrates that support from centre-right parties plays a key role in the adoption of multiculturalism policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regionalization of the Canadian party system is a topic that has occupied Canadian scholars for decades. While there have undoubtedly been periods of significant regionalization (for example, the 1990s) and while these periods have been well documented, there has been very little systematic study of regionalization/nationalization in the Canadian party system. We address this gap by exploring nationalization of the Canadian party system from 1867 to 2015. To do so, we apply two measures. First, we consider how nationalized party competition is by exploring the extent to which parties compete in districts across the entire country. Second, we compliment this approach by applying the Gini coefficient to vote shares, revealing the extent to which Canadian parties have (un)even electoral support from province to province. In doing so, we explore not only the system as a whole but individual parties as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polls of the 2018 Quebec election forecast a close race between the two leading parties. The result, a clear victory of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) over the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), was clearly at odds with the polls. We argue that when the polls get it wrong, it is important to determine whether there was a polling miss , in which the discrepancy is due to changing voter behaviour, or a poll failure , in which the problem stems from polling methodology. Our post-election poll shows that changing voter behaviour—last-minute shifts and the vote of non-disclosers—explains most of the discrepancy. These movements varied by region. We conclude that the Quebec 2018 election was among the worst polling misses in history but not necessarily a major poll failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All Canadian governments say that Canada must look to its friends and allies and like-minded partners to achieve greater cooperation on global issues. But who are these countries exactly? To gain a better understanding of where Ottawa stands in the world, with whom and under what conditions, we analyze Canada's voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly from 1980 to 2017. We find that Canada's overall record tends toward that of Western European states. We find no evidence of greater affinity with US positions either when the Democrats are in power in Washington or when the conservative parties are in power in Ottawa. We identify a sharp pro-US turn in the Harper years and also confirm that the government of Justin Trudeau started off by maintaining rather than reversing this trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the request of the Pentagon, in the spring of 1985 the Central Intelligence Agency prepared an assessment of Canadian defence policy. Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives had formed the government in the election of 4 September 1984 and, in the CIA's view, the new administration was likely to be more interested in defence than the Liberals. Even so, the assessment observed that "Canadians generally think little about defense and when they do, reject outright the idea of giving defense priority over maintaining the social welfare system.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on Canada after the general election of October 21, 2019. The successful Liberal Party of Canada, which had returned to government responsibility in 2015 after nine years of abstinence under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, was again the strongest force, but had to accept a significant damper. It fell behind the share of the vote Conservatives re-formed in 2003.

In 2019, Canada and Russia both went through election campaigns; Russia held regional and municipal elections in September, while Canadians voted at the federal level in October. This article examines cross-national media coverage during the two election campaigns in order to provide a snapshot of the positions and perceptions each country has about the other's electoral and political processes. The purpose is to identify and explain over-arching narratives that frame each country's media discourse about the other, as media from the two countries were actively involved in cross-commenting about the situation on the ground as the election campaigns took place and after results were reported. However, the content of Canadian and Russian reporting differs greatly, in part because of the different levels at which the elections occurred, but more importantly due to differences in underlying assumptions and biases on both sides. While these differing narratives remain in place, it is unlikely that media, and by extension, public opinion about the other country will shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that political parties play a key role as gatekeepers to elected office. This article explores the local determinants of a diverse candidate pool. In particular, we seek to uncover the district- or riding-specific party factors that are related to women's participation in the parties' candidate nomination stages. That is, why do some nomination races in a party have no women contestants, while others have many? Using data from an original survey of party constituency association presidents, as well as extensive nomination data from Elections Canada, we demonstrate that a number of local factors are related to the presence of women contesting a party's nomination. Local party associations with a woman serving as president, as well as associations that hold earlier and longer nominations, are significantly more likely to see a woman enter the contest. The results are important since they call attention to what parties do at the grassroots level, as well as highlight practical solutions for parties seeking to have more diversity in their candidate pool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A leader from Quebec boosts the fortunes of the Liberal party in that province. This, in turn, has helped make Quebec the veto player in twentieth-century Canadian elections and the Liberals the "natural" governing party. Although Quebec is no longer as critical as before, a leader from the province still makes a big difference. Full impact from the pattern requires more than one election to unfold. Patterns outside Quebec are similar, if fainter: the Liberal party is not punished for choosing a Quebecker and may even be helped. The early success of the pattern moved the Liberals to alternate between Quebec and non-Quebec leaders, such that the party is now led by a Quebecker more often than not. Maintaining alternation has never been easy and is only getting harder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Recherches Sociographiques is the property of Recherches Sociographiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)