Canadian Political Science

About the Editors Robert G. Evans is Professor of Economics and Faculty, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, University of British Columbia. Dr. Evans is the author of Strained Mercy: The Economics of Canadian Health Care, and of many journal articles. He is a ...

Recent elections have resulted in women holding over one quarter of provincial legislative seats, with women in urban and Western Canada seeing greater success. A much smaller proportion of seats are held by lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) politicians, although they are found in similar regions. This article identifies factors such as stronger parties of the left, less traditional social and economic structures, and a greater attention to diversity in more populous urban centers as attributing to these results for both female and LGB candidates.

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.

On the surface, there was nothing special about the 2007 Newfoundland and Labrador general election, which saw Danny Williams re-elected for a second term as Premier. That his Progressive Conservatives would win a solid majority was never in doubt. There were no emerging issues, major gaffes or innovative campaign tactics, and few tight races. The de facto referendum on Williams’ leadership became a coronation.  The only intrigue was how many Liberal or New Democratic Party candidates would form the opposition. The results illustrate that a relatively homogenous electorate can rally around a leader who decries the province’s status in the Canadian federation. Furthermore, when elected officials from all major parties have been implicated in a scandal, many electors respond by not participating in politics. Political scientists can therefore draw comparative insights, such as asymmetrical federalism reminiscent of Quebec Premier Jean Lesage in the early 1960s, political scandal similar to the Grant Devine administration of Saskatchewan in the early 1990s, or about civic engagement generally.

Talk delivered to British Columbia Legislative Interns, on June 22, 2017. Broad overview of the history of the Canadian state's relationship with Indigenous people of Turtle Island, highlighting the question of settler responsibility to working towards decolonization.

As a civil servant in the East India Company and witness to government expansion and reorganization in the mid-nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill developed an interest in civil service reform. In an essay supporting the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and his later political treatises, Mill argued for competitive civil service recruitment. These writings have been relatively neglected by Mill scholars, but I posit that they elucidate a contested aspect of his theory. Mill advocated democracy and expert bureaucracy and, although researchers see tension between these systems, I argue that Mill saw them as compatible. Consequently, Mill’s theory might be more consistent and complete than many believe, and the public administration debate should perhaps no longer be seen in terms of an opposition between expertise and democracy.

This paper provides a network analysis of federal lobbying in Canada by the fossil fuel industry over a seven-year period from January 4, 2011 to January 30, 2018, enabling a comparative examination of lobbying under the Harper Conservatives and the Trudeau Liberals. The network we uncover amounts to ‘small world’ of intense interaction among relatively few lobbyists/firms that control much of this economic sector and the designated public office holders in select centres of state power, who are their targets. In comparing lobbying across the Harper and Trudeau administrations, we find a pattern of continuity-in-change: under Trudeau, the bulk of lobbying has been carried out by the same large firms as under Harper, while the lobbying network has become more focused on fewer state agencies. We argue that the strategic, organized, and sustained lobbying efforts of the fossil fuel sector help to explain the close coupling of federal policy to the needs of carbon extractive corporations.

The ambivalent role of religion in modern citizenship is hardly new, whether in terms of the “hardware” (legal-political institutions and processes) or “software” (public attitudes and habits). Faith narratives can vigorously contest liberal claims of civil belonging and freedom, such as on gender and secularism. Yet liberal citizenship also benefits from justice claims anchored in interpretations of religion, ranging from equality and solidarity to nonviolence and reconciliation. Identity politics is a formative part of liberal citizenship, with a dominant tribal discourse legitimated by the accommodation of minority ethno-religious claims to equity and equality. Nativist populism aggravates an already adversarial relationship between faith and liberal citizenship, notably for minority religions. This paper argues for symbiosis between liberal citizenship and diverse religious identities—a political theology that takes pluralism seriously. While liberalism purports to minimize expe...